impressed"No Strength of Nature Can Suffice"
No strength of nature can suffice
To serve the Lord aright;
And what she has, she misapplies,
For want of clearer light.
How long beneath the Law I lay
In bondage and distress!
I toiled the precept to obey,
But toiled without success.
Then to abstain from outward sin
Was more than I could do;
Now, if I feel its power within,
I feel I hate it too.
Then all my servile works were done
A righteousness to raise;
Now, freely chosen in the Son,
I freely choose His ways.
What shall I do was then the word,
That I may worthier grow?
What shall I render to the Lord?
Is my inquiry now.
To see the Law by Christ fulfilled,
And hear His pardoning voice;
Changes a slave into a child,
And duty into choice.
—William Cowper, 1779
"Light and Truth"
We limit not the truth of God
to our poor reach of mind,
by notions of our day and sect,
crude, partial, and confined.
no, let a new and better hope
within our hearts be stirred:
The Lord hath yet more light and truth
to break forth from His word.
Who dares to bind to one's own sense
the oracles of heaven,
for all the nations, tongues and climes
and all the ages given?
That universe, how much unknown!
The ocean unexplored!
The Lord hath yet more light and truth
to break forth from His word.
O Father, Son, and Spirit, send
us increase from above;
enlarge, expand all Christian souls
to comprehend Thy love,
and make us to go on, to know
with nobler powers conferred:
The Lord hath yet more light and truth
to break forth from His word.
—George Rawson, 1835
And here's this morning's sermon and text.
EDIT: Updated the sermon link—last week's sermon was great, but I didn't mean to link to it again this week.
