3. HYMNS FOR PARTICULAR SUBJECTS OF
HYMN 43. L. M.
To the unknown God.
1 GREAT God! in vain man's narrow view
Attempts to look thy nature through :
Our lab'ring pow'rs with rev'rence own
Thy glories never can be known.
2 Not the high feraph's mighty thought,
Who countless years his God has fought,
Such wondrous height or depth can find,
Or fully trace thy boundless mind.
3 Yet Lord, thy kindness deigns to fhow
Enough for mortal minds to know;
While wifdom, goodness, pow'r divine,
Thro' all thy works and conduct shine.
4 O may our fouls with rapture trace
Thy works of nature and of grace;
Explore thy facred truth, and ftill
Prefs on to know and do thy will !
HYMN 44. L. M.
God's omniscience and omniprefence.
1 FATHER of all! omniscient mind!
Thy wisdom who can comprehend?
Its highest point what eye can find,
Or to its loweft depths defcend?
2 What cavern deep, what hill fublime,
Beyond thy reach, shall I pursue ?
What dark recefs, what diftant clime,
Shall hide me from thy boundless view?
3 If up to heav'n's ethereal height,
Thy profpect to elude, I rife;
In fplendour there, fupremely bright,
Thy prefence fhall my fight furprife.
4 Thee, mighty God! my wond'ring foul,
Thee, all her confcious pow'rs adore ;
Whose being circumfcribes the whole,
Whofe eyes the universe explore.
5 Thine effence fills this breathing frame, It glows in ev'ry vital part;
Lights up my foul with livelier flame,
And feeds with life my beating heart.
6 To thee, from whom my being came,
Whofe fmile is all the heav'n I know !
Infpir'd with this exalted theme,
To thee my grateful ftrains fhall flow.
HYMN 45. L. M.
The majesty of God.
1 YE weak inhabitants of clay,
Ye trifling infects of a day!
Low in your native duft bow down
Before th' Eternal's awful throne.
2 Let Lebanon her cedars bring
To blaze before the fovereign king,
And all the beafts, that on it feed,
As victims at his altar bleed.
3 Loud let ten thousand trumpets found,
And call remoteft nations round,
Affembled on the crowded plains,
Princes and people, kings and fwains.
4 Join'd with the living, let the dead,
Rifing, the face of earth o'erfpread;
And while his praise unites their tongues,
Let angels echo back the fongs.
5 The drop that from the bucket falls,
The duft that hangs upon the scales,
Is more to sky, and earth, and fea,
Than all this pomp, great God! to thee.
HYMN 46. L. M.
The all-feeing God.
1 LORD, thou haft fearch'd and feen us
Thine eye commands, with piercing view,
Our waking and our fleeping hours,
Our heart and flesh, with all their pow'rs.
2 Our thoughts, before they are our own,
Are to our God diftinctly known :
He knows the words we mean to speak,
Ere from our op'ning lips they break.
3 Within thy circling power we ftand;
On every fide we find thy hand :
Awake, afleep, at home, abroad,
We are furrounded ftill with God.
4 Amazing knowledge, vaft and great!
What large extent! what lofty height!
Our fouls, with all the pow'rs they boast,
Are in the boundlefs profpect loft.
5 O may these thoughts poffefs our breast,
Where-e'er we rove, where-e'er we reft!.
Nor let our weaker paffions dare
Confent to fin; for God is there.
6 Could we fo falfe, fo faithlefs prove,
To quit thy fervice and thy love,
Where, Lord, could we thy prefence fhun,
Or from thy dreadful glory run?
7 If mounted on a morning-ray
We fly beyond the western sea,
Thy fwifter hand would first arrive,
And there arreft the fugitive.
8 Or fhould we try to fhun thy fight
Beneath the spreading veil of night,
One glance of thine, one piercing ray,
Would kindle darkness into day.
9 The veil of night is no difguife,
No fcreen from thine all-fearching eyes;
Thy hand can feize thy foes as foon
Thro' midnight-fhades as blazing noon.
10 Midnight and noon in this agreė,
Great God, they 're both alike to thee;
Not death can hide what thou wilt spy,
And hell lies naked to thine eye.
11 O may these thoughts poffefs our breast,
Where-e'er we rove, where-e'er we reft!
Nor let our weaker passions dare
Confent to fin; for God is there.
1 PRAISE to the Lord of boundless might, With uncreated glories bright!
His prefence gilds the world above;
Th' unchanging fource of light and love.
2 Our rifing earth his eye beheld,
When in fubftantial darkness veil'd;
The shapeless chaos, nature's womb,
Lay bury'd in eternal gloom.
3 Let there be light! JEHOVAH faid,
And light o'er all its face was spread:
Nature, array'd in charms unknown,
Gay with its new-born luftre fhone.
4 He fees the mind, when loft it lies
In fhades of ignorance and vice;
And darts from heav'n a vivid ray,
And changes midnight into day.
5 Our fouls reviv'd by heav'n-born light,
Shall be in all thy image bright,
While all our faculties fhall join
To praise the Lord of light divine.
HYMN 48. L. M.
God the leader of his people.
1 O GOD of our forefathers! hear,
And make thy faithful mercies known,
While we with confidence draw near,
And place our truft on thee alone.
2 Arife, as in the ancient days,
(The ancient annals speak thy fame)
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