2 Oppressed with guilt, a heavy load, O! come and bow before your God; Divine compassion, mighty love, Will all the painful load remove.
3 Here mercy's boundless ocean flows To cleanse your guilt and heal your woes; Pardon, and life, and endless peace-- How rich the gift, how free the grace!
4 Lord, we accept with thankful heart The hope thy gracious words impart: We come with trembling, yet rejoice, And bless thy kind inviting voice.
Why will ye waste on trifling cares That life which God's compassion spares; While, in the various range of thought, The one thing needful is forgot?
2 Shall God invite you from above? Shall Jesus urge his dying love? Shall troubled conscience give you pain? And all these pleas unite in vain?
3 Not so your eyes will always view Those objects which you now pursue: Not so will heaven and hell appear When death's decisive hour is near.
4 Almighty God! thy power impart; Fix deep conviction on each heart; Nor let us waste on trifling cares That life which thy compassion spares.
283 L. M. The broad and the narrow way. Matt. 7:13, 14.
Broad is the road that leads to death; And thousands walk together there; But wisdom shows a narrow path, With here and there a traveler.
2 "Deny thyself, and take thy cross," Is the Redeemer's great command; Nature must count her gold but dross, If she would gain this heavenly land.
3 The fearful soul that tires and faints, And walks the ways of God no more, Is but esteemed almost a saint, And makes his own destruction sure.
4 Lord, let my hopes be not in vain, Create my heart entirely new; This hypocrites could ne'er attain; This false apostates never knew.
Life is the time to serve the Lord, The time t' insure the great reward; And while the lamp holds out to burn, O hasten, sinner, to return!
2 Life is the hour that God has given To 'scape from hell and fly to heaven, The day of grace, when mortals may Secure the blessings of the day.
3 The living know that they must die, Beneath the clods their dust must lie; Then have no share in all that's done Beneath the circle of the sun.
4 Then what my thoughts design to do, My hands, with all your might pursue: Since no device nor work is found, Nor faith, nor hope, beneath the ground.