We had also, besides this room, the use of our former chamber above, to go into when we thought fit; and thither sometimes I withdrew, when I found a desire for retirement and privacy, or had something on my mind to write, which could not so well be done in company. And indeed about this time my spirit was more than ordinarily exercised, though on very different subjects. For, on the one hand, the sense of the exceeding love and goodness of the Lord to me, in His gracious and tender dealings with me, did deeply affect my heart, and caused me to break forth in a song of thanksgiving and praise to Him; and, on the other hand, a sense of the profaneness, debaucheries, cruelties, and other horrid impieties of the age, fell heavy on me, and lay as a pressing weight upon my spirit; and I breathed forth the following hymn to God, in acknowledgment of His great goodness to me, profession of my grateful love to Him, and supplication to Him for the continuance of His kindness to me, in preserving me from the snares of the enemy, and keeping me faithful unto Himself:—
Thee, Thee alone, O God, I fear, In Thee do I confide; Thy presence is to me more dear Than all things else beside. Thy virtue, power, life, and light, Which in my heart do shine, Above all things are my delight: O make them always mine! Thy matchless love constrains my life, Thy life constrains my love, To be to Thee as chaste a wife As is the turtle-dove To her elect, espoused mate, Whom she will not forsake, Nor can be brought to violate The bond she once did make; Just so my soul doth cleave to Thee, As to her only head, With whom she longs conjoin’d to be In bond of marriage-bed. But, ah, alas! her little fort Is compassed about; Her foes about her thick resort, Within and eke without. How numerous are they now grown! How wicked their intent! O let thy mighty power be shown, Their mischief to prevent. They make assaults on every side, But Thou stand’st in the gap; Their batt’ring-rams make breaches wide, But still Thou mak’st them up. Sometimes they use alluring wiles To draw into their power; And sometimes weep like crocodiles; But all is to devour. Thus they beset my feeble heart With fraud, deceit, and guile, Alluring her from Thee to start, And Thy pure rest defile. But, oh! the breathing and the moan, The sighings of the seed, The groanings of the grieved one, Do sorrows in me breed. And that immortal, holy birth, The offspring of Thy breath (To whom Thy love brings life and mirth, As doth thy absence, death); That babe, that seed, that panting child, Which cannot Thee forsake, In fear to be again beguiled, Doth supplication make: O suffer not Thy chosen one, Who puts her trust in Thee, And hath made Thee her choice alone, Ensnared again to be.