Sanctify our mutual care,

More and more let it increase; Strengthen us hereby to share Every tempted soul's distress: Stir us up to toil unceasing,

Lay on both the common load, Make our love a general blessing, Turn it all to Zion's good.

While with just peculiar kindness
We each other's souls embrace,
Save us from that doting blindness
Fatal to our fallen race;

From the mean contracting passion
Keep us free and unconfined;
Raise our generous inclination,
Fix our love on all mankind.

As a wide-extended river,

Let Thy love our hearts o'erflow, Purest love that lasts forever, Reaching every soul below; Love that doth with free election

Some beyond the rest approve : Bless us with Thy whole affection, Special, universal Love.

IN DANGER OF LOSING HIS FRIEND.

FLUTTERING soul, what dost thou here,
Pinioned with a load of clay?
Poor afflicted sojourner,

Shake thy wings and fly away,
From the mournful valley fly,
Break the cage, and reach the sky.

What doth this low earth afford
Worthy an immortal mind?

Man, its miserable lord,

Can he here his equal find? Fallen, yet in ruins great,

Sinks the world beneath his weight.

All on earth is vanity:

This I surely feel and know. Good itself is ill to me,

Seeming joy but real woe: Comforts double my distress, Edge the pain they cannot ease.

Friendship self, celestial guest,
Can she make me happy here?
Answer, this distracted breast,
Answer, this foreboding fear!
Fear to lose outweighs my gain ;
Heightened bliss is heightened pain.

O that all the pain were past,

Never, never to return! Might I but escape at last,

Cease at once to live and mourn, Grasp through death the immortal prize,

Meet my

friend in Paradise.

ANOTHER.

AWAY, my needless fears,
And doubts no longer mine!
A ray of heavenly light appears,
A messenger divine.

Thrice comfortable hope,

That calms my stormy breast;

the

My Father's hand prepares cup,

And what He wills is best.

He knows whate'er I want,
He sees my helplessness,

And always readier is to grant
Than I to ask His grace.
My fearful heart He reads,
Secures my soul from harms,
And underneath His mercy spreads
Its everlasting arms.

Here is firm footing; here,
My soul, is solid rock,

1749,

To break the waves of grief and fear, And trouble's rudest shock:

This only can sustain

When earth and heaven remove :

O turn thee to thy Rest again,

Thy God's eternal Love!

To God again I turn,

And shelter in His breast; His will (let me rejoice or mourn) His will is surely best.

His skill infallible,

His providential grace,

His power and truth, that never fail,
Shall order all my ways.

The random-blows of chance,
The being I defy,

Whose life's minutest circumstance
Is subject to His eye.

He hears the ravens call;

Nor can His children grieve,

Nor can a worthless sparrow fall,
Without my Father's leave.

Why then was I cast down And troubled without cause, And trembled at the creature's frown,

And feared the threatened loss?

Shall I mistrust His care
My blessings to defend,

Or dread (who cannot lose a hair)
To lose a bosom friend?

If what I wish is good,
And suits the Will divine,
By earth and hell in vain withstood,
I know it shall be mine.
Still let them counsel take
To frustrate His decree;
They cannot keep a blessing back
By Heaven designed for me.

If what my soul requires
Evil to me would prove,
His Love shall cross my fond desires,
His kindly-jealous Love.

But would I for His sake

With every rival part,

My life, my all, my friend give back?
He knows, He knows my heart.

Here then I doubt no more,
But in His pleasure rest,

Whose wisdom, love, and truth, and power,
Engage to make me blest.

To accomplish His design
The creatures all agree,