The Love of Christ (4)

By Thy love divine,

Lord Jesus, we are Thine, bought by Thy blood;

Eternally Thine own, Thine, only Thine,

Son of the living God.

And our souls delight

To tell Thee of Thy changeless, matchless love,

On earth, in heaven, yea, when clothed in white

We walk with Thee above.

Of Thy love we boast,

Almighty Saviour, ever faithful Friend.

Love that at infinite and fearful cost

Proved changeless to the end.

Not that death which lay

Upon Thine own, nor curse, nor wrath, nor shame,

The mighty tide of Thy great love could stay.

Thou barest all the blame.

Not the storms of woe

That beat about Thy Cross on Calvary’s mount

Could drive Thy love’s unfathomable flow

Back into its fount.

All but served to bring

That love to light, which like a shoreless sea

In one great wave broke over everything

That held Thine own from Thee.

And the powers of hell

That stood between Thee, Saviour, and Thine own,

Pierced through by Thy sharp arrows, backward fell,

Broken and overthrown.

Thou hast fought the fight,

Saviour, the field is Thine, the foe has fled;

And we behold Thee in Thy glorious might

Victorious from the dead.

And the matchless love

That moved Thee for the rescue of Thine own

To leave the heavens, lives in Thy heart above,

Now Thou art on the throne.

And in courts of light

Thy voice is heard confessing we are Thine,

And we on earth ascribe to Thee the might,

Honour and power divine.

And though feeble here,

And faint upon our way, Thy heavenly grace

Shall prove sufficient for the desert drear

Until we see Thy face.

Then, Lord Jesus, then

The fruit of Thy soul’s travail Thou shalt see–

The men for whom Thy blood was shed, the men

Thy Father gave to Thee.

With Thee where Thou art,

Within the Father’s house in glory great,

Where Thy deep love, declared in death, each heart

With joy shall animate.

It is desert now,

And darkness deepens, and around us fall

Fell fiery darts, but in the midnight Thou

About us art a wall.

And we need no more.

We wait till in those halls of living light

We shall sit down with Thee where—labour o’er—

There shall be no more night.