Cry aloud, is the command

Representative Text

1 Cry aloud, is the Command;
Spare not, be bold and free;
Trumpet thro' a guilty Land,
How they have err'd from me;
'Till their Sinfulness of Heart,
And Practice, is to them declar'd;
Jesus only can avert
The Judgments that's prepar'd.

2 Yet they daily seek my Face,
With much profess'd Delight;
As a Nation rich in Grace,
And righteous in his Sight;
Truth and Justice they would have,
Seem pleas'd in their Approach to God;
Jesus only can us save,
By his own precious Blood.

3 Wherefore do we fast, say they,
Yet thou dost not regard?
Wherefore sanctify a Day,
And yet thou hast not heard?
'Cause herein you Pleasure find,
As such who merit future Bliss:
Jesus only was design'd
To be our Righteousness.

4 Lo! ye fast for foul Debate,
With wicked Fist to smite;
Still retaining Strife and Hate,
Nor cease from cruel Spite:
Ye shall not fast, on this Day,
To make your voice be heard on high:
Jesus only is the Way,
If you'll to God draw nigh.

5 Have I chose such Fasts as these,
Or ever this allow'd
That your Troubles me appease,
Tho' like a Bull-rush bow'd?
Yet wilt thou call this a Fast,
A Day accepted of your God?
Jesus is our First and Last,
The Sum of all our Good.

Source: Christian Hymns, Poems, and Spiritual Songs: sacred to the praise of God our Saviour #I.LXXIII

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Author: James Relly

James Relly was born about 1722 at Jeffreston, Pembrokeshire, Wales, and died in 1778. He was converted to Christianity during the Great Awakening ushered in by George Whitefield. He worked under George Whitefield as a Calvinistic Methodist preacher and missionary. However, Whitefield and Relly separated ways over Relly's seemingly universalist teaching that all humanity was elect (i.e. saved) when Christ took the punishment for all sin when he died. He also departed from both the Calvinists and Methodists by taking the doctrine of Justification further, in teaching that believers no longer sin and the Law's sole purpose is to condemn humanity and point them to Christ. He was the mentor of John Murray, the founder of the Universalist Ch… Go to person page >

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