
Eternal and immortal King!
Thy peerless splendors none can bear;
But darkness veils seraphic eyes,
When God with all his glory’s there.
Yet faith can pierce the awful gloom,
The great Invisible can see;
And with its tremblings mingle joy,
In fixed regard, great GOD! to Thee.
Then every tempting form of sin,
Shamed in Thy presence, disappears;
And all the glowing raptured soul
The likeness it contemplates, wears.
O ever conscious to my heart!
Witness to its supreme desire:
Behold it presseth on to Thee,
For it hath caught the heavenly fire.
This one petition would it urge—
To bear Thee ever in its sight;
In life, in death, in worlds unknown,
Its only portion and delight!
Source: A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (15th ed.) #537
First Line: | Eternal and immortal King |
Author: | Philip Doddridge |
Language: | English |
Copyright: | Public Domain |
Eternal and immortal King. P. Doddridge. [Faith.] First published in his posthumous Hymns, &c, 1755, No. 321, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and again in J. D. Humphreys’s edition of the same, 1839, No. 347. It is based on Heb. xi. 17. In several American collections it is altered to: "Almighty and immortal King,” and reduced to 3 stanzas.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)