The Wish

Representative Text

1 If dust and ashes might presume,
Great God, to talk to thee;
If in thy presence can be room
For crawling worms like me;
I humbly would my wish present,
For wishes I have none;
All my desires are now content
To be comprised in one.

2 The single boon I would entreat
Is, to be led by thee
To gaze upon thy bloody sweat
In sad Gethsemane.
To view (as I could bear at least)
Thy tender, broken heart,
Like a rich olive, bruised and pressed
With agonising smart.

3 [To see thee bowed beneath my guilt;
(Intolerable load!)
To see thy blood for sinners spilt,
My groaning, gasping God!
With sympathising grief to mourn
The sorrows of thy soul:
The pangs and tortures by thee borne
In some degree condole.]

4 There musing on thy mighty love,
I always would remain;
Or but to Golgotha remove,
And thence return again.
In each dear place the same rich scene
Should ever be renewed;
No object else should intervene,
But all be love and blood.

5 For this one favour oft I’ve sought;
And if this one be given,
I seek on earth no happier lot,
And hope the like in heaven.
Lord, pardon what I ask amiss,
For knowledge I have none;
I do but humbly speak my wish;
And may thy will be done.

Source: A Selection of Hymns for Public Worship. In four parts (10th ed.) (Gadsby's Hymns) #156

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Author: J. Hart

Hart, Joseph, was born in London in 1712. His early life is involved in obscurity. His education was fairly good; and from the testimony of his brother-in-law, and successor in the ministry in Jewin Street, the Rev. John Hughes, "his civil calling was" for some time "that of a teacher of the learned languages." His early life, according to his own Experience which he prefaced to his Hymns, was a curious mixture of loose conduct, serious conviction of sin, and endeavours after amendment of life, and not until Whitsuntide, 1757, did he realize a permanent change, which was brought about mainly through his attending divine service at the Moravian Chapel, in Fetter Lane, London, and hearing a sermon on Rev. iii. 10. During the next two years ma… Go to person page >

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