Encouragement

I

My soul is beset
With grief and dismay,
I owe a vast debt,
And nothing can pay:
I must go to prison
Unless that dear Lord
Who died and is risen
His pity afford.

II

The death that he died,
The blood that he spilt,
To sinners applied,
Discharge from all guilt:
This great Intercessor
Can give, if he please,
The vilest transgressor
Immediate release.

III

When nail’d to the tree,
He answer’d the pray’r
Of one who, like me,
Was nigh to despair;
He did not upbraid him
With all he had done,
But instantly made him
A saint and a son.

IV

The jailor, I read,
A pardon received:
And how was he freed?
He only believed:
His case mine resembled⁠—
Like me he was foul,
Like me too he trembled,
But faith made him whole.

V

Though Saul in his youth,
To madness enraged,
Against the Lord’s truth
And people engaged;
Yet Jesus, the Saviour,
Whom long he reviled,
Received him to favour,
And made him a child.

VI

A foe to all good,
In wickedness skill’d,
Manasseh with blood
Jerusalem fill’d;
In evil long harden’d,
The Lord he defied;
Yet he too was pardon’d,
When mercy he cried.

VII

Of sinners the chief,
And viler than all,
The jailor or thief,
Manasseh or Saul:
Since they were forgiven,
Why should I despair
While Christ is in heaven
And still answers prayer?