Hymn 116. Christ the Physician of Souls

 Jeremiah 8. 22.

         Deep are the wounds which sin hath made:

         Where shall the sinner find a cure?

         In vain, alas, is nature’s aid,

         The work exceeds all nature’s power.

         Sin like a raging fever reigns,                                                                

         With fatal strength in every part;

         The dire contagion fills the veins,

         And spreads its poison to the heart.

         And can no sovereign balm be found,

         And is no kind physician nigh,                                                              

         To ease the pain, and heal the wound,

         Ere life and hope for ever fly?

         There is a great Physician near,

         Look up, O fainting soul, and live;

         See, in his heavenly smiles appear                                                       

         Such ease as nature cannot give.

         See, in the Saviour’s dying blood

         Life, health and bliss, abundant flow;

         ’Tis only this dear, sacred flood

         Can ease thy pain, and heal thy woe.                                                               

         Sin throws in vain its pointed dart,

         For here a sovereign cure is found;

         A cordial for the fainting heart,

         A balm for every painful wound.

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 1, pp. 75-76; Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship, no. 116 (all stanzas); Poems, 1780, vol. 1, pp. 63-64; MS, Steele Collection, STE 3/1/1 no. 18, Angus Library, Regents Park College,  Oxford.