Desiring an Entire Devotion to Jesus

Come dearest Lord, our Souls inspire,

Our languid Graces raise!

Let grateful Love, and warm Desire

Awake our tongues to praise

While Faith and Hope and Love sincere,

Our thankful Hearts employ:

Let humble Penitence be here

And mingle Grief with Joy.

And didst Thou leave thy Throne on high?

Did God’s Eternal Son,

Come down to Earth and bleed and die

For rebels lost, undone?

In thee, what blissful Glories sweet!

We wonder, love, adore!

And while we mourn beneath thy feet,

Desire to love thee more.

We hate our Sins, those cruel Foes,

That pierced thy bleeding veins;

Yet here (surprizing Mercy!) flows

The Balm for all our pains.

Life, Hope and Bliss, thy Death imparts,

Bliss how divinely free!

Jesus we yield these wretched Hearts,

Our worthless all, to Thee.

Dear Lord, accept and make us thine!

Be all our future Days,

Inspired, constrain’d by Love divine!

Devoted to thy Praise.

Text: Steele Collection, 3/1/4, no. 16, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford; this hymn first published in Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, vol. 2 (ed. Julia B. Griffin), p. 113-14.