HEART RELIGION.
‘ MIDST all the opinions, contentions, and strife,
Concerning- repentance, salvation, and life,
That ring from the pulpit and teem from the press,
There’s one consolation, We are not left to guess.
For Jesus assures us, in language quite plain,
We cannot be saved unless born again.
The works of a creature, howsoever he live,
A fitness for heaven no sinner can give.
The heart must be changed, the mind be renew’d,
An appetite given for heavenly food,
Desires be implanted that never will die,
And needs made most urgent that God must supply.
This change is effected by power divine,
For none but Jehovah the soul can incline ;
Though some men assert, with a positive air,
That all that is needed is reading and prayer.
While others, more subtle, their opinions impart,
And tell all their hearers Christ knocks at the heart,
And urge them to open that he may come in,
Or he may be offended and ne’er knock again.
The tears of an Esau, the prayers of a Saul,
The repentance of Judas very short fall;
A Cain may be sorry, a Pharaoh confess,
And all this arise from the works of the flesh.
But regeneration cuts open the heart,
Dissecting the sinner in every part,
And raising him up, by the power of the word,
To show forth the praises of Jesus the Lord.
Witney. GS1888 R.P.H,
