Psalm 19:4 [Great God, The Heaven’s Well-Order’d Frame]
by
To the tune of the 113th Psalm.
The book of nature and scripture.
Great God, the heaven’s well-order’d frame
Declares the glories of thy name;
There thy rich works of wonder shine:
A thousand starry beauties there,
A thousand radiant marks appear
Of boundless power and skill divine.
From night to day, from day to night,
The dawning and the dying light
Lectures of heavenly wisdom read;
With silent eloquence they raise
Our thoughts to our Creator’s praise,
And neither sound nor language need.
Yet their divine instructions run
Far as the journies of the sun,
And every nation knows their voice;
The sun, like some young bridegroom drest,
Breaks from the chambers of the east,
Rolls round, and makes the earth rejoice.
Where’er he spreads his beams abroad,
He smiles and speaks his maker God;
All nature joins to shew thy praise:
Thus God, in every creature shines;
Fair is the book of nature’s lines,
But fairer is thy book of grace.
PAUSE.
I love the volumes of thy word;
What light and joy those leaves afford
To souls benighted and distrest!
Thy precepts guide my doubtful way,
Thy fear forbids my feet to stray;
Thy promise leads my heart to rest.
From the discoveries of thy law
The perfect rules of life I draw,
These are my study and delight:
Not honey so invites the taste,
Nor gold, that hath the furnace past,
Appears so pleasing to the sight.
Thy threatenings wake my slumbering eyes,
And warn me where my danger lies;
But ’tis thy blessed gospel, Lord,
That makes my guilty conscience clean,
Converts my soul, subdues my sin,
And gives a free but large reward.
Who knows the errors of his thoughts?
My God, forgive my secret faults,
And from presumptuous sins restrain;
Accept my poor attempts of praise
That I have read thy book of grace,
And book of nature, not in vain.