1. Of Him who did salvation bring,
I could forever think and sing:
Arise, ye needy, He’ll relieve;
Arise, ye guilty, He’ll forgive.
2. Ask but His grace, and lo, ’tis given!
Ask, and He turns your hell to heaven;
Though sin and sorrow wound my soul,
Jesus, Thy balm will make it whole.
3. To shame our sins He blushed in blood;
He closed His eyes to show us God:
Let all the world fall down and know
That none but God such love can show.
4. Insatiate to this spring I fly;
I drink, and yet am ever dry;
Ah! who against Thy charm is proof!
Ah! who that loves, can love enough?
Bernard of Clairvaux
Tr. by Anthony W. Boehm
Alt. by John C. Jacobi
The Methodist Hymnal 1939 edition
<idle musing>
As is usual with these older, translated hymns, hymnary.org has a wide variety of variations and verses. I'll let you click through and explore them. It's easy to get sidetracked for a half-hour or so doing it : )
In my church history class at seminary, we had a freshly minted PhD for the prof. He firmly believed in exposing students to the primary sources, ad fontes as the saying goes. The textbook was very prosaic, but his lectures were interesting and he required us to read a lot of primary sources. Consequently, we read a goodly number of Bernard's sermons. It's a pity that he is mostly remembered for preaching about the first crusade. He really deserves to be remembered for more than that.
</idle musing>
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