Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Sanctified Knowledge

1011 1st P.M 6 lines 8s.
Sanctified knowledge.

COME, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
   To whom we for our children cry
   The good desired, and wanted most,
   Out of thy richest grace supply;
   The sacred discipline be given,
   To train and bring them up for heaven.

2 Error and ignorance remove;
   Their blindness, both of heart and mind:
   Give them the Wisdom from above,—
   Spotless, and peaceable, and kind:
   In knowledge pure their minds renew,
   And store with thoughts divinely true.

3 Learning’s redundant part and vain
   Be here cut off, and cast aside:
   But let them, Lord, the substance gain;
   In every solid truth abide;
   Swiftly acquire, and ne’er forego
   The knowledge fit for man to know.

4 Unite the pair so long disjoin’d,
   Knowledge and vital piety:
   Learning and holiness combined,
   And truth and love, let all men see
   In those whom up to thee we give,
   Thine, wholly thine, to die and live.
                  —Charles Wesley, Methodist Episcopal Hymnal (1870 edition)

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