Spiritual Barrenness

1 Most righteous God my doom I bear
My load of guilt my pain and care
Inflam'd to base desires;
Hard toiling for embitter'd bread,
I mourn my baren soul o'erspeard,
With cursed thorns and briars.

2 Death;s sentence in myself receive,
And dust to dust already cleave,
Exil'd from paradise;
Hast'ning to hellish misery,
JESUS, if unredeem'd by thee,
My soul forever dies.

3 But JESUS hath my sentence born,
He did in my affliction mourn;
A man of sorrow made;
A servant and a curse for me,
He bore the utmost penalty,
He suffer'd in my stead.

4 I see him sweat great drops of blood,
I see him faint beneath my load,
The thorns his temples tear;
He bows his bleeding head and dies!
He lives! he mounts above the skies!
He claims my Eden there!

Source: A Selection of Psalms and Hymns: done under the appointment of the Philadelphian Association #CCXCVI