1 O love! what a secret to mortals thou art?
'Tis God's deep eternity, nature and heart:
The witnessing dove confirms this high plan,
And likewise his word and his dealings with man;
The sorrows of Jesus, his torment and pain,
Has left no foundation for doubting again.
2 O love! how myster'ous and boundless art thou!
Thy date and thy measure unlimited flow:
This Jesus reveals with evidence strong;
It gladdens my heart, and inspires my song
With praise to my Saviour, my Lord, and my God,
Whose love is my glory, as view'd in his blood.
3 O love! what a gath'ring of souls hast thou made!
All into one fountain, one body, one head,
Where they were preserved thy own, thro' the fall,
The fulness of Jesus, who fills all in all:
Close in her pavilion, the darling, the bride,
Lay hid in her husband, till born from his side.
4 O love! what a bridegroom of honour and trust!
The fulness of heaven hath marri'd my dust;
He humbled himself to cleave to his wife,
In all her distress and her sorrows of life;
With her was he number'd amongst the unclean,
Nor yet could he loathe her, nor jar come between.
5 O love! what a husband thy care did provide!
Descending from glory in search of thy bride;
Her substance conceived, thy body was she,
Incarnate in her, and she then was in thee;
In Mary, the virgin, the twain was made one,
Whence God, our Creator, was born a poor man.
Source: Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs: selected and original, designed for the use of the Church Universal in public and private devotion #CCLXVIII
James Relly was born about 1722 at Jeffreston, Pembrokeshire, Wales, and died in 1778. He was converted to Christianity during the Great Awakening ushered in by George Whitefield. He worked under George Whitefield as a Calvinistic Methodist preacher and missionary. However, Whitefield and Relly separated ways over Relly's seemingly universalist teaching that all humanity was elect (i.e. saved) when Christ took the punishment for all sin when he died. He also departed from both the Calvinists and Methodists by taking the doctrine of Justification further, in teaching that believers no longer sin and the Law's sole purpose is to condemn humanity and point them to Christ.
He was the mentor of John Murray, the founder of the Universalist Ch… Go to person page >
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