Christ My Song - 1480
Where is mercy and compassion - The fulness of Christ
(Carl Johann Philipp Spitta/Richard Massie/
Johannes Thomas Rüegg)
The fulness of Christ.
1. Where is mercy and compassion
for the sinner that repents?
Love, which offers free salvation
to returning penitents?
Where is crimson guilt forgiven?
Who, when death and hell affright,
sets before us joy in heaven,
everlasting life and light?
Christ, in whom all fulness is,
can alone bestow all this. PDF - Midi
2. Where is balsam which assuages
grief or pain's acutest smart?
Where is counsel for all ages,
comfort for the broken heart?
Who revives the faint and weary?
Who brings back the sheep that stray?
Who, when long the way and dreary,
is our guide, support, and stay?
Christ, in whom all fulness is,
can alone bestow all this.
3. Who gives joy in tribulation?
Who enables us to bless
God in every dispensation,
and in all to acquiesce?
Who the trust of children gives us,
lays us on our Father's breast,
from all needless care relieves us,
shows us all is for the best?
Christ, in whom all fulness is,
can alone bestow all this.
4. Who gives us a childlike meekness
and humility of mind?
Calm endurance, strength in weakness,
gentleness to all mankind?
Love, which shuns no sacrifices,
prompt to answer every call,
and a heart which sympathises
in the joy and grief of all?
Ah! thank him who will and can
give such grace to every man.
5. Who to us a life hath given
over which death hath no power?
Who makes us the heirs of heaven,
and of joys for evermore?
Who will raise again in glory
what is here in weakness sown,
and the frail and transitory
clothe with beauty like his own?
Ah! rejoice, for Jesus is
he who can alone do this.
6. Thou who with the Father livest,
and whose presence all things fills,
who to all men all things givest,
and in whom all fulness dwells,
oh, how large the invitation
which thou giv'st to all our race,
to accept a free salvation,
and partake of thy rich grace!
Happy he who thus can taste
all thou art, and all thou hast!
Richard Massie, Lyra Domestica II, 1864, 69-71.
Translated from the German Wo ist göttliches Erbarmen - Die Fülle Christi
of Carl Johann Philipp Spitta.