Now, from the garden to the cross,
Let us attend the Lamb of God.
Be all things else accounted dross,
Compared with sin-atoning blood.
See how the patient Jesus stands,
Insulted in His lowest case!
Sinners have bound the Almighty's hands,
And spit in their Creator's face!
With thorns His temples gored and gashed
Send streams of blood from every part;
His back's with knotted scourges lashed.
But sharper scourges tear His heart!
Nailed naked to the accursed wood,
Exposed to earth and heaven above,
A spectacle of wounds and blood,
A prodigy of injured love!
[Hark! how his doleful cries affright
Affected angels, while they view!
His friends forsook him in the night,
And now his God forsakes him too!
O what a field of battle’s here;
Vengeance and love their powers oppose!
Never was such a mighty pair;
Never were two such desperate foes.
Behold that pale, that languid face,
That drooping head, those cold dead eyes!
Behold in sorrow and disgrace,
Our conquering Hero hangs and dies!
Ye that assume his sacred name,
Now tell me what can all this mean?
What was it bruised God’s harmless Lamb?
What was it pierced his soul, but sin?
Blush, Christian, blush; let shame abound;
If sin affects thee not with woe,
Whatever spirit be in thee found,
The Spirit of Christ thou dost not know.
[J. Hart ]
