Fire and Ice: Puritan and Reformed Writings
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An Offering

by George Herbert

 

Come, bring thy gift. If blessings were as slow
As men's returns, what would become of fools?
What hast thou there? a heart? but is it pure?
Search well and see; for hearts have many holes.
Yet one pure heart is nothing to bestow:
In Christ two natures met to be thy cure.

 

O that within us hearts had propagation,
Since many gifts do challenge many hearts!
Yet one, if good, may title to a number;
And single things grow fruitful by deserts.
In public judgements one may be a nation,
And fence a plague, while others sleep and slumber.

 

But all I fear is lest thy heart displease,
As neither good, nor one: so oft divisions
Thy lusts have made, and not thy lusts alone;
Thy passions also have their set partitions.
These parcel out thy heart: recover these,
And thou mayst offer many gifts in one.

 

There is a balsam, or indeed a blood,
Dropping from heav'n, which doth both cleanse and close
All sorts of wounds; of such strange force it is.
Seek out this All-heal, and seek no repose,
ntil thou find and use it to thy good:
Then bring thy gift; and let thy hymn be this;

 

               Since my sadness
               Into gladness
     Lord thou dost convert,
               O accept
               What thou hast kept,
     As thy due desert.

 

               Had I many,
               Had I any
     (For this heart is none),
               All were thine And none of mine:
     Surely thine alone.

 

               Yet thy favour
               May give savour
     To this poor oblation;
               And it raise
               To be thy praise,
     And be my salvation.

 

 

 

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