Wednesday's Word: O Lord Whose Grace No Limits Comprehend (Psalm 51)

 

"Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Your presence; take not Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit.
(Psalm 51:9-12)

Mary English Rose

 Photograph courtesy/David Austen Roses

O Lord, whose grace no limits comprehend;

Sweet Lord, whose mercies stand from measure free;

To me that grace, to me that mercy send,

And wipe, O Lord my sins from sinful me.

Oh, cleanse, oh, wash, my foul iniquity;

Cleanse still my spots, still wash away my stainings,

Till stains and spots in me leave no remainings,

For, I, alas, acknowledging do know

My filthy fault, my faulty filthiness

To my soul's eye incessantly doth show,

Which done to Thee, to Thee I do confess,

Just Judge, True Witness, that for righteousness

Thy doom may pass against my guilt awarded,

Thy evidence for truth may be regarded.

My mother, lo, when I began to be,

Conceiving me, with me did sin conceive;

And as with living heat she cherished me,

Corruption did like cherishing receive.

But, lo, Thy love to purest good doth cleave,

And inward truth: which, hardly else discerned,

My truant soul in Thy hid school hath learned.

Then as Thyself to lepers hast assigned,

With hyssop, Lord, Thy hyssop, purge me so:

And that shall cleanse the lepry of my mind.

Make me over Thy mercy's streams to flow,

So shall my whiteness scorn the whitest snow.

To ear and heart send sounds and thoughts of gladness,

That bruised bones may dance away their sadness.

Thy ill-pleased eye from my misdeeds avert:

Cancel the registers my sins contain;

Create in me a pure, clean, spotless heart;

Inspire a sprite* where love of right may reign

Ah, cast me not from Thee; take not again

Thy breathing grace; against Thy comfort send me,

And let the guard of Thy free sprite attend me.

So I to them a guiding hand will be,

Whose faulty feet have wandered from Thy way,

And turned from sin will make return to Thee,

Whom turned from Thee sin erst had led astray.

O God,  God of my health, oh, do away

My bloody crime: so shall my tongue be raised

To praise Thy truth, enough cannot be praised.

Unlock my lips, shut up with sinful shame:

Then shall my mouth, O Lord, Thy honor sing.

For bleeding fuel for Thy altar's flame,

To gain Thy grace what boots it me to bring?

Burt-off'rings are to Thee no pleasant thing.

The sacrifice that God will hold respected,

Is the heart-broken soul, the sprite dejected.

Lastly, O Lord, how so I stand or fall,

Leave not Thy loved Zion to embrace;

But with Thy favor build up Salem's wall,

And still in peace, maintain that peaceful place.

Then shall Thou turn a well-accepting face

To sacred fires with offered gifts perfumed:

Till ev'n whole calves on altars be consumed.

Mary Sidney Herbert

Countess of Pembroke

(1561-1621)
Portrait courtesy/Shakespearean Authorship Trust

Mary Sidney Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke, was said to be one of
 the most educated women of her time, comparable only to Queen Elizabeth I.
She could speak several languages, including Latin and possibly Greek. 

Although she lived in a society where education for women was mostly
frowned upon, for twenty years Mary was instrumental in the organization
and leadership of the Wilton Circle, an important and highly influential
literary society in England.  She was also the first woman to publish a
play written in English and the first woman to publish an original
pastoral piece, also in English, which she translated and published
from French and Italian.  Mary was the sister of the famous 
Elizabethan poet Sir Phillip Sidney.

*Sprite: A spirit; a distinguishing mark or feature; not the soft drink.