85
Eternal Light
Verse 1
Eternal Light! Eternal Light!
How pure the soul must be
When, placed within Thy searching sight,
It shrinks not, but with calm delight
Can live, and look on Thee!
How pure the soul must be
When, placed within Thy searching sight,
It shrinks not, but with calm delight
Can live, and look on Thee!
Verse 2
The spirits that surround Thy throne
May bear the burning bliss;
But surely that is theirs alone,
Who, undefiled, have never known
A fallen world like this.
May bear the burning bliss;
But surely that is theirs alone,
Who, undefiled, have never known
A fallen world like this.
Verse 3
O how shall I, whose native sphere
Is dark, whose mind is dim,
Before the Ineffable appear,
And on my naked spirit bear
The uncreated beam?
Is dark, whose mind is dim,
Before the Ineffable appear,
And on my naked spirit bear
The uncreated beam?
Verse 4
There is a way for man to rise
To that sublime abode:
An offering and a sacrifice,
A Holy Spirit's energies,
An Advocate with God.
To that sublime abode:
An offering and a sacrifice,
A Holy Spirit's energies,
An Advocate with God.
Verse 5
These, these prepare us for the sight
Of holiness above;
The sons of ignorance and night,
May dwell in the eternal Light,
Through the eternal Love!
Of holiness above;
The sons of ignorance and night,
May dwell in the eternal Light,
Through the eternal Love!
Thomas Binney, a prominent English Congregationalist minister, wrote 'Eternal Light' around 1826, and it became one of the most celebrated lyrical meditations on God's unapproachable light in Victorian hymnody.