Today is the birthday of Horatius Bonar.
He was born December 19, 1818 in Edinburgh, Scotland.
I love his writing. He authored several hundred hymns and poems.
This one about the church crying out for Jesus to come back gets to me every time.
Come, Lord, and tarry not;
Bring the long looked for day;
O why these years of waiting here,
These ages of decay?
Come, for Thy saints still wait;
Daily ascends their sigh;
The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come”;
Does Thou not hear the cry?
Come, for creation groans,
Impatient of Thy stay,
Worn out with these long years of ill,
These ages of delay.
Come, for love waxes cold,
Its steps are faint and slow;
Faith now is lost in unbelief,
Hope’s lamp burns dim and low.
Come in Thy glorious might,
Come with the iron rod,
Scattering Thy foes before Thy face,
Most mighty Son of God!
Come, and make all things new,
Build up this ruined earth;
Restore our faded Paradise,
Creation’s second birth.
Come, and begin Thy reign
Of everlasting peace;
Come, take the kingdom to Thyself,
Great King of Righteousness.
He also wrote many sermons and booklets in prose. Here he is imagining reaching Heaven at the end of our journey –
“We often feel as if grace had done its utmost when it has carried us safely through the desert, and set us down at the gate of the kingdom. We feel as if, when grace has landed us there, it has done all for us that we are to expect.
But God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. He does exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think. It is just when we reach the threshold of the prepared heavenly city, that grace meets us in new and more abundant measures, presenting us with the recompense of the reward.
The love that shall meet us then to bid us welcome to the many mansions, shall be love beyond what we were here able to comprehend; for then shall we fully realize, as if for the first time, the meaning of these words, ‘The love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord;’ and then shall we have that prayer of Christ fulfilled in us, ‘That the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’
It was grace which on earth said to us, ‘Come unto Me, and I will give you rest;’ and it will be grace, in all its exceeding riches, that will hereafter say to us, ‘Come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’”