Anne Bronte - A Word to the Calvinists - Ghizela Rowe

A Word to the Calvinists

By Anne Bronte

A Word to the elect

You may rejoice to think yourselves secure

You may be grateful for the gift divine

That grace unsought which made

Your black hearts pure

And fits your earthborn souls in Heaven to shine

But is it sweet to look around and view

Thousands excluded from that happiness

Which they deserve at least as much as you

Their faults not greater nor their virtues less

And wherefore should you love your God the more

Because to you alone his smiles are given

Because He chose to pass the many o'er

And only bring the favoured few to Heaven

And wherefore should

Your hearts more grateful prove

Because for all the Saviour did not die

Is yours the God of justice and of love

And are your bosoms warm with charity

Say does your heart expand to all mankind

And would you ever to your neighbour do

The weak the strong

The enlightened and the blind

As you would have your neighbour do to you

And when you looking on your fellow men

Behold them doomed to endless misery

How can you talk of joy and rapture then

May God withhold such cruel joy from me

That none deserve eternal bliss I know

Unmerited the grace in mercy given

But none shall sink to everlasting woe

That have not well deserved

The wrath of Heaven

And O there lives within my heart

A hope long nursed by me

And should it's cheering ray depart

How dark my soul would be

That as in Adam all have died

In Christ shall all men live

And ever round his throne abide

Eternal praise to give

That even the wicked shall at last

Be fitted for the skies

And when their dreadful doom is past

To life and light arise

I ask not how remote the day

Nor what the sinner's woe

Before their dross is purged away

Enough for me to know

That when the cup of wrath is drained

The metal purified

They'll cling to what they once disdained

And live by him that died