FORGIVEN

A HYMN TO
GOD THE FATHER

WILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.


Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore ;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore ;
And having done that, Thou hast done ;
I fear no more.

John Donne

John Donne (1572~1641) justly felt amply qualified to write on the subject of sin, as a convert to Anglicanism from Catholicism, as a sitting M.P., as someone who married a 17 year old in his thirties and who, had he lived, almost surely would have been elevated to the office of Bishop. He even took the slightly odd precaution of writing his own funeral sermon, ‘Death’s Duel’, concluding it thus, “There we leave you in that blessed dependency, to hang upon him that hangs upon the cross, there bathe in his tears, there suck at his wounds, and lie down in peace in his grave, till he vouchsafe you a resurrection, and an ascension into that kingdom which He hath prepared for you with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen.”
His poem,’Hymn to God the Father’ is rewarded by a careful reading as he explores the full spectrum of holy disobedience from our inherited ‘original sin’ to those wayward practices that we “run through” He concludes his dark musings on a note of optimism, “But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son / Shall shine as he shines now / And having done that…I fear no more.” ~GOSh.~