The Believer's Lodging And Inn While On Earth: Or, A Paraphrase On The Eighty-Fourth Psalm Poem by Ralph Erskine

Ver. 1.
How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!


Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Sole Monarch of the universal host,
Whom the attendant armies still revere,
Which in bright robes surround the higher sphere;
Whose sov'reign empire sways the hellish band
Of ranked legions, in th' infernal land;
Who hold'st the earth at thy unrival'd beck,
And stay'st proud forces with an humbling check;
Ev'n thou whose name commands an awful dread,
Yet deigns to dwell with man in very deed;
O what refreshment fills the dwelling-place
Of thine exuberant unbounded grace!
Which with sweet pow'r does joy and praise extort
In Zion's tents, thine ever-lov'd resort:
Where glad'ning streams of mercy from above
Make souls brim-full of warm seraphic love.
Of sweetest odours all thy garments smells;
Thy dismal absence proves a thousand hells,
But heav'ns of joy are where thine honour dwells.

Ver. 2
My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.


Therefore on thee I centre my desire.
Which veh'mently bursts out in ardent fire.
Deprived, ah! I languish in my plaint,
My bones are feeble, and my spirits faint.
My longing soul pants to behold again
Thy temple fill'd with thy majestic train;
Those palaces with heav'nly odour strew'd,
And regal courts, where Zion's King is view'd:
To see the beauty of the highest One,
Upon his holy mount, his lofty throne:
Whence virtue running from the living Head
Restores the dying, and revives the dead.
For him my heart with cries repeated sounds,
To which my flesh with echoes loud rebounds
For him, for him, who life in death can give,
For him, for him, whose sole prerogative
Is from and to eternity to live.

Ver. 3
Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts my King and my God.


Alas? how from thy lovely dwellings I,
Long banish'd, do the happy birds envy;
Which, choosing thy high altars for their nest,
On rafters of thy tabernacle rest?
Here dwells the sparrow of a chirping tongue,
And here the swallow lays her tender young:
Faint sacrilege! they seize the sacred spot,
And seem to glory o'er my absent lot.
Yet sure I have more special right to thee
Than all the brutal hosts of earth and sea:
That Sov'reign, at whose government they bow,
Is wholly mine by his eternal vow;
My King to rule my heart and quell my foes,
My God t' extract my well from present woes,
And crown with endless glory at the close.

Ver. 4
Blessed art they that dwell in thy house: They will be still praising thee.


O happy they that haunt thy house below,
And to thy royal sanctuary flow;
Not for itself, but for the glorious One,
Who there inhabits his erected throne!
Others pass by, but here
their
dwelling is!
O happy people, crown'd with bays of bliss!
Bless'd with the splendid lustre of his face,
Bless'd with the high melodious sound of grace,
That wakens souls into a sweet amaze,
And turns their spirits to a harp of praise;
Which loudly makes the lower temple ring
With hallelujahs, to the mighty King:
And thus they antedate the nobler song
Of that celestial and triumphant throng,
Who warble notes of praise eternity along.

Ver. 5.
Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee: -


What weights of bliss their happy shoulders load,
Whose strength lies treasur'd in a potent God?
Self-drained souls, yet flowing to the brim,
Because void in themselves, but full in him.
Adam the first discuss'd their stock of strength,
The second well retriev'd the sum at length;
Who keeps 't himself, a surer hand indeed,
To give not as they list, but as they need.
When raging furies threaten sudden harms,
He then extends his everlasting arms;
When Satan drives his pointed fiery darts,
He gives them courage and undaunted hearts
To quell his deadly force with divine skill,
And add new strength to do their Sov'reign's will:
When sore harass'd by some outrageous lust,
He levelling its pow'r unto the dust
Makes saints to own him worthy of their trust.

Ver. 6.
In whose hearts are the ways of them, who passing through the valley of Baca, make it a well: the rain also filleth the pools.


Such heav'n-born souls are not to earth confin'd,
Truth's high-way fills their elevated mind:
They, bound for Zion, press with froward aim,
As Israel's makes to old Jerusalem,
Their holy path lies through a parched land,
Through oppositions numerous and grand.
Traversing scorched desarts, ragged rocks,
And Baca's wither'd vale, like thirsty flocks:
Yet with unshaken vigour homeward go,
Not mov'd by all opposing harms below.
They digging wells on this Gilboa top,
The vale of Anchor yields a door of hope:
For Heav'n in plenty does their labour crown,
By making silver show'rs to trickle down;
Till empty pools imbibe a pleasant fill,
And weary souls are heart'ned up the hill,
By massy drops of joy which down distill.

Ver. 7
They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.


Thus they, refreshed by superior aid,
Are not defatigated nor dismay'd;
Because they are, O truth of awful dread!
As potent as Jehovah in their Head,
Hence they shall travel with triumphant minds,
In spite of rugged paths and boist'rous winds.
The roughest ways are their vigour ne'er abates,
Each new assault their strength redintegrates.
When they through mortal blows seem to give o'er,
Their strength by intermitting gathers more.
And thus they, with unweary'd zeal endu'd,
Still as they journey have their strength renew'd.
So glorious is the race, that once begun
Each one contends his fellow to outrun;
Till all uniting in a glorious band,
Before the Lamb's high throne adoring stand,
And harp his lofty praise in Zion land.

Ver. 8
O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer: Give ear, O God of Jacob.


Great God of num'rous hosts, who reigns alone
The sole possessor of th' imperial throne;
Since mental tastes of thy delicious grace
So sweetly relish in thy holy place,
This is the subject of my tabled pray'r,
To have the vision of thy glory there.
O let my cry pierce the ethereal frame,
And mercy's echo follow down the same.
Omniscient Being, favour my desire,
Hide not thy goodness in paternal ire:
Why, thou hast giv'n in an eternal band,
To Jacob and his seed thy royal hand
And promis'd by thy sacred Deity,
His King and covenanted God to be:
Therefore my hopes are center'd all in thee.

Ver. 9.
Behold, O God, our shield; and look upon the face of thine anointed.


Omnipotent, whose armour none can wield,
Zion's great buckler and defensive shield,
Thy pure untainted eyes cannot behold
Deformed mortals in their sinful mold.
Unless their names be graved on the breast
Of Zion's holy, consecrated Priest.
When they his white and glorious garment wear,
Then sin and guilt both wholly disappear:
Because o'erhwelmed in the crimson flood,
And ocean of a dying Surety's blood:
They also, vested with his holy face.
They're not themselves now, but divinely trim,
For wholly what they are, they are in him:
And hence Jehovah's all-discerning eye
Cannot in them espy deformity.
Then look on him, Lord; and in him on me.

Ver. 10
For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand: I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.


May I possess, as thy domestic child,
The house that by Jehovah's name is sty'ld:
For royal glories deck those courts of thine,
Which with majestic rays so brightly shine,
That should my mind present an earth of gold,
As full of worldly joys as earth can hold:
Sweet grace so fills thy house, I'd grudge to spare
One moment here, for thousand ages there.
No earthly object shall my love confine,
That Being which possesses all, is mine;
My spirit therefore rather would embrace
The meanest office in his holy place,
And by the threshold of his house within,
Than sit in splendour on a throne of sin.
In Jesus' courts I'd choose the lowest place
At his saints feet, so I might see his face.
Yea, tho' my lamp of outward peace should burn
Most brightly, yet I would incessant mourn,
While in a wicked Mesech I sojourn.

Ver. 11.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield: The Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.


For God the Lord, whose courts I love to haunt,
Is ev'ry thing that empty souls can want;
A sun for light, a shield for strength; yea, more,
On earth he gives his grace, in heav'n his glore.
This radiant sun, of life and light the source,
Scatters the shades by's circumambient course;
Yea, guides bemisted souls with hearsome beams,
And gloriously irradiating gleams.
This massy shield is polish'd bright with pow'r,
For helping weaklings in a per'lous hour.
Here's all that weary travellers would have,
A sun to cherish and a shield to save.
Grace also here is giv'n t' adorn the soul,
And yield to glory in the heav'nly pole.
All divine treasure to the saint is due;
The treasure is so vast it can't be told;
Nothing that God can give will God withhold.
To whom he doth his saving grace impart,
To them he gives himself, his hand, his heart:
Uprightness too of heart, and life, does fall
Unto their share, who having him, have all.
In them the grace he gives, he still regards;
Gives holiness, and then his gift rewards.
For to his own upright and divine brood
He's bound to grant ev'n all that's great and good,
By's own sure word, firm oath, and sacred blood.

Ver. 12.
O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.


O then, Jehovah, God of armies strong,
To whom the pow'rs of earth and heav'n belong;
How vastly blessed is the fixed man,
Who by a firm fiducial boldness can,
Through grace and strength dispensed from above,
So sweetly scan the height of divine love,
As to derive his comfort wholly thence,
And on this rock to found his confidence?
Whose faith has rear'd up for a firm abode
A stable building on a living God?
Who, spoil'd of human props, both great and small,
Does choose a triune Deity for all?
What scrools of bliss are in this All inroll'd,
Is too sublime for seraphs to unfold.
Sist, human wisdom, in a deep amaze!
Let rapid floods of life his glory raise,
Till time be drown'd in his eternal praise.