We Must Cleave To Christ, Without Suffering Any Thing To Turn Us Away From Him Poem by Rees Prichard

If father, if mother, if daughter, if son,
If houses, if lands, if the wife of thy love -
Shou'd strive to pervert thee - by no means be won
Thy faith, and thy zeal towards Christ to remove.

Let father and mother, let children and wife,
Reprove thee, beseech thee, lament, scold, or grieve,
Leave houses, leave lands, leave thy food, leave thy life,
Leave all that thou hast, ere Christ thou dost leave.

Christ, father and mother, and brother and friend,
Their roch and their fort, and good fortune, will prove,
Their profit immense and vast gains in the end,
And all that is dear - unto those who Christ love.

Without him, of faith food and life, we're bereft -
Rule, reason, health, strength, we our own cannot call:
But void of hope, help, and of grace, we are left -
Of knowledge, of virtue, of God, and of all.

God's better than father, or mother, or nurse -
God's better than matron, or maiden, or bride -
God's better than houses, or lands, or full purse -
God's better than ought you can think of beside.

He's better than all the wide world and its stores -
He's better than th' earth, with his blessings so fraught,
He's better than th' heaven, and all its great pow'rs,
God's better, a million times over, than ought.

If thou, the Almighty wilt take to thy share,
Good fortune will follow, where-e'er thou shalt lead,
And Christ and his saints will take thee to their care,
The skies will receive thee, and Demons will dread.

The better part, thou didst most sensibly take -
A part, that shall still be unchangeably thine,
(When thou as thy choice the Almighty didst make)
As long as the sun, moon, and planets shall shine.

For when both the sun and the moon disappear,
When all this vast globe shall be burn'd to a coal,
When stars shoot from heaven, and many men fear,
Yet fearless, e'en then, is the innocent soul.

Then cheer up thy spirits, and rouse up thy heart -
Keep hold of thy faith to the last gasp of breath -
Thou'st chosen, be certain, the bettermost part :
Take heed then, nor change thy opinion, till death.