THE HOLD-FAST.

I threaten'd to observe the strict decree
      Of my dear God with all my power and might :
      But I was told by one, it could not be ;
Yet I might trust in God to be my light.

Then will I trust, said I, in him alone.
      Nay, even to trust in him, was also his :
      We must confess, that nothing is our own.
Then I confess that he my succour is :

But to have nought is ours, not to confess
      That we have nought. I stood amaz’d at this,
      Much troubled, till I heard a friend express,
That all things were more ours by being his.

      What Adam had, and forfeited for all,
      Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall.

by George Herbert 1593-1633
source: The Poetical Works Of George Herbert, ed. George Gilfillan. Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1853

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