FOR COMMUNION WITH GOD

    By Rev. Thomas Shepherd

  Alas, my God, that we should be

    Such strangers to each other!

  O that as friends we might agree,

    And walk and talk together!

  Thou know'st my soul does dearly love

    The place of thine abode;

  No music drops so sweet a sound

    As these two words My God.

  May I taste that communion, Lord,

    Thy people have with thee?

  Thy spirit daily talks with them,

    O let it talk with me!

  Like Enoch, let me walk with God,

    And thus walk out my day,

  Attended with the heavenly guards,

    Upon the king's highway.

  When wilt thou come unto me, Lord?

    O come, my Lord most dear!

  Come near, come nearer, nearer still:

    I'm well when thou art near.

  When wilt thou come unto me, Lord?

    For, till thou dost appear,

  I count each moment for a day,

    Each minute for a year.

  There's no such thing as pleasure here;

    My Jesus is my all:

  As thou dost shine or disappear,

    My pleasures rise and fall.

  Come, spread thy savour on my frame--

    No sweetness is so sweet;

  Till I get up to sing thy name

    Where all thy singers meet.

Rev. Thomas Shepherd, 1665-1739.

Son of William Shepherd, sometime Vicar of Tilbrook, Bedfordshire, Thomas was ordained an Anglican priest,

serving first at St. Neots, then in Buckinghamshire. He later left the Church of England, and joining the

Nonconformists in 1694 became pastor of the Independent Castle Hill Baptist Meeting, Northampton (Philip

Doddridge later served there, as well). In 1700 he moved to Bocking, Essex, preaching in a barn for several years

before a chapel could be built. He served there the remainder of his life.

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