The peace deep hid with Christ in God (E. H. Plumptre)

  There lives no man whose flesh is scarred like mine, 

The scourge and rod have graven deep their brands, 

                                    And Lystra’s stones have left 

                                    A wound that will not heal. 

                                    

Fastings and watchings, tossings on the deep, 

Hot suns, keen frosts upon the mountain height, 

                                    These have made life as death, 

                                     And brought the snows of age. 

                                    

And now I fail and wither ere my time, 

The sharp thorn pierceth ever more and more; 

            But this, at least, I gain; 

                                    My life is henceforth free. 

                                    

Free, because branded as the slave of Christ, 

To my own Master I stand or fall: 

                        Let man from troubling cease, 

                                    And leave me as I am. 

                                   

Debaters, slanderers, building fallen towers, 

Warring against the citadel of Truth, 

                                    Ye cannot touch the peace 

                                    Deep hid with Christ in God. 

                                    

So spake the great Apostle, and we too, 

By the same path may equal freedom gain, 

                                    Secure in inward calm, 

                                    Though storm-blasts round us rage. 

                                   

And in that faith we bid our troublers cease, 

The tempters to despair, or doubt, or pride, 

                                    They shall not mar our peace, 

                                    Nor separate from Him. 

                                    

No, neither life, nor death, nor pain, nor joy,  

Nor all that worketh in the height or depth,

                                    God’s chosen ones can hurt                                                                                     Or banish from His Love.

Image source:  Rembrandt, The Apostle Paul in Prison (1631)

Poem source:  Edward Hayes Plumptre, I Bear in My Body the Marks of the Lord Jesus