Verse 1
The first, and great command, we own,
Is the pure love of God alone:
First in antiquity; obey’d
In heaven, before this earth was made:
And when our lower world began,
Congenial with the soul of man,
Deep in his inmost essence found,
Ingrav’d on an eternal ground.

Verse 2
How great in excellence, above
All other laws, the law of love,
Which doth to God directly tend,
And in its lovely Author end!
In the new covenant of grace
It challenges the highest place,
The Spirit of piety imparts,
And breathes in all the children’s hearts.

Verse 3
Love, only love in justice great
Renders to God his due compleat,
Its Author worthily adores,
His universal good restores:
It teaches man his rank to know,
It lays the ransom’d creature low,
Constrains us at the throne to fall,
And own that God is all in all.

Verse 4
Love, all-sufficient love alone
Reduces all our wants to one,
Richly that single want supplies,
And gives us back our paradise:
It makes and keeps us happy here,
And meet before his face t’ appear,
It sets the jewels in our crown,
And lifts us to our Father’s throne.

Verse 5
Great in divine fecundity,
Love is the life-imparting tree,
Love is the true, celestial root,
Which bears the ripe, the perfect fruit,
The law on faithful hearts imprest
(A law comprizing all the rest)
Which every grace in man reveals,
Which every word of God fulfils.

Verse 6
How great its efficacious power
Our lost dominion to restore!
It re-erects his throne in man,
And kings with Christ by love we reign;
Our souls it doth to Christ unite,
It makes36 him in our souls delight,
And God is pleas’d with smiles to own
The Head and members are but one.

Verse 7
The saints alone can understand
How vast the reach of this command,
Which seizes, and refers to God
Whate’er on creatures is bestow’d!
How needful every heart may feel
This duty indispensible,
When God himself and love are one,
When heaven depends on love alone.

Verse 8
The great command which here we know
Commensurate with life below,
We wait to comprehend above
In raptures of unbounded love,
With that triumphant host to join
In sweetest praise of love divine,
Which, when our mourning days are past,
Thro’ all eternity shall last.