The Necessity of a New Heart

Now wouldst thou have a heart that tender is,
A heart that forward is to close with bliss;

Now wouldst thou have a heart that tender is,
A heart that forward is to close with bliss;

A heart that will impressions freely take
Of the new covenant, and that will make

The best improvement of the word of grace,
And that to wickedness will not give place;

All this is in the promise, and it may
Obtained be of them that humbly pray.

Wouldst thou enjoy that spirit that is free,
And looseth those that in their spirits be

Oppressed with guilt, or filth, or unbelief;
That spirit that will, where it dwells, be chief;

Which breaketh Samson’s cord as rotten thread,
And raiseth up the spirit that is dead;

That sets the will at liberty to choose
Those things that God hath promis’d to infuse

Into the humble heart? All this, I say,
The promise holdeth out to them that pray.

John Bunyan