"Suspirate in æternam Hierusalem; quo praecedit spes vestra, sequatur vita vestra; ibf erimus cum Christo. Christus nobis modo caput, gubernat nos modo desuper, amplectetur secum illa civitate cum aequales erimus angelis Dei. Non auderemus hoc suspicari de nobis, nisi promitteret veritas. Hoc ergo concupiscite fratres, hoc die noctuque cogitate. Si vultis armati esse contra tentationes in seculo, crescat et roboretur desiderium Hierusalem aeternae in cordibus vestris. Transiet captivitas, veniet fælicitas, damnabitur hostis extremus, et cum rege sine morte triumphabimus."-AUGUSTINE on Psalm 137.

"Et hinc jam pervenitur in Hierusalem, in regnum et civitatem David, in visionem pacis, ubi beati pacifici, filii Dei, (interius et exterius omnibus pacificatis) ingressi in gaudium Domini sui, celebrant Sabbatum Sabbatorum."-BERNARD, Sermo III. de Pugna Spirituali.

"Ab illa (Hierusalem) peregrinamur in hac vita, ad ejus reditum suspiramus; suspiramus tamdiu miseri et laborantes donec ad illam redeamus."-AUGUSTINE on the 126th Psalm.

PREFACE.

THE hymn which these pages contain has been reprinted from a "Broadfide," which, although without a date, is probably of the beginning of the last century. I have met with no printed copy older than this. The text of this old fheet has been taken as the basis of this edition. From other copies, in various forms, the different readings have been gleaned which are fet down at the foot of the page.

David Dickson, minister at Irvine a little before the middle of the seventeenth century, has hitherto been reputed the author, on the authority of Robert Wodrow, who refers to "fome fhort poems, on pious and ferious fubjects," published by Dickfon, "fuch as the Chriftian

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sacrifice, O Mother, Dear Jerufalem, and, on fomewhat larger octavo, 1649, True Christian Love, to be fung with the common tunes of the Pfalms." Of these it is evident that Wodrow does not fpeak upon hearfay, but from perfonal knowledge; for he adds, "This is all of his I have seen in print."*

Such is all that has hitherto been known respecting the hymn. It has been univerfally believed to be David Dickfon's; and this belief dates back not merely from the time of Wodrow, but apparently from Dickson's own time, as the hymn would seem to have been printed then, along with the others which were undoubtedly his own.

Such was, till lately, our own belief in the matter. It has now undergone confiderable change. The way in which we were led to this it may be as well to state, as it involves the history of the hymn.

More than a year and a-half ago, when preparing this edition, we were informed that there existed a copy of the hymn, in a manuscript volume in the British Museum, which established a much older authorship than that of David Dickfon. A few months after, we had an opportu

* See his Life of Dickson, published in 1726.