For a Child Cutting His Teeth

Suffering for another's sin,
Why should innocence complain?
Sin by Adam enter'd in,
Sin engendering grief and pain;
Sin entail'd on all our race,
Forces harmless babes to cry,
Born to sorrow and distress,
Born to feel, lament, and die.

Tortured in his tender frame,
Struggling with convulsive throes,
Doth he not aloud proclaim
Guilt the cause of all our woes?
Guilt, whose sad effects appear,
Guilt original we own,
See it in that starting tear,
Hear it in that heaving groan!

Man's intemperate offence
In its punishment we read;
Speechless, by his aching sense
Guilty doth our infant plead;
Instruments of sin and pain,
Signs of guilt and misery
Eve's incontinence explain,
Point us to the tasted tree.

There the bitter root we find,
Fatal source of nature's ill,
111 which all our fallen kind
With this young apostate feel:
But what we can ne'er remove
Jesus came to sanctify,
Second Adam from above,
Born for us to live and die.

Help, the woman's heavenly Seed,
Thou that didst our sorrows take,
Turn aside the death decreed,
Save him for Thy nature's sake!
Pitying Son of man and God,
Still Thy creature's pains endure;
Quench the fever with Thy blood,
Bless him with a perfect cure.

Thine it is to bless and heal,
Thine to rescue and repair:
On our child the answer seal,
Thou who didst suggest the prayer
Send salvation to this house;
Then, to double health restored,
I and mine will pay our vows,
I and mine will serve the Lord.