Mercy is welcome news indeed

Mercy is welcome news indeed
To those that guilty stand;
Wretches that feel what help they need
Will bless the helping hand.

Who rightly would his alms dispose
Must give them to the poor.
None but the wounded patient knows
The comfort of his cure.

We all have sinned against our God;
Exception none can boast;
But he that feels the heaviest load
Will prize forgiveness most.

No reckoning can we rightly keep,
For who the sum can know?
Some souls are fifty pieces deep,
And some five hundred owe.

But let our debts be what they may,
However great or small,
As soon as we have nought to pay,
Our Lord forgives us all.

'Tis perfect poverty alone
That sets the soul at large;
While we can call one mite our own,
We have no full discharge.