29t Fairfield 'I can but perish'

Here in vs 3 is yet another implicit understanding of death and eternal life. (Are there, perhaps, a dozen songs in this book that don't talk about death?)

The singer has resolved to go to Jesus despite his or her conviction of sinfulness. The outcome may be simply death, "I can but perish if I go" but the alternative, not going to Jesus, definitely leads to death, "If I stay away, I know, I must forever die." I find it interesting that the two outcomes are just death or, presumably, life eternal with Jesus. Punishment/hell is not mentioned here. The text is dated 1787.

I must say I find this a wonderful text. I've always felt a (hopelessly romantic, I suppose) resonance with stories of people recognizing they are in desperate circumstances and so finding the resolve to strike out on the path of hope however unlikely to succeed. (Lord of the Rings readers, think Aragorn leading a paltry force against the gates of Mordor because their only hope lies in convincing Sauron that they have the ring with them, and so distracting him from his real peril, Frodo sneaking in the back way.) Is this our lot in a post-modern world, where every hope is open to suspicion, if not outright derision, and yet to live as human beings we must choose to hope, no matter what.