Wesley Corpus

[Romans 7:24.] “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Source: Hymns and Sacred Poems (1740), Part I Author: Charles Wesley (attributed) --- A monster to myself I am, Asham’d to feel no deeper shame; Pain’d, that my pain so soon is o’er, And griev’d that I can grieve no more. O who shall save the man of sin? O when30 shall end this war within? How shall my captive soul break thro’? Who shall attempt my rescue? Who? A wretch from sin and death set free?-- Answer, O answer, Christ, for me, “The grace of an accepting God, The virtue of a Saviour’s blood.” [Romans vii. 24.] “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Thou Son of God, thou Son of man, Whose eyes are as a flame of fire, With kind concern regard my pain, And mark my lab’ring heart’s desire! Its inmost folds are known to thee, Its secret plague I need not tell: Nor can I hide, nor can I flee The sin I ever groan to feel. 30The line began “When when” in 2nd edn. HSP (1739). My soul it easily besets, About my bed, about my way, My soul at every turn it meets, And half persuades me to obey. Nothing I am, and nothing have, Nothing my helplesness can do; But thou art good, and strong to save, And all that seek may find thee true. How shall I ask, and ask aright? My lips refuse my heart t’ obey: But all my wants are in thy sight; My wants, my fears, my sorrows pray. I want thy love, I fear thy frown, My own foul sin I grieve to see: T’ escape its force would now sink down, And die, if death could set me free. Yet O I cannot burst my chain, Or fly the body of this death: Immur’d in flesh I still remain, And gasp a purer air to breathe. I groan to break my prison-walls, And quit the tenement of clay; Nor yet the shatter’d mansion falls, Nor yet my soul escapes away.