Wesley Corpus

I ever gasp in Christ to live, O that to me the grace were given! Had I thy heaven and earth to give, I'd buy thee with thy earth and heaven. If sufferings could thy love obtain, I'd suffer all things for thy love: Send me to hell, I'd there remain: But let me there thy favour prove. Page 57 Let me thy righteous doom applaud, Thine everlasting truth declare, And vindicate the ways of God, And glorify thy justice there! Let me I know not how to pray; My anguish cannot be exprest: Jesu, thou seest what I would say; O let thy bowels speak the rest! Romans vii. 24, 25.29 Father of mercies, God of love, Whose bowels of compassion move, To sinful worms, whose arms embrace, And strain to hold a struggling race! With me still let thy Spirit strive, Have patience, till my heart I give; Assist me to obey thy call, And give me power to pay thee all. If now my nature's weight I feel, And groan to render up my will, Not long the kind relentings stay, The morning vapour fleets away. 29This hymn appeared first in the 2nd edn. of HSP (1739), 58-59; it was then moved to this collection. Page 58 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). Page 59 My soul it easily besets, About my bed, about my way, My soul at every turn it meets, And half persuades me to obey.