John & Charles Wesley · 189 of 258

Romans 7:24

“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 labouring 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.

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 helplessness 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 to 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: To 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: Immured 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.

Ah, Lord! Wouldst Thou within me live, No longer then should I complain, Nor sighing wish, nor weeping grieve For Christ my life, or death my gain.

From grief and sin I then should cease; My loosen’d tongue should then declare Comfort, and love, and joy, and peace, Fill all the soul when Christ is there!