Wesley Corpus

Saviour, I now with shame confess My lust of creature-happiness; By base desires I wrong'd thy love, And forc'd thy mercy to reprove: Page 371 Yet would I not regard thy stroke, And when thou didst thy grace revoke, And when thou didst thy face conceal, Thine absence I refus'd to feel. I wist not that the Lord was gone, In my own froward will went on, And liv'd to the desires of men; And thou hast all my wandrings seen: Yet, O the riches of thy grace! Thou who hast seen my evil ways, Wilt freely my backslidings heal, And pardon on my conscience seal. For this I at thy footstool wait, 'Till thou my peace again create, Fruit of thy gracious lips restore My peace, and bid me sin no more: Far off, yet at thy feet I lie, 'Till thou again thy blood apply, 'Till thou repeat my sins forgiven, As far from God as hell from heaven. But for thy truth and mercy sake, My comfort thou shalt give me back, And lead me on from grace to grace, In all the paths of righteousness, 'Till throughly sav'd my new-born soul, And perfectly by faith made whole, Doth bright in thy full image rise, To share thy glory in the skies. "But the wicked are like the troubled sea." Isa. lvii. 20, 21. They must be as the troubled sea, They cannot rest who know not thee, Whose working hearts, disturb'd within, Cast up the mire of actual sin: No peace the wicked e'er can know, While hastning to their place below, But trouble must with sin remain, Sad earnest of eternal pain. Page 372 "A day for a man to afflict his soul." Isa. lviii. 5. That true remorse, that grief divine, Saviour, I long to know: Strike this hard rocky heart of mine, And let the waters flow; Indulge me at thy feet to grieve In exquisite distress, 'Till thou my mournful soul receive,102 And bid me die in peace. "So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." Isa. lix. 19.