With pity, Lord, a sinner see

Verse 1
With pity, Lord, a sinner see
Weary of thy ways and thee:
Forgive my fond despair
A blessing in the means to find,
My struggling to throw off the care
And cast them all behind.

Verse 2
Long have I groan’d thy grace to gain,
Suffer’d on but all in vain:
An age of mournful years
I waited for thy passing by,
And lost my prayers, and sighs, and tears,
And never found thee nigh.

Verse 3
Thou wouldst not let me go away;
Still thou forcest me to stay.
O might the secret power
Which will not with its captive part,
Nail to the posts of mercy’s door
My poor unstable heart.

Verse 4
The nails that fixt thee to the tree
Only they can fasten me:
The death thou didst endure
For me let it effectual prove:
Thy love alone my soul can cure,
Thy dear expiring love.

Verse 5
Now in the means the grace impart,
Whisper peace into my heart;
Appear the justifier
Of all who to thy wounds would fly,
And let me have my one desire
And see thy face, and die.

Hymnal/Album: Introduced in Hymns on the Lord's Supper, published by John and Charles Wesley (Bristol: Felix Farley, 1745).Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 3 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1869), page 272.
Publishing: Public Domain