How am I heal’d, if still again
I must relapse with grief and pain
Into my old disease?
If Christ, with all his power and love
Can never perfectly remove
My desperate wickedness?
But, Lord, I trust, thy gracious skill
Shall throughly my backslidings heal, (Hosea 14:4, Jer. 3:22)
My sinfulness of soul,
Destroy the bent to sin in me, (John 8:34-36, Rom. 6:14)
Cure my original malady,
And make, and keep me whole.
How am I heal’d, if still again
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled “I will heal their backsliding.”—[Hosea] xiv. 4. Introduced in Charles Wesley, Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 2 (Bristol: Farley, 1762). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 10 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 84.
Publishing: Public Domain