Yet still the sin to which he cleaves

Verse 1
Yet still the sin to which he cleaves,
Not without violence he leaves,
And nature’s sorest pain;
As dreading to be dispossest,
The fiend he harbours in his breast,
And hugs the tyrant’s chain.

Verse 2
But Jesus by a sinner seen
Will never bear the spirit unclean
Should in his presence stay:
The powerful word he speaks alone,
The demon foul he bids be gone,
And Legion must obey.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘He cried with a loud voice,4 What have I to do with thee &c.’—[Mark 5,] v. 7, 8.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Mark.” This manuscript is part of the collection of the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester (accession number MA 1977/574, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. 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 483.
Publishing: Public Domain