A sinner’s heart by lust possessed

Verse 1
A sinner’s heart by lust possest,
Of birds unclean the loathsom nest,
Of fiends the dark abode,
A stinking sepulchre it lies,
While the poor wretch with horror flies
The sight of man and God.

Verse 2
Shut up within himself he dwells,
Corruption, rottenness conceals,
Till the Deliverer come:
Tormented then with sudden light,
The slave of hell bewrays his fright,
And rushes from his tomb.

Verse 3
Jesus, thy Spirit drags him thence,
Compel’d by thine Omnipotence
He shows himself to Thee,
His putrid heart, his shameful vice
Exposes to thy glorious eyes,
Thou God of purity!

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘There met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit.’—[Mark 5,] v. 2.” 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 481.
Publishing: Public Domain