Alas, what shall, or can I do

Verse 1
Alas, what shall, or can I do,
But what I have already done?
My labour vain again renew,
My search after a God unknown?
Were there a mean ’twixt heaven and hell,
I could my tiresom hopes forego:
But if with God I cannot dwell,
I must with fiends in endless woe.

Verse 2
What must I do? who hears my heart,
God, the incarnate God reply,
And save me thro’ his own desert
Before the second death I die:
Thro’ faith in his atoning blood
Which purges all iniquity
Which for a world of sinners flow’d,
Mercy there is reserv’d for me.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘What must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus.’—Acts 16, v. 30, 31.” This hymn appears in the 1764 manuscript “MS Acts.” 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 1977/555, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 1). 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. 12 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 323.

Publishing: Public Domain