Verse 1
And must I sink among the dead?
With all my sins upon my head,
Must I to my account be sent
To suffer endless punishment?

Verse 2
Shall I my innocence declare
Arraign’d at God’s tremendous bar,
Or plead, in his all-searching sight
My ignorance of wrong and right!

Verse 3
Have I not known the Master’s will,
Who plainly saith, “Thou shalt not steal:
Shalt not commit adultery,
A liar, or a murtherer be:

Verse 4
Thou shalt not take my Name in vain:
Shalt not my holy day prophane:
Witness untrue Thou shalt not bear:
Thou shalt not lust; thou shalt not swear:

Verse 5
Obedient to thy parents be,
And reverence just authority:
To idols Tthou shalt not bow down,
But serve and Love thy God alone.[”]

Verse 6
All these I from my youth have broke
Have desperately cast off the yoke
Harden’d my heart, destroy’d my soul,
And made my sinful measure full.

Verse 7
What shall I do, my doom to shun,
Or how from swift damnation run?
Is there a mansion in the skies,
Or room for thieves in paradise?

Verse 8
No thief, he saith, shall enter in,
No soul unholy, or unclean,
No infidel to heaven shall go,
But find their dreadful place below.

Verse 9
God without faith I cannot please,
Or see him without holiness;
But devils, curst by wrath divine
Can boast a better faith than mine.

Verse 10
Devils believe, and tremble too
But I who own his saying true
“The wicked shall be turn’d to hell,”
No fear, and no repentance feel.

Verse 11
Past feeling thro’ habitual sin,
My conscience sear’d for years has been,
Obdurate still my heart remains,
Nor shrinks at everlasting pains.

Verse 12
Hopeless I must for ever die,
But He who pass’d the angels by
Beheld mankind with pitying look
And on Himself our nature took.

Verse 13
He bow’d the heavens, He left his throne,
He laid for all the ransom down, —
See there! He hangs on yonder tree!
He bows his head, and dies for me!

Verse 14
Return’d to heaven, again He lives,
To harden’d thieves repentance gives
In penitents his grace reveals
And pardon on their conscience seals.

Verse 15
Turn then, my Lord, my God unknown,
Whom with my parting breath I own
In death the kind conviction dart,
And cast a look, and break my heart.

Verse 16
A day’s a thousand years to Thee,
Cut short thy gracious work in me,
And let me, swept from earth, remove
The captive of thy dying LOVE!