By nature we incline
To reason against Thee
And measure with our scanty line
Thy love’s immensity;
Ignorant of thy ways,
Unable to conceive
That Thou, the God of boundless grace
So greatly canst forgive.
By nature we incline
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done &c.’—[Acts 9,] v. 13.” 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 237.
Publishing: Public Domain