Conscious of this plague within

Verse 1
Conscious of this plague within
I a Physician want:
My whole head is sick of sin,
And my whole heart is faint;
Only wickedness I feel,
No goodness doth in me reside
All my nature is self-will,
And all my soul is pride.

Verse 2
While myself I faint to bear,
And life for lost give up,
Strangely rising from despair
I find a sudden hope:
Hope I of salvation have,
That if myself I cannot heal,
If myself I cannot save,
The great Physician will.

Verse 3
Humbly now, O Lord, I own
My sin and misery,
Make my sad condition known,
Expose my case to Thee,
Glory in my desperate case;
Without thy help I cannot live;
Therefore help me by thy grace,
And perfect soundness give.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘They that are whole need not a physician: but they that are sick.”’—[Luke 5,] v. 31.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Luke.” 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 1977/575, 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. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 148.
Publishing: Public Domain