Enslaved to sense, to pleasure prone

Verse 1
Enslav’d to sense, to pleasure prone,
Fond of created good;
Father, our helplessness we own,
And trembling taste our food.

Verse 2
Trembling we taste: for ah! No more
To thee the creatures lead;
Chang’d they exert a fatal pow’r,
And poison while they feed.

Verse 3
Cursed for the sake of wretched man,
They now engross him whole,
With pleasing force on earth detain,
And sensualize his soul.

Verse 4
Grov’ling on earth we still must lie
Till Christ the curse repeal;
Till Christ descending from on high
Infected nature heal.

Verse 5
Come then, our heav’nly Adam, come!
Thy healing influence give;
Hallow our food, reverse our doom,
And bid us eat and live.

Verse 6
The bondage of corruption break!
For this our spirits groan;
Thy only will we fain would seek;
O save us from our own.

Verse 7
Turn the full stream of nature’s tide:
Let all our actions tend
To thee their source; thy love the guide,
Thy glory be the end.

Verse 8
Earth then a scale to heav’n shall be,
Sense shall point out the road;
The creatures then[1] shall lead to thee,
And all we taste be God!

[1] Wesley changed “creatures then” to “creatures all” in 4th-5th editions.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: "Grace Before Meat." This is the original version of this hymn, as first published in "Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739)," published by John and Charles Wesley (London: William Strahan, 1739). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 1 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1868), page 32.
Publishing: Public Domain