Friend to his flesh alone
His flesh who cherishes,
And in a shadow vain walks on,
And seeks himself to please,
With nature’s will complies;
His own worst enemy,
He hates his real life, and dies
To all eternity.
Friend to his flesh alone
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Whosoever will save his life, shall lose it.’—[Luke 9,] v. 24.” 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 S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 110.
Publishing: Public Domain