Full oft have I besought Thee, Lord

Verse 1
Full oft have I besought Thee, Lord,
To take this thorn away,
And still against my foe abhor’d
In agony I pray;

Verse 2
Rebuking the malicious fiend,
O bid his buffets cease,
The painful hour of darkness end,
And give me back my peace.

Verse 3
Again I ask, this torturing ill
Command it to depart;
I ask in vain: for yet I feel
The mischief in my heart.

Verse 4
Thou dost not yet the plague remove,
But stayst thyself with me,
Thy all-sufficient grace to prove
In my infirmity.

Verse 5
In wisest love Thou dost delay
To answer my request,
That, while I for deliverance stay,
Thy power on me may rest:

Verse 6
While kept I every moment find
Thy arms my sure defence,
And glory in my weakness join’d
To thy Omnipotence.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “2 Cor. 12:9.” This hymn appears in the ca. 1786 manuscript “MS Miscellaneous Hymns.” 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 1977/556, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 2). 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), pages 467-68.
Publishing: Public Domain