In sin I long have dwelt

Verse 1
In sin I long have dwelt
The wretched slave of man,
My guilty burthen felt,
With Satan’s gauling chain,
By cruel taskmasters opprest,
Far from the land of gospel-rest.

Verse 2
Estrang’d alas, from God,
The God of pardning grace,
I tremble at the rod,
Yet serve th’ Egyptian race,
Repeat my melancholy moan,
And in the iron furnace groan.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘God spake, that his seed should sojourn in a strange land, and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years.’—[Acts 7,] v. 6.” 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 202.
Publishing: Public Domain