Lord, if Thou let the sinner go

Verse 1
Lord, if Thou let the sinner go,
My old tyrannizing foe
Will re-usurp the power,
Unless Thou every moment stay,
I sink insensibly away,
I fall to rise no more.

Verse 2
But if by thy sufficient grace
Thou support me in thy ways,
My footsteps shall not slide;
I shall my bosom-sin eschew,
And steadily thro’ life pursue
Mine everlasting Guide.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.’—[Ps.] 17:5.” This hymn appears in the 1783 manuscript “MS Scriptural 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 1977/576, 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. 9 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 276.
Publishing: Public Domain