Self-diffidence may souls abase,
And blind to their own virtues make,
The humble, trembling sons of grace
Faith for presumption may mistake:
But Christ delights in faith’s excess,
He smiles to see the prostrate soul,
To hear the heal’d with awe confess
The confidence which made them whole.
Self-diffidence may souls abase
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came, and fell down before him, and told him all the truth.’—[Mark 5,] v. 33.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Mark.” 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 1977/574, 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. 10 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 488.
Publishing: Public Domain