So late enlighten’d from above

Verse 1
So late inlighten’d from above,
Blest with the faith that works by love,
He falls, our hearts to show.
Falls into reason’s dark abyss,
Offensive to his Lord he is
As the infernal foe.

Verse 2
In Peter’s faith and fall I see
The difference ’twixt myself and me
When fortified by grace,
Or suddenly alas, bereft
Of all support divine, and left
To my own helplesness.

Verse 3
Ah, give me, Lord, to use aright
The gracious strength, the heavenly light,
Which will so soon depart,
Unless with meek humility
I every moment hang on Thee
The Keeper of my heart.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘He turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.’—[Matt. 16,] v. 23.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Matthew.” 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 1977/577, 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 302.
Publishing: Public Domain