The heart to creature-love inclined

Verse 1
The heart to creature-love inclin’d,
The sin of all our fallen kind
Cannot the Lamb of God remove,
And cast it out by purer love?
Didst Thou not bear it on the tree,
To bear it far away from me,
And pour the fountain of thy blood,
To wash out all my inbred load?

Verse 2
The sin that cleaves to Adam’s race
Our burthen, plague, and dire disgrace
The beastly, and the devilish sin
The lust, and pride that works within,
Thou, Lord, on whom in faith I call,
Wilt conquer, and destroy it all,
Wilt take both root and branch away,
And unbelief for ever slay.

Verse 3
Thee I behold with stedfast eye,
And wait, till Thou thy blood apply,
Its purifying power impart,
And throughly wash my sprinkled heart:
Then shall I make thy mercy known,
And love my loving God alone,
Answer thy passion’s whole design,
And die, and live for ever thine.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.’—[John] 1:29.” 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. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 325.
Publishing: Public Domain