The Levite stern approaches nigh

Verse 1
The Levite stern approaches nigh,
Observes with unrelenting eye,
And shows my desperate case,
Commands, but brings me no relief,
But aggravates my sin and grief,
And all my wounds displays.

Verse 2
The Law commands, Do this and live,
But power and grace it cannot give,
It cannot justify,
It leaves the miserable man
To bleed, and languish, and complain,
Till in my sins I die.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.'—[Luke 10,] v. 32.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Luke.” 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 1977/575, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 121.
Publishing: Public Domain