Thee Saviour, that I may

Verse 1
Thee Saviour, that I may
Thro’ thy own Spirit know,
The willingness to pray,
The thirst of grace bestow,
The first imperfect wish inspire,
And then fulfil thine own desire.

Verse 2
Prevented by thy love,
Lord, if I now begin
To seek the things above,
The grace that saves from sin,
Do Thou the living water give,
Which makes my soul forever live.

Verse 3
The streams of holiness
Into my spirit pour,
And kept in perfect peace
I then shall thirst no more,
But seek my whole felicity,
But find it all compriz’d in Thee.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.’—[John 4,] v. 15." This hymn appears in the 1763-64 manuscript “MS John.” 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 1977/573, 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 227.
Publishing: Public Domain