Thou hidden God, for whom I groan

Verse 1
Thou hidden God, for whom I groan,
Till thou thyself declare,
God inaccessible, unknown,
Regard a sinner’s prayer;
A sinner welt’ring in his blood,
Unpurg’d and unforgiven,
Far distant from the living God,
As far as hell from heaven.

Verse 2
An unregenerate child of man
On thee for faith I call,
Pity thy fallen creature’s pain,
And raise me from my fall.
The darkness which thro’ thee I feel
Thou only canst remove,
Thine own eternal power reveal,
Thy deity of love.

Verse 3
Thou hast in unbelief shut up,
That grace may let me go:
In hope believing against hope,
I wait the truth to know.
Thou wilt in me reveal thy name,
Thou wilt thy light afford:
Bound, and opprest, yet thine I am,
The prisoner of the Lord.

Verse 4
I would not to thy foe submit,
But hate the tyrant’s chain:
Send forth thy[1] prisoner from the pit,
Nor let me cry in vain:
Shew me the blood that bought my peace,
The cov’nant-blood apply,
And all my griefs at once shall cease,
And all my sins shall die.

Verse 5
Now, Lord, if thou art power, descend,
The mountain-sin remove,
My unbelief and troubles end,
If thou art truth and love:
Speak, Jesu, speak into my heart
What thou for me hast done,
One grain of living faith impart,
And God is all my own.

[1] Wesley changed “thy” to “the” in 1756.

Hymnal/Album: Introduced in Hymns for Those That Seek and Those That Have Redemption in the Blood of Jesus Christ (William Strahan, 1747). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 4 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1869), page 246.
Publishing: Public Domain