Ah! My Dear, Loving Lord

Ah! my dear

lov­ing Lord

To Thee what shall I say?

Behold I trem­ble at Thy word

And scarce pre­sume to pray:

Ten thou­sand wants have I

Alas! I all things want

And Thou hast bid me al­ways cry.

And nev­er

nev­er faint.

Yet now

Thou know’st

I fear

I fear to ask Thy grace

So oft­en have I

Lord

drawn near.

And mocked Thee to Thy face:

With all pol­lu­tions stained

Thy hal­lowed courts I trod

Thy name and temple I pro­faned

And dared to call Thee God.

Nigh with my lips I drew

My lips were all un­clean;

Thee with my heart I nev­er knew

My heart was full of sin;

Far from the liv­ing God

As far as hell from Heav’n

Thy pur­ity I still ab­horred

Nor wished to be for­giv’n.

My na­ture I ob­eyed

My own de­sires pur­sued

And still a den of thieves I made

The hal­lowed house of God;

The wor­ship He ap­proves

To Him I would not pay;

My self­ish ends

and crea­ture-loves

Had stole my heart away.

My sin and nak­ed­ness

I stu­died to dis­guise

Spoke to my soul a flat­ter­ing peace

And put out mine own eyes;

In fig leaves I ap­peared

Nor with my form would part

But still re­tained a con­science feared

An hard

de­ceit­ful heart.

A good­ly

for­mal saint

I long ap­peared in sight

By self and Sa­tan taught to paint

My tomb

my na­ture

white:

The Pha­ri­see with­in

Still un­dis­turbed re­mained

The strong man armed with guilt of sin

Safe in his pal­ace reigned.

But O! the jeal­ous God

In my be­half came down

Jesus Him­self the strong­er showed

And claimed me for His own:

My Spir­it He alarmed

And brought into dis­tress

He shook

and bound the strong man

armed

In His self right­eous­ness.

Faded my vir­tu­ous show

My form with­out the pow­er

The sin con­vinc­ing spir­it blew

And blast­ed ev­ery flow­er;

My mouth was stopped

and shame

Covered my guil­ty face

I fell on the aton­ing Lamb

And I was saved by grace.