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AH! MY DEAR, LOVING LORD

Scripture Verse

You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. Matthew 23:27

Introduction

portrait
John B. Dykes (1823–1876)

Words: Charles Wes­ley, Hymns and Sac­red Po­ems (Bris­tol, Eng­land: Fe­lix Far­ley, 1742), pag­es 63–65.

Music: Ol­iv­et (Dykes) John B. Dykes, 1870 (🔊 ).

portrait
Charles Wesley (1707–1788)

Lyrics

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.