Devotional for the Second Sunday in Lent

If I have only known thy fear,

And follow’d, with a heart sincere,

Thy drawings from above;

Now, now the further grace bestow,

And let my sprinkled conscience know

Thy sweet forgiving love.

 Short of thy love I would not stop,  

A stranger to the Gospel hope,

The sense of sin forgiven;

I would not, Lord, my soul deceive,

Without the inward witness live,

That ante-past of heaven.

 

If now the witness were in me,

Would lie not testify of thee,

In Jesus reconciled?

And should I not with faith draw nigh,

And boldly, Abba, Father, cry,

And know myself thy child?

 

Father, in me reveal thy Son,

 And to my inmost soul make known

How merciful thou art;

The secret of thy love reveal,

And by thy hall’wing Spirit dwell

Forever in my heart.

Hymns for the Use of the Methodist Episcopal Church: With Tunes for Congregational Worship (1857, Carlton and Porter, New York).