The poetical works of John and Charles Wesley

A thousand secret checks within,
To unacknowledged grace I owe;
A thousand times preserved from sin,
I now my kind Preserver know;
Thou didst support my yielding heart,
Thou didst to good my will incline;
And when I chose the better part,
The virtuous thought was all Divine.

I envied oft the swine their meat,
But none the husks of pleasure gave:
Oft by my bosom-sin beset,
Mercy contrived my soul to save:
The grace I trembled to receive,
Escaping from the broken snare;
And scarcely durst my heart believe
That mercy could redeem so far.

Still on a precipice I stand,
Or seem on solid waves to tread;
Secure in an Almighty hand,
When raging flames surround my head;
Nigh is my sin, but Thou art nigher,
And while to Thee my soul I give,
I hang in air, I walk in fire,
In death by miracle I live!

University of Virginia Library

70.

[A thousand secret checks within]