Saviour, I Now With Shame Confess

Saviour, I now with shame confess
My thirst for creature happiness;

Saviour, I now with shame confess
My thirst for creature happiness;
By base desires I wronged thy love,
And forced thy mercy to remove.

Yet would I not regard thy stroke;
But when thou didst thy grace revoke,
And when thou didst thy face conceal,
Thy absence I refused to feel.

I knew not that the Lord was gone,
In my own froward will went on,
And lived to the desires of men;
And thou hast all my wanderings seen.

Yet, O the riches of thy grace!
Thou, who hast seen my evil ways,
Wilt freely my backslidings heal,
And pardon on my conscience seal.

For this I at thy footstool wait,
Till thou my peace again create;
Fruit of thy gracious lips, restore
My peace, and bid me sin no more!

Far off, yet at thy feet, I lie,
Till thou again thy blood apply;
Till thou repeat my sins forgiven,
As far from God as hell from heaven.

But, for thy truth and mercy’s sake,
My comfort thou wilt give me back,
And lead me on from grace to grace,
In all the paths of righteousness;

Till, throughly saved, my new-born soul,
And perfectly by faith made whole,
Doth bright in thy full image rise,
To share thy glory in the skies.

Isaiah lvii. 18, 19.