The Flesh Lusteth Against the Spirit

Representative Text

1 Strange and mysterious is my life;
What opposites I feel within!
A stable peace, a constant strife;
The rule of grace, the power of sin;
Too often I am captive led,
Yet often triumph in my Head.

2 I prize the privilege of prayer,
But O what backwardness to pray!
Though on the Lord I cast my care,
I feel its burden every day;
I’d seek his will in all I do,
Yet find my own is working too.

3 I call the promises my own,
And prize them more than mines of gold;
Yet though their sweetness I have known,
They leave me unimpressed and cold;
One hour upon the truth I feed,
The next I know not what I read.

4 Thus different powers within me strive,
And grace and sin by turns prevail;
I grieve, rejoice, decline, revive,
And victory hangs in doubtful scale;
But Jesus has his promise passed
That grace shall overcome at last.

Source: A Selection of Hymns for Public Worship. In four parts (10th ed.) (Gadsby's Hymns) #728

Author: John Newton

John Newton (b. London, England, 1725; d. London, 1807) was born into a Christian home, but his godly mother died when he was seven, and he joined his father at sea when he was eleven. His licentious and tumul­tuous sailing life included a flogging for attempted desertion from the Royal Navy and captivity by a slave trader in West Africa. After his escape he himself became the captain of a slave ship. Several factors contributed to Newton's conversion: a near-drowning in 1748, the piety of his friend Mary Catlett, (whom he married in 1750), and his reading of Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ. In 1754 he gave up the slave trade and, in association with William Wilberforce, eventually became an ardent abolitionist. After becoming a tide… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: Strange and mysterious is my life
Title: The Flesh Lusteth Against the Spirit
Author: John Newton
Meter: 8.8.8.8.8.8
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Tune

SOLID ROCK

The Sunday school hymn writer William B. Bradbury (PHH 114) composed SOLID ROCK in 1863 for Edward Mote's "My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less." The tune name derives from that song's refrain: "On Christ, the solid rock, I stand. . . .” Bradbury published SOLID ROCK in his 1864 children's collection…

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The Cyber Hymnal #1050
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The Cyber Hymnal #1050

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