'Tis a point I long to know

'Tis a point I long to know

Author: John Newton
Published in 261 hymnals

Full Text

1 'Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought,
Do I love the Lord or no?
Am I his, or am I not?

2 If I love, why am I thus?
Why this dull and lifeless frame?
Hardly, sure, can they be worse,
Who have never heard his name!

3 Could my heart so hard remain,
Prayer a task and burden prove,
Every trifle give me pain,
If I knew a Savior's love?

4 When I turn my eyes within,
All is dark and, vain and wild,
Filled with unbelief and sin,
Can I deem myself a child?

5 If I pray, or hear, or read,
Sin is mixed with all I do;
You who love the Lord indeed,
Tell me, is it thus with you?

6 Yet I mourn my stubborn will,
Find my sin a grief and thrall;
Should I grieve at what I feel,
If I did not love at all?

7 Could I joy his saints to meet,
Choose the ways I once abhorred,
Find at times the promise sweet,
If I did not love the Lord?

8 Lord, decide this doubtful case!
Thou who art the people's sun,
Since upon thy work of grace,
If indeed it be begun.

9 Let me love thee more and more,
If I love at all, I'll pray,
If I have not loved before,
Help me to begin today.

The Christian's duty, exhibited in a series of hymns, 1791

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Author: John Newton

Newton, John, who was born in London, July 24, 1725, and died there Dec. 21, 1807, occupied an unique position among the founders of the Evangelical School, due as much to the romance of his young life and the striking history of his conversion, as to his force of character. His mother, a pious Dissenter, stored his childish mind with Scripture, but died when he was seven years old. At the age of eleven, after two years' schooling, during which he learned the rudiments of Latin, he went to sea with his father. His life at sea teems with wonderful escapes, vivid dreams, and sailor recklessness. He grew into an abandoned and godless sailor. The religious fits of his boyhood changed into settled infidelity, through the study of Shaftesbury and… Go to person page >

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Text Information

First Line: 'Tis a point I long to know
Author: John Newton
Language: English
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Notes

'Tis a point I long to know. J. Newton. [In Doubt and Fear.] Appeared in the Olney Hymns, 1779, Bk. i., No. 119, in 9 st of 4 lines. It is in common use in an abbreviated form, and opening with the first line as above. In some collections it begins, "Lord, my God, I long to know"; and in others, "Could my heart so hard remain" (stanza iii.). These altered forms of the text are in use principally in America.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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