The Enlightened Sinner

Representative Text

1 My God, when I reflect
How, all my life-time past,
I ran the roads of sin and death
With rash impetuous haste,

2 My foolishness I hate;
My filthiness I loathe;
And view, with sharp remorse and shame,
My filth and folly both.

3 [With some the tempter takes
Much pains to make them mad;
But me he found, and always held,
The easiest fool he had.

4 His deep and dangerous lies
So grossly I believed,
He was not readier to deceive,
Than I to be deceived.

5 His light and airy dreams,
I took for solid good,
And thought his base, adulterate coin,
The riches of thy blood.]

6 And dost thou still regard,
And cast a gracious eye
On one so foul, so base, so blind,
So dead, so lost, as I?

7 Then sinners black as hell
May hence for hope have ground;
For who of mercy needs despair,
Since I have mercy found?

Source: A Selection of Hymns for Public Worship. In four parts (10th ed.) (Gadsby's Hymns) #775

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Author: J. Hart

Hart, Joseph, was born in London in 1712. His early life is involved in obscurity. His education was fairly good; and from the testimony of his brother-in-law, and successor in the ministry in Jewin Street, the Rev. John Hughes, "his civil calling was" for some time "that of a teacher of the learned languages." His early life, according to his own Experience which he prefaced to his Hymns, was a curious mixture of loose conduct, serious conviction of sin, and endeavours after amendment of life, and not until Whitsuntide, 1757, did he realize a permanent change, which was brought about mainly through his attending divine service at the Moravian Chapel, in Fetter Lane, London, and hearing a sermon on Rev. iii. 10. During the next two years ma… Go to person page >

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