1 Alas! by nature how depraved,
How prone to every ill!
Our lives to Satan how enslaved,
How obstinate our will!
2 And can such sinners be restored,
Such rebels reconciled!
Can grace sufficient means afford
To make the foe a child!
3 Yes, grace has sound the wondrous means
Which shall effectual prove;
To cleanse us from our countless sins,
And teach our hearts to love.
4 Jesus for us a ransom paid,
And died that we might live;
His blood a full atonement made,
And cried aloud, Forgive.
5 Yet one thing more mus grace provide,
To bring us home to God;
Or we shall slight the Lord, who died,
And trample on his blood.
6 The holy Spirit must reveal
The Savior's work and worth:
Then the hard heart begins to feel
A new and heavenly birth.
The Hartford Selection of Hymns from the most approved authors, 1799
7 Thus bought with blood, and born again,
Redeem'd and sav'd by grace;
Rebels in God's own house obtain
A son's and daughters place.
First Line: | Alas! by nature how depraved |
Author: | John Newton |
Meter: | 8.6.8.6 |
Language: | English |
Copyright: | Public Domain |
Alas! by nature how depraved. J. Newton. [Lent.] Appeared in the Olney Hymns, 1779, Bk. ii., No. 29, in 7 stanzas of 4 lines, and based on the words, "How shall I put thee among the children?" Jer. iii. 19. As given in Snepp's Songs of Grace and Glory, 1872, No. 450, and elsewhere, it is composed of st. i.-iv. of the original.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)