{
 "id": "william-cowper/love-constraining-to-obedience",
 "title": "Love Constraining to Obedience",
 "ordinal": "62",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "William Cowper",
 "poet_slug": "william-cowper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Olney Hymns",
 "book_slug": "olney-hymns",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 303,
 "container": "V Dedication and Surrender",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1779,
  "venue": "Olney Hymns (1779)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_olney-hymns-in-three-bo_newton-john_1779",
   "https://cowperandnewtonmuseum.org.uk/bulletin/computerised-index-to-the-olney-hymns/",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-newton_william-cowper_olney-hymns",
  "file": "book-3.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Olney_Hymns_%281840%29",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-15"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 6,
  "longest_line_chars": 35,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    1,
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   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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  },
  {
   "ordinal": "IV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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  },
  {
   "ordinal": "V",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VI",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    5,
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   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "No strength of nature can suffice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To serve the Lord aright;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And what she has she misapplies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For want of clearer light.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How long beneath the law I lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In bondage and distress!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I toil’d the precept to obey,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But toil’d without success.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then to abstain from outward sin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was more than I could do:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Now, if I feel its power within,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I feel I hate it too.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then all my servile works were done",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A righteousness to raise;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Now freely chosen in the Son,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I freely choose his ways.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What shall I do, was then the word.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I may worthier grow?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "What shall I render to the Lord?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is my inquiry now.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To see the law by Christ fulfill’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hear his pard’ning voice,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Changes a slave into a child,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And duty into choice.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}