Love Constraining to Obedience

I

No strength of nature can suffice
To serve the Lord aright;
And what she has she misapplies,
For want of clearer light.

II

How long beneath the law I lay
In bondage and distress!
I toil’d the precept to obey,
But toil’d without success.

III

Then to abstain from outward sin
Was more than I could do:
Now, if I feel its power within,
I feel I hate it too.

IV

Then all my servile works were done
A righteousness to raise;
Now freely chosen in the Son,
I freely choose his ways.

V

What shall I do, was then the word.
That I may worthier grow?
What shall I render to the Lord?
Is my inquiry now.

VI

To see the law by Christ fulfill’d,
And hear his pard’ning voice,
Changes a slave into a child,
And duty into choice.