Entire dependence on Christ

218 4th P. M. 886, 886.
Entire dependence on Christ.

EXCEPT the Lord conduct the plan,
   The best concerted schemes are vain,
   And never can succeed;
   We spend our wretched strength for naught;
   But if our works in thee be wrought,
   They shall he blest indeed.

2 Lord, if thou didst thyself inspire
   Our souls with this intense desire,
   Thy goodness to proclaim;
   Thy glory if we now intend,
   0 let our deeds begin and end
   Complete in Jesus’ name.

3 In Jesus’ name behold we meet,
   Far from an evil world retreat,
   And all its frantic ways;
   One only thing resolved to know,
   And square our useful lives below,
   By reason and by grace.

4 Not in the tombs we pine to dwell,
   Not in the dark monastic cell,
   By vows and grates confined;
   Freely to all ourselves we give,
   Constrain’d by Jesus’ love to live
   The servants of mankind.

5 Now, Jesus, now thy love‘ impart,
   To govern each devoted heart,
   And fit us for thy will;
   Deep founded in the truth of grace,
   Build up thy rising Church , and place
   The city on the hill.

6 O let our love and faith abound;
   O let our lives, to all around,
   With purest lustre shine;
   That all around our works may see,
   And give the glory, Lord, to thee,
   The heavenly light divine.
                  Charles Wesley
                  Methodist Episcopal hymnal (1870 edition)