The Inward Warfare

Strange and mysterious is my life, What opposites I feel within! A stable peace, a constant strife; The rule of grace, the power of sin: Too often I am captive led, Yet daily triumph in my Head.

I prize the privilege of prayer, But oh! what backwardness to pray! Though on the Lord I cast my care, I feel its burden every day; I seek his will in all I do, Yet find my own is working too.

I call the promises my own, And prize them more than mines of gold; Yet though their sweetness I have known, They leave me unimpress’d and cold: One hour upon the truth I feed, The next I know not what to read.

I love the holy day of rest, When Jesus meets his gather’d saints; Sweet day, of all the week the best! For its return my spirit pants: Yet often through my unbelief, It proves a day of guilt and grief.

While on the Saviour I rely, I know my foes shall lose their aim; And therefore dare their power defy, Assured of conquest through his name: But soon my confidence is slain, And all my fears return again.

Thus diff’rent powers within me strive, And grace and sin by turns prevail; I grieve, rejoice, decline, revive, And vict’ry hangs in doubtful scale: But Jesus has his promise past, That grace shall overcome at last.