Love constraining to obedience

No strength of nature can suffice 

      To serve the Lord aright; 

   And what she has she misapplies, 

      For want of clearer light. 

How long beneath the law I lay 

      I bondage and distress! 

   I toil’d the precept to obey, 

      But toil’d without success. 

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. 

Then all my servile works were done 

      A righteousness to raise; 

   Now, freely chosen in the Son, 

      I freely choose his ways. 

 What shall I do, was then the word, 

      That I may worthier grow? 

   What shall I render to the Lord? 

      Is my inquiry now. 

 To see the law by Christ fulfill’d 

      And hear his pardoning voice, 

   Changes a slave into a child, 

      And duty into choice. 

                     William Cowper, 1779.