Read "A Point I Long to Know" by John Newton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I: 'Tis a point I long to know, / Oft it causes anxious thought --
Do I love the Lord, or no?
Am I his, or am I not?
II: If I love, why am I thus?
Why this dull, this lifeless frame?
Hardly sure can they be worse / Who have never heard his name!
III: Could my heart so hard remain, / Pray'r a task and burden prove, / Every trifle give me pain, / If I knew a Saviour's love?
IV: When I turn my eyes within, / All is dark and vain and wild:
Fill'd with unbelief and sin, / Can I deem myself a child?
V: If I pray or hear or read, / Sin is mix'd with all I do; / You that love the Lord indeed, / Tell me, is it thus with you?
VI: Yet I mourn my stubborn will, / Find my sin a grief and thrall:
Should I grieve for what I feel, / If I did not love at all?
VII: Could I joy his saints to meet, / Choose the ways I once abhorr'd, / Find, at times, the promise sweet, / If I did not love the Lord?
VIII: Lord, decide the doubtful case!
Thou who art thy people's sun, / Shine upon thy work of grace, / If it be indeed begun.
IX: Let me love thee more and more, / If I love at all, I pray; / If I have not loved before, / Help me to begin to-day.