My God, when I reflect

My God, when I reflect
How, all my life-time past,
I ran the roads of sin and death
With rash impetuous haste,

My foolishness I hate;
My filthiness I loathe;
And view, with sharp remorse and shame,
My filth and folly both.

With some the tempter takes
Much pains to make them mad;
But me he found, and always held,
The easiest fool he had.

His deep and dangerous lies
So grossly I believed,
He was not readier to deceive,
Than I to be deceived.

His light and airy dreams,
I took for solid good,
And thought his base, adulterate coin,
The riches of thy blood.

And dost thou still regard,
And cast a gracious eye
On one so foul, so base, so blind,
So dead, so lost, as I?

Then sinners black as hell
May hence for hope have ground;
For who of mercy needs despair,
Since I have mercy found?