1 Would Jesus have the sinner die?
Why hangs he then on yonder tree?
What means that strange expiring cry?
Sinners, he prays for you and me.
Forgive them, Father, O forgive!
They know not that by me they live!
2 Jesus descended from above
Our loss of Eden to retrieve;
Great God of universal love,
If all the world through thee may live,
In me a quickening Spirit be
And witness thou hast died for me!
3 Thou loving, all-atoning Lamb!
Thee—by thy painful agony,
Thy sweat of blood, thy grief and shame,
Thy cross and passion on the tree,
Thy precious death and life—I pray,
Take all, take all my sins away.
4 O let me kiss thy bleeding feet,
And bathe and wash them with my tears;
The story of thy love repeat
In every drooping sinner’s ears,
That all may hear the quickening sound,
Since I, even I, have mercy found.
5 O let thy love my heart constrain,
Thy love for every sinner free;
That every fallen soul of man
May taste the grace that found out me,
That all mankind with me may prove
Thy sovereign, everlasting love!
Source: The Song Book of the Salvation Army #140
Charles Wesley, M.A. was the great hymn-writer of the Wesley family, perhaps, taking quantity and quality into consideration, the great hymn-writer of all ages. Charles Wesley was the youngest son and 18th child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, and was born at Epworth Rectory, Dec. 18, 1707. In 1716 he went to Westminster School, being provided with a home and board by his elder brother Samuel, then usher at the school, until 1721, when he was elected King's Scholar, and as such received his board and education free. In 1726 Charles Wesley was elected to a Westminster studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1729, and became a college tutor. In the early part of the same year his religious impressions were much deepene… Go to person page >
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