Scripture Verse

The Lord…is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

Introduction

Words: Charles Wes­ley (1707–1788).

Written dur­ing the heat­ed con­tro­ver­sy on An­ti­no­mi­an­ism, Ar­mi­ni­an­ism, and Cal­vin­ism, which was car­ried on by the Wes­leys, White­field, Top­la­dy, and oth­ers. It was pub. in Hys. on God’s Ev­er­last­ing Love, 1741, in 26 st. of 8 l. (P. Works, 1868–72, vol iii. p. 78).

Two cen­tos there­from are in [com­mon usa­ge]: (1) Equip me for the war, in the Wes. H. Book, 1780, No. 262 (ed. 1875, No. 270); and O, arm me with the mind, which is found in the Am­eri­can Uni­tar­ian Hys. for the Church of Christ, 1853, &c.

Julian, p. 824

Great care must be tak­en when us­ing this text, as it in­cludes im­ag­ined quotes of Sa­tan’s lies about God’s grace. We have tried to faith­ful­ly re­pro­duce the orig­in­al, to make it clear when Wes­ley is quot­ing the de­vil. Our on­ly in­ten­tion­al al­te­ra­tion is the use of mo­dern spell­ing, ca­pi­tal­iz­ation and punc­tua­tion, to (hope­ful­ly) in­crease cla­ri­ty.

This hymn (com­plete or in part) has ap­peared in ov­er 110 hym­nals. The text be­low is from the 1742 edi­tion of Wes­ley’s Hymns on God’s Ev­er­last­ing Love, pag­es 37–42. With all the shift­ing quotes, it’s ea­sy to see why so ma­ny hym­nal ed­it­ors chose to use on­ly select­ed cen­tos.

Music: Gött­ing­en, in The Pri­mi­tive Me­tho­dist Hym­nal, ed­it­ed by George Booth (Lon­don: Pri­mi­tive Me­tho­dist Pub­lish­ing House, 1889), num­ber 1007 (🔊 pdf nwc).

Alternate Tunes:

portrait
Charles Wesley (1707–1788)

Lyrics

O all-aton­ing Lamb,
O Sav­ior of man­kind,
If ev­ery soul may in Thy name
With me sal­va­tion find;
If Thou hast chos­en me,
To tes­ti­fy Thy grace
(That vast un­fa­thom­able sea
Which co­vers all our race):

Equip me for the war,
And teach my hands to fight,
My sim­ple up­right heart pre­pare,
And guide my words aright!
Control my ev­ery thought,
My whole of self re­move;
Let all my works in Thee be wrought,
Let all be wrought in love.

O arm me with the mind,
Meek Lamb, that was in Thee,
And let my know­ing zeal be joined
To fer­vent cha­ri­ty:
With calm and tem­pered zeal
Let me en­force Thy call,
And vin­di­cate Thy gra­cious will,
Which of­fers life to all.

O! do not let me trust
In any arm but Thine,
Humble, O hum­ble to the dust
This stub­born soul of mine;
Cast all my reeds aside,
Captivate ev­ery thought,
And drain me of my strength and pride,
And bring me down to naught.

Thou dost not stand in need
Of me to prop Thy cause,
T’assert Thy ge­ner­al grace, or spread
The vic­to­ry of Thy cross;
A fee­ble thing of naught
With hum­ble shame I own;
The help which up­on Earth is wrought
Thou dost it all alone.

Little, and base, and mean,
And vile in mine own eyes,
A lump of mi­se­ry and sin
At Thy com­mand I rise;
I rise at Thy com­mand,
I an­swer to Thy call,
A wit­ness of Thy grace I stand,
Thy grace which is for all.

O may I love like Thee,
And in Thy foot­steps tread!
Thou hat­est all ini­qui­ty,
But no­thing Thou hast made;
O may I learn Thy art
With meek­ness to re­prove,
To hate the sin with all my heart,
But still the sin­ner love.

Increase (if that can be)
The per­fect hate I feel
To Sa­tan’s Hor­ri­ble De­cree,
That ge­nu­ine child of Hell;
Which feigns Thee to pass by
The most of Ad­am’s race,
And leave them in their blood to die,
Shut out from sav­ing grace.

To most, as de­vils teach,
(Get thee be­hind me, Fiend!)
To most Thy mer­cies ne­ver reach,
Whose mer­cies ne­ver end:
Millions of souls Thy will
Delighted to or­dain
Inevitable death to feel,
And ev­er­last­ing pain.

In vain Thy writ­ten Word
The hell­ish tale gain­says,
Bids all re­ceive their com­mon Lord,
And of­fers all Thy grace:
Prophets, apos­tles join,
And saints and an­gels call;
And Christ at­tests the love di­vine,
That sent Him down for all.

Yet still, alas! there are
Who give their God the lie,
The Sav­ior of the world they dare
With all His truths de­ny;
A monstrous two-fold will
To God the Just they give,
“His secret one or­dained to kill,
Whom His de­clared bids live.

The God of truth com­mands
All sin­ners to re­pent,
And mocks the work of His own hands,
By what He ne­ver meant:
Commands them to be­lieve
An un­avail­ing lie,
Him for their Sav­ior to re­ceive,
For them who did not die.

Loving to ev­ery man,
Of ten­der­est pi­ty full,
Did God the Good, the Just, or­dain
To damn one help­less soul?
He did! the Just, the Good,
(Hell an­swers from be­neath)
Spite of His Word, His oath, He would;
He wills the sin­ner’s death.

Like as a Fa­ther feels
His suf­fer­ing child­ren’s care,
In God such kind com­pas­sion dwells,
For all His offs­pring are:
He loves His lit­tle ones,
(As Sa­tan speaks) “so well,
To dash their brains against the stones,
And shut them up in Hell.

He gives them damn­ing grace
To raise their tor­ments high­er,
And makes His shriek­ing child­ren pass
To Mo­loch through the fire;
He doomed their souls to death
From all eter­ni­ty,

This is that wisd­om from be­neath,
That Hor­ri­ble De­cree!

My soul it har­rows up,
It freez­es all my blood,
My ting­ling ears I fain would stop
Against their hell­ish god.
Constrained, al­as! to hear
His re­pro­bat­ing roar,
And see him hor­ri­bly ap­pear
All stained with hu­man gore.

’Tis thus, Thou lov­ing Lamb,
Thy crea­tures pic­ture Thee;
I blush to own my na­ture’s shame,
That na­ture is in me;
But let it not re­main,
The dire re­proach ef­face;
Arise, O God, Thy truth main­tain,
Thy all-re­deem­ing grace.

Defend Thy mer­cy’s cause:
Men have blas­phemed their God,
Thrown down the al­tar of Thy cross,
And tram­pled on Thy blood;
Thy truth and right­eous­ness
Their im­pi­ous schemes dis­prove
And rob Thee of Thy fa­vo­rite grace;
Thine uni­vers­al love.

Ah! fool­ish souls, and blind!
If your re­port be true,
If mer­cy is not un­con­fined,
What mer­cy were for you!
Who all His truth blas­pheme,
Who all His grace de­ny;
Fury, ye worms, is not in Him,
Or He would you pass by.

Jesus, for­give the wrong,
But O! Thy foes re­strain,
Silence the lewd, op­pro­bri­ous tongue,
That scourg­es Thee again:
They put Thee, Lord, to shame,
Again to death pur­sue;
Yet O for­give them, gen­tle Lamb,
They know not what they do.

Some men of sim­ple heart
The De­vil’s tale be­lieve,
Beguiled by the old Ser­pent’s art,
His say­ing they re­ceive:
For fear of rob­bing Thee
They rob Thee of Thy grace,
And (O good God) to prove it free,
Damn al­most all the race.

Pity their sim­ple­ness,
O Sav­ior of man­kind,
Scatter the clouds of smoke that press
Their weak, be­wil­dered mind;
The oth­er Gos­pel chase
To Hell from whence it came;
And let them taste Thy gen­er­al grace,
And let them know Thy name.

O all-re­deem­ing Lord,
Our com­mon friend and head,
Thine ev­er­last­ing Gos­pel word
In their be­half we plead!
If they have drank their bane,
Do Thou the death re­move,
The ve­no­mous thing drive out again
By uni­vers­al love.

Let it not plunge their soul
In all th’ex­tremes of ill,
The fa­tal mis­chief, Lord, con­trol,
Nor suf­fer it to kill;
Thou wouldst that none should die,
O bring them back to God;
Thy so­ver­eign an­ti­dote ap­ply,
Thine all-aton­ing blood.

Avenge us of our foe,
And crush the Ser­pent’s head,
Nor long­er suf­fer him to sow
On earth the dead­ly seed;
The Tram­pler on Thy grace
Bruise him be­neath our feet;
To Hell the old De­ceiv­er chase,
And seal the burn­ing pit.

Then shall Thy saints re­joice,
The Song of Moses sing,
With an­gel choirs lift up their voice,
And praise their heav’n­ly king.
Th’Accuser is sub­dued,
And put to end­less shame,
Cast down by the all-cleans­ing blood
Of the vic­to­ri­ous Lamb.