The poetical works of John and Charles Wesley

While in the flesh I languish,
And trace the Man of woe,
His most mysterious anguish,
His sharpest pangs I know,
I bear about the dying
Of Jesus on the tree,
To God my Father crying
“Thou hast forsaken me.”

The cause of separation,
My sin, my sin I own;
Thy righteous indignation
Extorts the plaintive groan:
Chastised for sin's demerit,
Its bitterness I prove,
And suffer in His Spirit
Who never grieved Thy love.

Beneath His dereliction,
If Christ His mind impart,
I bear the full affliction,
Till it has broke my heart;

I breathe my spirit wounded
In bleeding sympathy,
I bow with clouds surrounded,
I die, my Lord, like Thee.

O'er sin and death victorious,
Who share Thy mortal pain,
In bliss divinely glorious
Are sure with Thee to reign.
Thy dead revived shall praise Thee,
This body too shall rise;
And I fly up to' embrace Thee,
My Saviour, in the skies.

University of Virginia Library

3119.

[While in the flesh I languish]