Thou dost indeed conceal thy face

Verse 1
Thou dost indeed conceal thy face
Ev’n from the people of thy love,
Abate the rapturous sense of grace,
Their faith and patient hope to prove,
To make them trust a God unseen,
And know themselves to be but men.

Verse 2
If Thou my pardning God appear,
In pleasant ways I hasten on;
If Thou withdraw thy comforts here,
I walk by humble faith alone,
I ask, What makes my Lord depart?
I miss thy presence from my heart.

Verse 3
O that I every moment might
Thy presence, or thy absence, feel!
Walk on triumphant in thy light,
Or desolate in darkness dwell,
Happy in thy injoyment be,
Or wretched thro’ the want of Thee!

Verse 4
Only from sin my soul restrain:
Restrain’d from sin, I ask no more
But suffering like the Mournful Man
My Pattern on the cross adore,
A moment with my Saviour grieve,
In endless joy with Thee to live.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘I will wait upon the Lord that hideth his face from the house of Jacob.’—[Isa.] 8:17.” This hymn appears in the 1783 manuscript “MS Scriptural Hymns.” This manuscript is part of the collection of the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester (accession number MA 1977/576, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 9 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 379.
Publishing: Public Domain