Ah! wretched souls who once in grace

Verse 1
Ah! wretched souls, who once in grace,
Who one in Thee, were truly thine,
But left for sin thy righteous ways,
And shipwreck made of faith divine,
By unbelief broke off from Thee,
They die in their apostacy!

Verse 2
Among the branches found no more,
Depriv’d of faith, and life, and love,
Abandon’d to the tempter’s power
Vilest of all th’ apostates prove,
The sorest punishment require,
Cast into that eternal fire.

Verse 3
Saviour, reverse my righteous doom
Fallen alas, from pardning grace,
Yet do not in thy wrath consume,
But give me still a longer space,
And graft again into the Vine,
And keep my soul forever thine.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.’—[John 15,] v. 6." This hymn appears in the 1763-64 manuscript “MS John.” 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 1977/573, 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. 12 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 22.
Publishing: Public Domain