The love of Jesus’s cross, how rare!

Verse 1
The love of Jesus cross how rare!
We sadden its approach to see,
Afraid his sacred load to bear,
And trace his steps to Calvary:
Our dread to lose the goods below,
With fame, or friends, or ease, to part,
O’rewhelms the faithless soul with woe,
And fills with grief the selfish heart.

Verse 2
Sorrow may enter and remain;
A Christian heart it should not fill:
Saviour, in us it cannot reign,
Who bow submissive to thy will:
Our faith and hope superior rise,
And keep the strugling evil down,
Till fully sav’d, we grasp the prize,
And thro’ thy cross obtain thy crown.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.’’—[John 16,] 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 37.
Publishing: Public Domain