A pastor should consider long

Verse 1
A pastor should consider long
The task and strength to fit,
Nor much require from converts young,
Or services too great:
By urging novices too fast,
While yet their grace is small,
He stops, and makes them worse at last,
He marrs, and ruins all.

Verse 2
Satan himself will push them on
T’ affect the high estate
Of men to perfect stature grown,
And preach “they need not wait”;
Will dash their souls against the rock,
The babes by pride insnare,
And when he can no longer mock,
Implunge them in despair.

Verse 3
A guide and master-builder wise
The deep foundation lays,
That souls from humble love may rise
To reach the perfect grace:
Humility preserves, and takes
For saints the lowest seat,
Love only edifies, and makes
The man of God compleat.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘No man seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse.’—[Mark 2,] v. 21.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Mark.” 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 1977/574, 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. 10 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 460.
Publishing: Public Domain