Astonish’d at Thy patient love

Verse 1
Astonish’d at thy patient love,
Which lets me load the earth so long,
O coud I from my sins remove,
Cease an indulgent God to wrong,
Answer thy merciful design,
And in my own salvation join.

Verse 2
Thou bidst me put my sins away,
But Thou must give th’ obedient power,
And therefore doth thy Spirit stay,
Protract the acceptable hour,
Bestow the penitential space,
And lengthen out my evil days.

Verse 3
Year after year for this I live,
That by long-suffering love subdued,
I may at last thro’ faith retrieve
The favor and the form of God,
May in true holiness arise,
Meet for a throne above the skies.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Account that the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation.’—[2 Pet.] 3:15.” 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. 13 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1872), page 194.
Publishing: Public Domain