Come, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, To whom we for our children cry

Verse 1
Come Father, Son, and Holy-Ghost,
To whom we for our children cry,
The good desir’d and wanted most
Out of thy richest grace supply,
The sacred discipline be given
To train, and bring them up for heaven.

Verse 2
Answer on them that end of all
Our cares, and pains, and studies here,
On them, recover’d from their fall,
Stampt with the humble[1] character,
Rais’d by the nurture of the Lord,
To all their paradise restor’d.

Verse 3
Error and ignorance remove,
Their blindness both of heart and mind,
Give them the wisdom from above,
Spotless, and peaceable, and kind,
In knowledge pure their mind renew,
And store with thoughts divinely true.

Verse 4
Learning’s redundant part and vain
Be here cut off, and cast aside:
But let them, Lord, the substance gain,
In every solid truth abide,
Swiftly acquire, and ne’er forego
The knowledge fit for man to know.

Verse 5
Unite the pair so long disjoin’d
Knowledge and vital piety,
Learning and holiness combin’d,
And truth and love let all men see
In these whom up to thee we give,
Thine, wholly thine to die and live.

Verse 6
Father, accept them in thy Son
And ever by thy Spirit guide,
Thy wisdom in their lives be shewn,
Thy name confess’d and glorified,
Thy power and love diffus’d abroad,
’Till all our earth is fill’d with God.

[1] Wesley changed “humble” to “heavenly” in 1768.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “At the Opening of a School in Kingswood.” Introduced in Charles Wesley, Hymns for Children (Bristol: E. Farley, 1763). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 6 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 407.
Publishing: Public Domain