Dost Thou require a feeble worm

Verse 1
Dost Thou require a feeble worm
To touch the sky, t’ arrest the storm,
The mountain to remove?
Dost Thou command what cannot be
That, thy apostate creature, Thee
I shoud intirely love?

Verse 2
Have I ability t’ obey,
I woud not, Lord, one moment stay:
But O, compel’d I own,
Forc’d by ten thousand efforts vain,
There is no power in fallen man
To love a God unknown.

Verse 3
The power must then from Thee proceed
If Thee I even love indeed,
The thing thy laws injoin
Thy Spirit must in me fulfil,
Who ask, according to thy will
The precious grace divine.

Verse 4
If all who will receive it, may,
I humbly for the blessing pray,
To poorest beggars given,
With strength of infinite desire
Thy only love do I require
Of all in earth, or heaven.

Verse 5
What shall I say my suit to gain?
Father, regard that heavenly Man,
Who groan’d on Calvary,
Who paid my ransom on the cross,
And ever lives to plead my cause,
And ask thy love for me.

Verse 6
In honor of a suppliant God,
The gift He purchas’d with his blood
Father, on me bestow
That loving Thee with all my heart,
And thus made ready to depart,
I to thy arms may go.

Hymnal/Album: This hymn was included in a manuscript titled “MS Hymns for Love.” This manuscript is held by the Methodist Archive and Research Centre of the John Rylands Library at The University of Manchester (accession number MA 1977/578, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. This was published in Arminian Magazine vol. 4 (1781), pages 117–18. Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 8 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 376.
Publishing: Public Domain