Expiring in the sinner’s stead

Verse 1
Expiring in the Sinner’s stead,
I thirst the Friend of Sinners cries,
And feebly lifts his languid Head,
And breaths his Wishes to the Skies.

Verse 2
Not for the Vinegar they gave,
For Life, or Liberty, or Ease,
He thirsted all the World to save,
He only thirsted after This.

Verse 3
He thirsted for this Soul of mine,
That I might his Salvation see,
That I might in his Image shine;
Dear, wounded Lamb, He long’d for me!

Verse 4
Willing that All his Truth should know,
And feel the Virtue of his Blood,
He thirsted to redeem his Foe,
And reconcile a World to GOD.

Verse 5
And shall not We the same require,
And languish to be sav’d from Sin?
Yes, Lord, ’tis all our Soul’s Desire;
O wash, and make us pure within.

Verse 6
We thirst to drink thy healing Blood,
To wash us in the cleansing Tide,
We only long for Thee our GOD,
Our Jesus, and Thee Crucified.

Verse 7
Be satisfied: We long for Thee,
We add our strong Desires to Thine,
See then, thy Soul’s hard Travail see,
And die, to make us all Divine.

Hymnal/Album: Originally entitled: “‘I thirst.’—[John 19:28].” This hymn appears in the ca. 1743 manuscript “MS Thirty.” 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 1977/424, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 1). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. The entire hymn was published in S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 3 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1992), pages 156-57. Verses 1-5 and 7 were 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 94.
Publishing: Public Domain