Faith cannot unfruitful prove

Verse 1
Faith cannot unfruitful prove,
Cannot its effects defer:
Well he might return their love,
Wash their stripes with grateful care:
They with greater tenderness
Pour’d the balm into his soul,
Ministred the gospel-grace,
Made his wounded spirit whole.

Verse 2
While their host with loving zeal
Kindly doth his patients tend,
Would they not of Jesus tell,
Point him to his dearest Friend?
“Lo,73 the Crucified appears!
“See, the bleeding tokens see!
“Sinner, wash them with thy tears,
“Kiss the stripes He bore for thee![”]

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes.’—[Acts 16,] v. 33.” This hymn appears in the 1764 manuscript “MS Acts.” 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 1977/555, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 1). 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. 12 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 324.
Publishing: Public Domain