Father, forgive the sinful race

Verse 1
“Father, forgive the sinful Race
“Who in my Blood their Hands imbrue,
“O let my Blood their Sins efface;
“Alas, they know not what they do![”]

Verse 2
Hear the meek Lamb for Sinners plead,
For Those who nail’d him to the Tree:
He suffers in his Murtherers stead,
He prays for all Mankind, and me.

Verse 3
Our Sins have nail’d Him to the Wood,
Our Sins the Prince of Life have slain,
Have spilt his Heart’s last Drop of Blood,
Nor can He bleed, or pray in vain.

Verse 4
We are from all our Sins releas’d,
We trust in That expiring Groan,
In Him the Father is well-pleas’d,
He always hears his Fav’rite Son.

Verse 5
“Forgive them” gasps his parting Breath,
And all the World is now forgiven,
GOD heard Him interceed beneath,
And seal’d the dying Prayer in Heaven.

Verse 6
Forgive them, still the Saviour cries,
Sprinkling the Nations with his Blood,
The Blood of Sprinkling fills the Skies,
And speaks Believers up to GOD.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’—[Luke 23:34].” 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. 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 95.
Publishing: Public Domain