Giver of repentance, Thee

Verse 1
Giver of repentance, Thee
My Lord I long to prove,
O vouchsafe the grace to me,
The grief of contrite love:
Sunk in sin, to Thee I pray
Exalted on thy glorious throne,
Saviour, Prince, thy power display,
And break my heart of stone.

Verse 2
Waits my heart insensible
Thy mercy’s power to know,
Cast the pitying look, and fill
My soul with sacred woe:
Then I to my Lord shall turn,
And conscious of the blood applied,
Look on Him I pierc’d, and mourn,
With Jesus crucified.

Verse 3
Thus my few remaining days
I would in sorrow spend,
Trampler on the God of grace,
And murtherer of my Friend,
Weeping, till my Friend appears,
By Him, but not myself forgiven,
Till He wipes away my tears,
And comforts me in heaven.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance.’—Acts 5, [v.] 31.” 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 S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), pages 301-02. It was also 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 257.
Publishing: Public Domain