God in mercy to our race

Verse 1
God in mercy to our race
Did all his laws ordain:
Precepts positive give place
T’ insure the good of man:
Every word from heaven reveal’d
Subservient to its end must prove,
Lose its binding force, and yield
To the great law of love.

Verse 2
When our neighbour’s wants declare
Extremity of woe,
Taught by God we nothing spare,
But truly all bestow:
God abandon’d, in their need,
The things reserv’d for Him alone,
Pitied those that wanted bread,
And fed them with his own.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Have ye never read what David did when he had need ... how he did eat the shewbread &c.’—[Mark 2,] v. 25, 26.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Mark.” 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 1977/574, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). 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. 10 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 461.
Publishing: Public Domain