If Christ to try our faith ordain

Verse 1
If Christ to try our faith ordain,
The cruel heart of faithless man
To nature’s bent he leaves;
And then the persecuting foe,
Let loose his enmity to show,
Our flesh or spirit grieves.

Verse 2
But when our Lord intends to chear
His poor, afflicted confessor,
He doth the hate remove,
And soften’d then for his design,
Soldiers’ and heathens hearts incline
To gentleness and love.

Verse 3
Entreated with humanity,
Jesus, thy love’s effect we see,
Thine interposal own,
In enemies, or strangers kind
The favour of our God we find,
And praise our God alone.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Julius courteously entreated Paul.’—[Acts 27,] v. 3." 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 434.
Publishing: Public Domain