Penitents the Saviour cheers

Verse 1
Penitents the Saviour chears,
Who beneath their burthen droop,
Wipes away the mourner’s tears,
Lifts the poor backsliders up;
Griev’d at having left our Lord,
While we after Jesus pine,
He the comfortable word
Sends to Peter’s heart, and mine.

Verse 2
Me, the vile deserter me,
Christ whom I denied, forsook,
Kindly calls his face to see,
Bids me to my Saviour look,
Token of his rise he gives,
Takes my fears and sins away,
Tells my heart, Again he lives,
Ever lives for me to pray.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Tell his disciples, and Peter, that he goeth before you into Galilee, that [there] shall ye see him, as he said unto you.’—[Mark 16,] v. 7.” 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. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 92.
Publishing: Public Domain