Sinner, who dost not bear

Verse 1
Sinner, who dost not bear
The penitential fruit,
The righteous Judge will not defer,
The axe is at the root:
His justice hath decreed
To cast thee into hell,
And every barren tree shall feed
That fire unquenchable.

Verse 2
The sentence past on all
Doth no exception make,
But every graceless soul shall fall
Into the burning lake;
Who want that holiness
Our God they cannot see,
But perish, driven from his face,
To all eternity.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore &c.’—[Luke 3,] v. 9.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Luke.” 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 1977/575, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), pages 86-87. Verse 1 was 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 126.
Publishing: Public Domain