Sinners to seek and save He came,
They seek, that they their God may slay:
And I of the dire number am,
And Jesus with a kiss betray:
But let the season past suffice,
That with the ruffian-band I stood;
I see thee now with open’d eyes,
And prostrate own My Lord, my God!
Sinners to seek and save He came
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also which betrayed him stood with them.’—[John 18,] v. 5." This hymn appears in the 1763-64 manuscript “MS John.” 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 1977/573, 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. 12 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 66.
Publishing: Public Domain