Submissive to Thy Father’s will

Verse 1
Submissive to thy Father’s will,
Jesus, Thou didst thy life lay down,
Didst of thine own accord fulfil
The strange design of love unknown
Obedient to his love’s decree,
Thou didst the general ransom pay:
Thy deed was absolute, and free,
And yet Thou couldst not disobey.

Verse 2
Love only did my Lord constrain
Thy life so freely to resign,
A sacrifice for guilty man;
A grateful sacrifice divine:
Love would, not let my Saviour rest,
Sole cause of the stupendous deed,
It drew thee from thy Father’s breast,
It made the Man of sorrows bleed.

Verse 3
Deserving in thy proper right
Thou hence obtain’st thy Father’s love,
And rais’d by thy own Spirit’s might,
Appear’st our Advocate above;
Great Patron of the ransom’d race,
Well-pleas’d He always is with Thee:
And Thou hast merited his grace,
And Thou hast bought his love for me.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No man taketh it from me &c.’—[John 10,] v. 17, 18." 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. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 461.
Publishing: Public Domain