That irresistible I AM

Verse 1
That irresistible I AM
Declares the present Deity,
Yet none convinc’d their God proclaim,
Whose power and love they feel and see:
Who struck their bodies to the ground,
He might have struck their souls to hell,
In chains of penal darkness bound,
And plung’d in flames unquenchable.

Verse 2
Ah, what can outward wonders do,
T’ o’recome the stubbornness of man?
Unless Thou bind our spirits too,
Thy judgments cast us down in vain:
My hopes, designs, or health o’rethrow,
Yet will I not to Thee submit;
But give my heart thy love to know,
And then I worship at thy feet.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘As soon then as he had said unto them, I am He, they went backward, and fell to the ground.’—[John 18,] v. 6." 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