The sinful will of man,
Without his own design,
Subserves, if so our God ordain,
The holy will Divine:
Our God’s almighty grace
O’rerules the bounded ill,
To answer his great purposes,
And all his thoughts fulfil:
Of sinners He foretells
The wickedness foreknown,
Permits their act, but not compels,
Their act is all their own:
Who can the wisdom sound
Of his eternal mind,
That makes my Saviour’s mortal wound
The life of all mankind!
The sinful will of man
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘But these things which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.’—[Acts 3,] v. 18.” This hymn appears in the 1764 manuscript “MS Acts.” 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 1977/555, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 1). 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 163.
Publishing: Public Domain