Thee, Lord, I joyfully confess

Verse 1
Thee, Lord, I joyfully confess
The sole Disposer of thine own,
If equal, or superior grace
Thou freely hast to others shown:
Their gifts with a malignant eye,
An envious wish, I cannot see;
But humbly on thy death rely
For all the good it bought for me.

Verse 2
If those who after me are come
Be honour’d and prefer’d before,
I will not to complain presume,
But humbled at thy feet adore:
I dare not in thy presence plead
My labours or my sufferings past,
Happy if, while I bow my head,
My soul is scarcely sav’d at last.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own? is thine eye evil because I am good &c?’—[Matt. 20,] v. 15.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Matthew.” 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 1977/577, 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. 10 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 334.
Publishing: Public Domain