Were his alms and ceaseless prayers

Verse 1
Were his alms and ceaseless prayers
Splendid sins in God’s esteem?
No: the Lord himself declares
Both acceptable to Him:
Grateful both as incense rise,
Bring an angel from the skies.

Verse 2
Prayers and alms to heaven ascend;
But they first from heaven come down:
Man to help if man intend,
Good design’d is not his own:
If to God his heart aspire,
God infus’d the chast desire.

Verse 3
Offer’d by an heart sincere
Prayers and alms the Lord receives
From an upright worshipper;
While, whate’er he prays, or gives,
Thro’ his Advocate unknown
Finds a passage to the throne.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.’—[Acts 10,] v. 4.” 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 S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 335. The first two verses were 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 243.
Publishing: Public Domain