What avails the outward sign

Verse 1
What avails the outward sign,
Without the inward grace?
Lord, I want thy Spirit Divine,
The spark of love to raise,
Straitned thro’ intense desire
To feel the pure, baptismal flame:
Let the Holy Ghost inspire,
And plunge me in thy name.

Verse 2
Unbaptis’d, in sin I live,
Till I thy Spirit feel:
To thy ransom’d servant give
That Gift unspeakable,
Witness, Pledge of joys unseen
Thy Spirit breathe into my breast:
Partner of thy nature then,
And one with Thee I rest.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.’—[Mark 1,] v. 8.” Wesley originally published this hymn in his 1762 hymnal "Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 2" (Bristol: Farley, 1762). He later included it in his unpublished 1766 manuscript “MS Mark.” 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 1977/575, 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 445.
Publishing: Public Domain