What profits it alas, to hear

Verse 1
What profits it alas, to hear
Thy sayings with a careless ear,
Unless thy sayings I obey,
In vain I call thee God, or Lord;
Neglecting to perform thy word,
Thy word shall cast me in that day:
Thy gospel which I now despise,
Against me shall in judgment rise,
And aggravate my fearful doom:
Unless I feel my guilty load,
A sinner dying in my blood,
And to the Friend of sinners come.

Verse 2
A sinner now I come to Thee,
For pardon, life, and liberty,
Thy reconciling word receive:
Thou cam’st at first to shew thy grace,
Not to condemn our sinful race,
And died’st that all mankind might live.
In Thee an Advocate I have,
And answering thy design to save,
My humble confidence hold fast;
Blest with the faith that works by love,
Henceforth in all thy paths I move,
And reach my Father’s house at last.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘If any man hear my words and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth &c.’—[John 12,] v. 47, 48." 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. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 497.
Publishing: Public Domain