Who can the yoke of Moses bear

Verse 1
Who can the yoke of Moses bear?
It drives a sinner to despair;
Crushes the soul, but not relieves,
Commands, but no assistance gives,
Confounds, but not destroys, our pride,
And lets us still in death abide.

Verse 2
The law our irksom duty shows,
But no obedient power bestows,
It brings us light and knowledge vain
More to increase our sin and pain,
It aggravates our heaviest load,
And leaves us to the curse of God.

Verse 3
But Jesus’ death hath set us free
From sin, and curse, and penalty:
For us He purchas’d on the cross
A power to keep his righteous laws,
To bear his easy yoke, and prove
All his commands fulfill’d in love.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘A yoke which neither our fathers, nor we were able to bear.’—[Acts 15,] v. 10.” 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 302.
Publishing: Public Domain