Whom God pronounced his favorite Son

Verse 1
Whom God pronounc’d his fav’rite Son,
Can Christ his Father’s word disown?
Whom God acknowledg’d from above,
Can Christ suspect his Father’s love?
As left in the distressing hour,
Mistrust his providential power?
And kept for forty days unfed,
Despair of life for want of bread?

Verse 2
In vain for Christ the tempter spread
The snare for the first Adam laid;
Urging our Lord to disbelieve
He could not God himself deceive:
In vain doth hell with Heaven contend:
He proves his Godhead on the fiend,
Opposes with the written word,
And foils him by the Spirit’s sword.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘When the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.’—[Matt. 4,] v. 3.” 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 151.
Publishing: Public Domain