Why should our parents call us good

Verse 1
Why should our parents call us good,
And poison us with praise,
When born in sin by nature proud,
And void we are of grace?

Verse 2
Who fancy righteousness in man,
Themselves they have not known,
Evil are all our thoughts and vain,
And God is good alone.

Verse 3
Good of himself he only is;
And if he makes us good,
Our goodness is not ours, but his,
For Jesu’s sake bestow’d.

Verse 4
O let us not ourselves forget,
Tho’ man presume to praise,
And puff us up with the conceit
Of our own righteousness.

Verse 5
O let us as from serpents fly
From all who us commend,
Or fill’d with just abhorrence cry,
“Get thee behind me, fiend!”

Verse 6
Glory to God, if we receive
The smallest spark of grace,
He only doth our goodness give,
And his be all the praise.

Hymnal/Album: Introduced in Charles Wesley, Hymns for Children (Bristol: E. Farley, 1763). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 6 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 425.
Publishing: Public Domain