With grief a father must foresee

Verse 1
With grief a father must foresee
The havock of his children nigh:
But Jesus suffers it to be,
And kindly turns his servant’s eye
From gazing on his own success,
To future scenes of sad distress.

Verse 2
Ev’n now, in deep prophetic woe
The prosper’d minister may say,
After my death too well I know
The grievous wolves expect their prey:
The grievous wolves will entrance find,
And rend the flock I leave behind.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.’—[Acts 20,] v. 29." 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 S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 402.
Publishing: Public Domain