1 Stay, Thou insulted Spirit, stay,
Though I have done Thee such despite;
Nor cast the sinner quite away,
Nor take Thine everlasting flight.
2 Though I have steeled my stubborn heart,
And shaken off my guilty fears;
And vexed, and urged Thee to depart,
For many long rebellious years:
3 Though I have most unfaithful been,
Of all who e’er Thy grace received;
Ten thousand times Thy goodness seen;
Ten thousand times Thy goodness grieved.
4 Yet, O, the chief of sinners spare,
In honor of my great High Priest;
Nor in Thy righteous anger swear
To exclude me from Thy people’s rest.
AMEN.
Source: The A.M.E. Zion Hymnal: official hymnal of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church #428
First Line: | Stay, Thou insulted Spirit, stay |
Title: | To the Holy Ghost |
Author: | Charles Wesley |
Meter: | 8.8.8.8 |
Language: | English |
Copyright: | Public Domain |
Stay, Thou insulted Spirit, stay. C. Wesley. [Lent.] Published in Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1749, vol. i., No. 41, in 7 stanzas of 4 lines. (Poetical Works, 1868-72, vol. iv., p. 370.) It was included in the Wesleyan Hymn Book, 1780, No. 155, with the omission of stanzas vi., and the change of stanzas ii., 1. 4, from, "For forty long rebellious years" (the forty referred to his own age at the time), to "For many long," &c. The Wesleyan Hymn Book form of the text is in most of the Methodist collections, and a few others. Other forms of the text are:—(1) "Stay, injured, grieved, Spirit, stay," in Bickersteth's Christian Psalmody, 1833, and later collections; and (2) "Stay, Thou long-suffering Spirit, stay," in the American Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, 1878.
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)