Ye envious Scribes who tread

Verse 1
Ye envious Scribes, who tread
The path your fathers trod,
Ye draw their guilt upon your head
With all the martyrs blood;
For judgments ripe, at last
Ye bring the former down,
Renew the crimes of ages past,
And make them all your own.

Verse 2
The blood of Abel cries,
To raise your judgment higher,
The blood of Zachary replies,
And echoes back Require!
The long-continued chain
Of woes on you shall come,
And saints beneath the altar slain
Demand your instant doom.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel, unto the blood of Zacharias.’—[Matt. 23,] v. 35.” 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 363.
Publishing: Public Domain