The evangelic minister

Verse 1
The evangelic minister
Should above others have
A zeal for God, an active care
Immortal souls to save:
But if his duty he neglect,
His long-offended Lord
The slothful servant will reject,
And quite revoke the word.

Verse 2
The word, the care, the labouring zeal
He doth to others give:
And laymen now of Jesus tell,
And urge us to believe;
Unlearn’d they rise and scale the sky,
While scribes who all things know
Live ignorant of Christ and die,
And find their place below.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds.'—[Luke 19,] v. 24.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Luke.” 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 1977/575, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 176.
Publishing: Public Domain