They crown with prickly thorn

Verse 1
They crown with prickly thorn,
With purple rags adorn,
Mock him in his tatter’d robe,
Smite with sacrilegious hands,
Him whose power supports the globe,
Him who earth and heaven commands.

Verse 2
But Thee thy saints revere
With loyalty sincere:
Dignified by thy disgrace,
Hail derided Majesty!
Every tongue shall soon confess,
Every soul bow down to Thee.

Verse 3
Omnipotently great
Ev’n in thy low estate,
Cloth’d again with all thy power
Israel’s King, thy sway we own;
Prostrate Seraphim adore,
Cast their crowns before thy throne.

Verse 4
Yet still thy saints attend
To see their King descend:
Hasten, Lord, the destin’d time,
Sovereign Potentate appear,
On thy cloudy car sublime,
Come, and fix thy kingdom here.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘And said, Hail King of the Jews: and they smote him with their hands.’—[John 19,] v. 3." This hymn appears in the 1763-64 manuscript “MS John.” 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 1977/573, 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), pages 271-72.
Publishing: Public Domain