A magistrate corrupt and lewd

Verse 1
A magistrate corrupt and lewd,
A sinner wallowing in his blood
He seizes by the word;
And while his conscience he awakes,
The judge before the prisoner quakes,
And feels the two-edg’d sword.

Verse 2
He feels th’ anticipated fear
Of sinners, when the trump they hear,
And see the Judge come down,
When on the melting rocks they call,
And bid the burning mountains fall
To hide them from his frown.

Verse 3
The heathen dreads his righteous doom,
The Jewess slights the wrath to come,
Partaker of his sin,
She sleeps in forms insensible,
Till the wide-opening mouth of hell,
Vesuvius takes her in.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘While he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled.’—[Acts 24,] v. 25." 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 The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 12 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 413.
Publishing: Public Domain