We never can recriminate,
Who to the Lamb belong,
Nor dare our fiercest haters hate,
Or render wrong for wrong:
When charg’d with crimes they cannot prove,
The truth to justify
We speak, constrain’d; but tenderest love
Prevents a sharp reply.
We never can recriminate
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Not that I had ought to accuse my nation of.’—[Acts 28,] v. 19." 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 451.
Publishing: Public Domain