A messenger requir’d to speak,
The bounds of his defence will know,
Nor ever his own glory seek,
Or fiercely judge his bitterest foe,
Content the slander to repel
He speaks, of Jesus mind possest,
With wisdom mild, and temper’d zeal,
And leaves his life to do the rest.
A messenger required to speak
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth.’—[John 8,] v. 50." 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 The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 433.
Publishing: Public Domain