A priest corrupt whom avarice blinds

Verse 1
A priest corrupt whom avarice blinds,
For no mature occasion stays,
But goes, and seeks it out, and finds,
Truth, justice, innocence betrays,
No conscience, no remorse he feels,
And to his foes the Saviour sells.

Verse 2
Saviour, shut up my feeble heart
Against the direful lust of gold,
Which always takes the Murtherer’s part,
Which Thee ten thousand times has sold,
Millions of hoary traitors made,
And peopled hell with Satan’s aid.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘He sought opportunity to betray him unto them.'—[Luke 22,] v. 6.” 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 The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 281.
Publishing: Public Domain