An hypocrite will oft appear

Verse 1
An hypocrite will oft appear
To tremble and relent,
And destitute of godly fear
Shrink from the punishment,
As Pharaoh, in affliction, pray
The judgment to remove,
Or cry, Take all these plagues away,
But not the sin I love.

Verse 2
He may his bosom-lust confess,
While yet his heart is whole,
Concern’d to save appearances,
Regardless of his soul:
The burthen and the task of prayer
He may on others cast,
And left to damnable despair
Die in his sins at last.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Then answered Simon, and said, Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things may come upon me.’—[Acts 8,] v. 24.” 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 S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 321.
Publishing: Public Domain