By Pilate urg’d in vain to speak,
Jesus with all his humbled powers
In silence and submission meek
His Judge invisible adores,
Disposing all the acts of men
The sovereign Arbiter he sees:
And lo, the sinner’s cause to gain,
His silence doth our guilt confess!
By Pilate urged in vain to speak
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not, that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?’—[John 19,] v. 10." 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 S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 274.
Publishing: Public Domain