Can we in unbelievers find

Verse 1
Can we in unbelievers find
That noble readiness of mind
To hear, investigate, and prove
The truth of Jesus’ pardning love?
Yes, Lord: thro’ thy preventing grace
There are who cordially embrace
The joyful news of sin forgiven,
And God himself sent down from heaven.

Verse 2
Up from the sleep of nature stir’d,
They daily search thy written word,
Inquiring if these things be so,
To thine own oracles they go:
Thine oracles the answer give,
And willing multitudes believe
The gospel by thy Spirit seal’d,
And find thy blessed Self reveal’d.

Verse 3
What then are they who dare forbid
The unconvinc’d thy book to read,
Who take the sacred key away,
Damp their desire to search and pray,
Conceal thy records from their view,
“The scriptures were not wrote for you,
“Accept in us a surer guide,
“The Church, the Catholicks, the Bride![”]

Verse 4
Turn, sinners, turn from such away,
And rather God than man obey;
The scriptures search both day and night,
And try if what ye hear be right;
Put forth your grain of gracious power,
(Your use of that shall bring you more)
Till the true Light himself impart,
Himself the Witness in your heart.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled “These were more noble ... in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed.”—[Acts] xvii. 11, 12. Introduced in Charles Wesley, Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 2 (Bristol: Farley, 1762). Wesley modified this in his 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 333.
Publishing: Public Domain