Christ’s little flock who vex and tear

Verse 1
Christ’s little flock who vex and tear,
The troublers of our Israel are,
The restless foes to peace:
They set the city in a blaze,
And then a furious outcry raise
’Gainst us incendiaries!

Verse 2
The sons of violence misuse,
And then as rioters accuse
The quiet in the land:
The difference plain ’twixt wrong and right,
Falsehood and truth, and day and night,
They will not understand.

Verse 3
The Lamb, they say, disturbs the stream,
The world confounded is by them
Who it’s confusions end:
Yet still “away with them,[”] they cry,
“The Christians burn, or crucify,
“Or to the lions send.

Verse 4
“Discord they bring, and civil strife,
“Poison the sweets of private life;
“Our ways as folly shun;
“Against our rules and customs go,
“And all our maxims wise o’rethrow,
“And turn us upside down.

Verse 5
“The rich they set below the poor;
“Pleasure renounce, and mirth abjure;
“Obstruct, and ruin trade;
“Order, and government invert,
“Their baleful influence exert,
“And make the world run mad.”

Verse 6
The world which lies in wickedness,
To interrupt their hellish peace
With loving zeal we try;
Sinners alarm’d, where’er we come,
We warn of their impending doom,
Ye must repent, or die.

Verse 7
Soon as in you our word takes place,
Renew’d, transform’d by saving grace,
Ye former things forget,
The change throughout your lives is shown,
The world out of your hearts is thrown,
And cast beneath your feet.

Verse 8
Prefer’d to those that seem’d the best,
The worst of men, with pardon blest
Superior honours gain,
Poor beggars into princes rise,
Look down on kings, this earth despise,
And one with Jesus reign.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘These that have turned the world upside down, are come hither also.’—[Acts 17,] v. 6." 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 The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 12 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 329.
Publishing: Public Domain