Could God’s peculiar people fight

Verse 1
Could God’s peculiar people fight
Against his kingdom here,
And seek with rancorous despite
To slay his messenger;
Rulers and magistrates engage,
Stir up the furious croud,
And watch with unrelenting rage
To shed the martyrs blood?

Verse 2
If envy and self-interest rule,
And pride their zeal inflame,
The world of the same spirit full,
Will always do the same:
And Christians in profession, still
Accomplishing his word,
Would every real Christian kill,
And drive us to our Lord.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘The Jews laid wait for him.’—[Acts 20,] v. 3." 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 399.
Publishing: Public Domain