If guilty, why to be set free?
Or why chastis’d, if innocent?
The heart hath no stability,
By two contending passions rent:
The abject slave of worldly fear
Who basely courts the smiles of men,
Condemning whom he fain would clear,
The judge condemns himself in vain.
If guilty why to be set free
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘I will therefore chastise him, and release him.'—[Luke 23,] v. 16.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Luke.” 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 1977/575, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). 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. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 298.
Publishing: Public Domain