Master, for thine we cannot own

Verse 1
Master, for thine we cannot own
The workmen who themselves create,
Their call receive from man alone
As licens’d servants of the state,
Who to themselves the honour take,
Nor tarry till thy Spirit move,
But serve for filthy lucre’s sake
The souls they neither feed nor love.

Verse 2
In vain in their own lying words
The haughty self-deceivers trust,
The harvest’s and the vineyard’s lords
In vain their true succession boast;
Their lawful property they claim
The apostolic ministry,
But only labourers in name
They prove they are not sent by Thee.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘The labourers are few.’—[Matt. 9,] v. 37.” Wesley originally published the last four lines this hymn as “Yet thousands, Lord, the honour claim” in his 1762 hymnal "Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 2" (Bristol: Farley, 1762). He later revised and expanded it in his unpublished 1766 manuscript “MS Matthew.” 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 1977/577, 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. 10 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 230.
Publishing: Public Domain