Our city of defence, to thee
From the avenger, Lord, we flee,
Who in thy death confide;
Justice divine pursues in vain
The men who God himself have slain,
When shelter’d in thy side.
Our City of defence, to Thee
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled “They shall be unto you cities of refuge from the avenger, that the man-slayer die not.”—[Num.] xxxv. 12. Introduced in Charles Wesley, Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 1 (Bristol: Farley, 1762). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 9 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 87.
Publishing: Public Domain