So a superior order wills

Verse 1
So a superior order wills
Which Festus cannot see,
While ignorantly he fulfils
Th’ omnipotent decree:
The secret springs of Providence
Which rule our actions here
Are unperceiv’d by grosser sense,
And but to faith appear.

Verse 2
Beneath the purposes of man
Our God his own conceals,
Conducts the deep mysterious plan,
And governs all the wheels:
The thing his agents least intend,
To do his will they come,
And Jews combin’d with Gentiles send
His messenger to Rome.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Unto Cesar shalt thou go.’—[Acts 25,] v. 12." 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 418.
Publishing: Public Domain