The conscience of chief-priests admire!

Verse 1
The conscience of chief-priests admire!
So carefully a gnat they strain!
The price of blood, the traitor’s hire
Their sacred offerings would profane:
But guiltless blood they boldly spill,
And no remorse the ruffians feel.

Verse 2
The children with their sires compare:
How closely in their steps they tread!
For small, indifferent things they care,
For superstitious triffles plead,
But take the ancient murtherer’s part,
And hate their brethren in their heart.

Verse 3
With envious, fierce, vindictive pride,
Saviour, thy servants they defame,
Cast out our names, unheard, untried,
Resolv’d, impatient to condemn,
And in our innocence t’ oppress
The truth with all its witnesses.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘The chief-priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for us to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.’—[Matt. 27,] v. 6.” This hymn appears in the 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 417.
Publishing: Public Domain