The counsel learned in the laws

Verse 1
The council, learned in the laws,
Skilful to flatter and defame,
Opens the prosecutors’ cause,
Lost to all sense of truth, and shame,
Smoothly employs his venal tongue,
Proves wrong is right and right is wrong.

Verse 2
The judge corrupt and most unjust,
Th’ oppressor covetous and base,
The slave of every sordid lust,
His worth he blushes not to praise,
But cringing courts a tyrant’s smiles
Loaded with the whole nations spoils.

Verse 3
How can the governor withstand,
When such a powerful speaker pleads?
He must allow the priests demand,
And add to all his worthy deeds,
The proof supreme, the crown of all,
By sentencing that vagrant Paul.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘And when he was called forth, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying, Seeing that by thee we injoy great quietness &c.’—[Acts 24,] v. 2." 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 408.
Publishing: Public Domain