The proud and envious cannot bear

Verse 1
The proud and envious cannot bear
God’s gifts in other men to see,
Incens’d by every thing they are
Mad with revenge and cruelty,
They cannot wrong discern from right,
Blasphemers from the sons of light.

Verse 2
Against the truth they stop their ears
Raising the loud infernal cry,
When Jesus to a saint appears,
And shows his glory in the sky,
The “daring wretch” who God hath seen
They count not fit to live with men.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord.’—[Acts 7,] v. 57.” 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 S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 316.
Publishing: Public Domain