The world their hands can never lay
On one secur’d in thine,
Till Thou permit them, Lord, t’ obey
And answer thy design:
They then with malice blind fulfil
Thine unperceiv’d decree,
The body of thy witness kill,
And send his soul to Thee.
The world their hands can never lay
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘And some of them would have taken him; but no man laid hands on him.’—[John 7,] v. 44." This hymn appears in the 1763-64 manuscript “MS John.” 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 1977/573, 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. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 410.
Publishing: Public Domain