The world with persecuting

Verse 1
The world with persecuting spight
The sons of God blaspheme,
And hate and shun th’ officious light
Which doth their deeds condemn;
The witnesses of Jesus grace
The saints they cannot bear
Who against all their evil ways
By word and life declare.

Verse 2
Confessing whom our hearts adore,
We feel their enmity:
O might we, Lord, deserve it more
By more resembling Thee!
O might we all thy Spirit breathe,
The wicked to reprove,
And testify in life and death
Thy purity of love!

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘But me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.’—[John 7,] v. 7." 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 398.
Publishing: Public Domain