Tis thus, when Satan’s instrument

Verse 1
Tis thus, when Satan’s instrument
Blackens the followers of the Lamb,
Our grave self-righteous foes assent,
By words, not facts, confirm the same,
With confidence our crimes assert,
And take the old Accuser’s part.

Verse 2
As pestilent, seditious men,
As factious schismaticks they brand,
The followers of the Nazarene,
Who stir up strife throughout the land,
Throughout the world as madmen run,
And turn their kingdom upside down.

Verse 3
Our sacrilegious wickedness
The Jews and all their elders know,
Profaners of the holy place,
The church, the church we mean t’ o’rethrow,
Foes to the church they us declare,
And what they cannot prove—they swear.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘And the Jews also assented, saying, that these things were so.’—[Acts 24,] v. 9." 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 417.
Publishing: Public Domain