Transported by prophetic zeal

Verse 1
Transported by Prophetic zeal,
Constrain’d the judgment to foretell,
He speaks divinely right:
The threatned woe belongs to all,
And God shall every whited wall
With sure destruction smite.

Verse 2
Hear this who now abuse your power
And treat as criminals, before
The innocent ye hear,
Who break the laws ye should maintain,
And rouse the rage of riotous men
’Gainst Jesus’ messenger!

Verse 3
By pomp ye charm the people’s sight,
Your monumental wall is white
And beautified by art,
With goodly forms ye hide your sin,
The rubbish, dirt, and trash within
A worldly, rotten heart.

Verse 4
But cast in this your gracious day
The world with all your sins away,
The true repentance feel,
Or God shall make your evil known,
Your daub’d, untemper’d wall throw down,
And smite you into hell.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me &c.’—[Acts 23,] v. 3." 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), pages 412-13. Verse 1 was 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 401.
Publishing: Public Domain