Truth, not ourselves, to justify

Verse 1
Truth, not ourselves, to justify
We should with bold respect reply,
Nor silently the world permit
To tread the pearl beneath their feet,
Whene’er their ignorance reprove
The language pure of faith and love.

Verse 2
Freedom the cause of God requires
And wisdom meek his Spirit inspires;
Divinely taught we then express
His power, and truth, and soberness,
And that eternal Reason show
Our God in Christ reveal’d below.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.’—[Acts 26,] v. 25." 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 The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 12 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 431.
Publishing: Public Domain