Twas not the way of Pagan Rome

Verse 1
’Twas not the way of Pagan Rome
Unheard the prisoner to condemn,
But Christian Romanists can doom
Men unconvicted to the flame
Innocent saints in secret kill,
With blood the house of mercy fill.

Verse 2
And shall not, Lord, the heathens rise
To judge the Christians in that day,
When answering to thy martyrs cries
Thou dost thy vengeful wrath display,
And pay the murtherers their hire,
And cast into eternal fire?

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused &c.’—[Acts 25,] v. 16." 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 419.
Publishing: Public Domain