When He could Himself defend

Verse 1
When He could himself defend,
The Saviour holds his peace,
Our apologies to end,
And clamours to suppress:
Hear we then the speechless Lamb
Who doth our eagerness reprove,
Silence and forever shame
Our self-excusing love.

Verse 2
Charg’d with crimes we never knew
Answer we not a word,
Quietly the steps pursue
Of our most patient Lord,
Wrongs without emotion bear,
Rest in thy humility:
Whence, and whose, and what we are,
Is known, O God, to Thee.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘He saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.’—[John 19,] v. 9." 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 S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 273. 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 81.
Publishing: Public Domain