When the captious Pharisee
Asks a fresh, unneeded sign,
We can only sigh like Thee
Touch’d with sympathy divine!
Lord, increase our loving grief,
Hear us for th’ opposers pray,
Help their wilful unbelief,
Take their stony heart away.
When the captious Pharisee
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘He sighed deeply in his spirit and said, Why doth this generation seek after a sign?’—[Mark 8,] v. 12.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Mark.” 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 1977/574, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). 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. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 13.
Publishing: Public Domain