Where are the venerable men, the eloquent Tertullus

Verse 1
Where were the venerable men,
The eloquent Tertullus where?
Could Jews their bitter wrath refrain?
Or did their consciences declare
That Pagans were more just than them
And would not, without proof, condemn?

Verse 2
While God their baffled rage averts,
They counteract their own design,
Spite of their own malicious hearts,
In Paul’s defence the zealots join,
Absent, they on his side appear,
And silent, his uprightness clear.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘We have neither received letters out of Judea concerning thee, neither any of the brethren that came, shewed, or spake any harm of thee.’—[Acts 28,] v. 21." 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 451.
Publishing: Public Domain