Who act the persecutor’s part

Verse 1
Who act the persecutor’s part,
A stubborn, stiffneck’d, Jewish race,
Uncircumcis’d in ears and heart
Ye still resist the Spirit of grace,
Harden your heart, and stop your ears,
When God commands you to repent,
And run upon the messengers,
And stone the Sender in the sent.

Verse 2
Rebels, your iron-sinew’d neck
Ye will not bow to God’s own yoke,
Your rocky hearts disdain to break;
The word by all the prophets spoke,
The word which offers Christ to all
Ye have in every age withstood,
Refus’d the Spirit’s loudest call,
And rush’d to shed the martyrs blood.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Ye stiffnecked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost.’—[Acts 7,] v. 51.” 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 S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), pages 313-14. 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 216.
Publishing: Public Domain