Who sets not God before his eyes,
Who his eternal wrath defies,
What keeps him from the last excess,
The utmost heights of wickedness?
Only the abject fear of man,
And momentary ills restrain
A sinner, hanging by that hair
O’re the deep gulph of dark despair.
Who sets not God before his eyes
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘They sought to lay hands on him, and they feared the people.'—[Luke 20,] v. 19.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Luke.” 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 1977/575, 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 271.
Publishing: Public Domain