Who then shall needless things impose

Verse 1
Who then shall needless things impose,
Their own authority to prove,
Or make new laws to govern those
That subject to their Saviour’s love
Deny the Antichristian claim,
And bow to none but Jesus Name?

Verse 2
Authority in things Divine
Belongs to God, and God alone:
Whate’er his oracles injoin
Our only rule of life we own;
And rulers by his power are seal’d
To see the laws of Christ fulfill’d.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘It seemed good unto the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burthen than these necessary things.’—[Acts 15,] v. 28.” 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 307.
Publishing: Public Domain