Why, what evil hath He done

Why, what evil hath he done,
Asks the heathen judge in vain?
Crucify, for crimes unknown,
Crucify, they urge again!
No, there can be no reprieve;
Only blood will satisfy:
That our guilty souls may live,
Innocence itself must die.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘They cried out the more saying, Let him be crucified!’—[Matt. 27,] v. 23. Wesley originally published the last four lines in his 1762 hymnal "Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 2" (Bristol: Farley, 1762). He later added the first four in his unpublished 1766 manuscript “MS Matthew.” 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 1977/577, 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. 10 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 422.
Publishing: Public Domain