Ye sacrilegious race

Verse 1
Ye sacrilegious race,
Your genuine father own,
Who boldly hope to purchase grace
By what yourselves have done:
Your righteous rags unclean
Who would for pardon sell,
Your works and you are nought but sin,
And fit for nought but hell.

Verse 2
Repent, and cast aside
Your fancied righteousness,
Your goodness sin, your virtue pride,
Your faith a lie, confess:
Ev’n you may then believe,
The Lord doth justify,
And freely that to sinners give
Which they can never buy.

Verse 3
Jesus exalted is,
Salvation to bestow,
His rest, his Spirit, and his peace
Which all believers know:
And every soul of man
May our Redeemer love,
A pardon without price obtain,[1]
And then a crown above.

[1] Wesley included a possible alternate wording in the manuscript: “without money gain.”

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.’—[Acts 8,] v. 20.” 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 224.
Publishing: Public Domain