Zeno and his followers still

Verse 1
Zeno and his followers still
With Epicurus join
Men that their own lusts fulfil
And live the life of swine:
God, they think, resembles them,
His Providential care deny,
Pleasure count their good supreme,
And wish like beasts to die.

Verse 2
Stoicks with the sons of ease
Can against Christ agree,
Christen’d sages, who confess
A blind fatality;
Swoln with pride, and self-regard,
On vice they scornfully look down:
“Virtue is its own reward,
“And wants no other crown.”

Verse 3
Both the clashing sects unite:
Yet still the gospel spread
Brings immortal life to light
With our reviving Head;
Vice and virtuous pride confounds,
Rejects our filthy righteousness,
Sends us lost to Jesus’ wounds,
And saves the world by grace.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountred him.’—[Acts 17,] v. 18." 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 336.
Publishing: Public Domain