John & Charles Wesley · 159 of 258

Verses 35–37

Others, as in a furnace tried, With strength of passive grace endued, Tortures and deaths, through faith, defied; Through faith resisted unto blood.

Earth they beheld with generous scorn, On all its proffer’d goods look’d down; High on a fiery chariot borne, They lost their life to keep their crown.

Secure a better life to find, The path of varied death they trod, Their souls triumphantly resign’d, And died into the arms of God.

The prelude of contempt they found, A spectacle to fiends and men; Cruelly mock’d, and scourged, and bound, Till death shut up the bloody scene.

Or stoned, they glorified their Lord; Or joy’d, asunder sawn, to expire; Or rush’d to meet the slaughtering sword; Or triumph’d in the torturing fire.