Wesley Corpus

They from the death of sin shall rise, Preventing here the general doom, When Christ the Lord shall bow the skies, And all mankind to judgment come. The earth shall then cast out its dead, While all who perish'd unforgiven, Horribly lift8 their guilty head, And rise, to be shut out from heaven. Come, little flock (my people now My Israel, if thy heart be clean) Enter into thy chamber thou, Exclude the world, the hell of sin. Betake thee to the secret place, Safe in my tabernacle rest, O hide thee for a little space, Be shelter'd in thy Saviour's breast. Rest, 'till the storm is all o'er-past, For lo! The Lord from heaven shall come, Judgment to execute at last, And seal the guilty sinner's doom. 8Ori., "lift up"; corrected in errata and 2nd edn. (1755). Page 11 The sea shall then its dead restore, The earth shall then disclose her blood, Shelter their carcases no more, Or screen them from an angry God. Dragg'd from their graves, they then shall call On rocks their quickned dust t' entomb, And bid the burning mountains fall, To hide them from the hell to come. The wrath is come, the curse takes place, The slaves of sin receive their hire, And punish'd from my glorious face, They sink into eternal fire. Isaiah xxvii. ver. 1 to 6, c.9 The Lord of hosts, th' Almighty Lord Shall punish in that vengeful day, Shall with his Spirit's two-edg'd sword The piercing crooked serpent slay. Leviathan, that subtle fiend, That soul-insinuating foe, Jesus shall make his malice end, And root out all our sins below. Jesus shall make us free indeed, Redeem from all iniquity, And crush the hellish serpent's head, And slay the dragon in the sea. The sea is calm'd, the troubled soul, In which he did his pastime take, The sinner now by faith made whole, Can10 never more his God forsake. 9Manuscript precursors of this hymn appear in MS Cheshunt, 35-37; MS Clarke, 38-40; and MS Shent, 23a-24a. 10John Wesley substituted "Will" for "Can" in manuscript in his personal copy of the 2nd edn. (1755). Page 12 Sing to the church in that glad day, (The church is join'd to those above, When all their sins are wash'd away, And they are perfected in love: