The poetical works of John and Charles Wesley

Righteous, O Lord, are all Thy ways!
Thy judgments in the ancient days
On unrepenting sinners fell;
Thy wrath descended, in a flood,
On a whole world that knew not God,
And swept their thoughtless souls to hell.
Yet in the universal wreck
Thou didst a kind exception make,
In favour of a child of Thine:
Thou didst for him an ark provide,
And safely with his household hide
The heir of righteousness Divine.

Thou art in every age the same,
And when our crimes the vengeance claim,
And when our measure is fill'd up,

Thine anger yet again shall burn,
And force them who Thy mercies spurn,
To drink the bitter trembling cup.
Thou, Lord, out of Thy place shalt rise,
Open the windows of the skies,
To plague the people of Thine ire,
Thy flaming ministers employ,
And terribly at last destroy
The wicked with a flood of fire.

Great God, if now Thy day is near,
Alarm us with a sacred fear,
And snatch from a devoted race,
A world, who, as Thy Son foretold,
Harden their hearts like those of old,
And live corrupt in all their ways.
They eat, they drink, they plant, they build;
Their hearts, with cares and pleasures fill'd,
No room can find for thoughts of Thee,
Till the last dreadful plagues commence,
And sweep their careless spirits hence
Into a sad eternity.

But wilt Thou not Thine own secure,
The men, who great distress endure,
And cruel mockings for Thy sake;
Who tremble at Thy tokens nigh,
And to the Ark of mercy fly,
And Jesu's wounds their refuge make!
Surely Thou wilt Thy word fulfil,
And give Thy caution'd people still,
Within the sacred Ark to rest;

Even now by faith we enter in,
And mount above the floods of sin,
Secure in our Redeemer's breast.

Superior to the storms below,
The various storms of human woe,
Shut up in Christ we mount, we rise,
Buoy'd by His mighty Spirit up,
Above the highest mountain's top,
Above the ruin'd earth, and skies.
When earth and skies are all on fire,
We then shall mount divinely higher,
As by Elijah's whirlwind driven,
Triumphant o'er the blazing flood,
The church, and family of God,
Our Ark and we shall rest in heaven.

University of Virginia Library

HYMN VII.

[Righteous, O Lord, are all Thy ways!]