The poetical works of John and Charles Wesley

Let the world lament their dead,
As sorrowing without hope;
When a friend of ours is freed,
We cheerfully look up,
Cannot murmur or complain,
For our dead we cannot grieve;
Death to them, to us, is gain;
In Jesus we believe.

We believe that Christ our Head
For us resign'd His breath,
He was number'd with the dead,
And dying conquer'd death;

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Burst the barriers of the tomb;
Death could Him no longer keep:
He is the Firstfruits become
Of those in Him that sleep.

God, who Him to life restored,
Shall all His members raise,
Bring them quicken'd with their Lord,
The children of His grace.
We who then on earth remain
Shall not sooner be brought home;
All the dead shall rise again
To meet the general doom.

Jesus, faithful to His word,
Shall with a shout descend;
All heaven's host their glorious Lord
Shall pompously attend;
Christ shall come with dreadful noise,
Lightnings swift, and thunders loud,
With the great archangel's voice,
And with the trump of God.

First the dead in Christ shall rise;
Then we who yet remain
Shall be caught up to the skies,
And see our Lord again;
We shall meet Him in the air,
All wrapt up to heaven shall be,
Find, and love, and praise Him there
To all eternity.

Who can tell the happiness
This glorious hope affords!
Joy unutter'd we possess
In these reviving words:

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Happy while on earth we breathe,
Mightier bliss ordain'd to know,
Trampling down sin, hell, and death,
To the third heaven we go.

University of Virginia Library

ANOTHER.

[Let the world lament their dead]