Hymns for the Watch-Night (#9)
Charles Wesley
(1707-1788)
John Wesley
(1703-1791)
Come, let us anew
Our pleasures pursue;
For Christian delight
The day is too short; let us borrow the night!
In sanctified joy
Each moment employ
To Jesus’s praise,
And spend, and be spent, in the triumph of grace.
The slaves of excess,
Their senses to please
Whole nights can bestow,
And on in a circle of riot they go;
Poor prodigals, they
The night into day
By revelings turn,
And all the restraints of sobriety scorn.
The drunkards proclaim
At midnight their shame,
Their sacrifice bring,
And loud to the praise of their master they sing;
The hellish desires,
Which Satan inspires,
In sonnets they breathe,
And shouting descend to the regions of death.
The civiler crowd
In theaters proud
Acknowledge his power,
And Satan in nightly assemblies adore;
To the masque and the ball
They fly at his call,
Or in pleasures excel
And chant in a grove to the harpers of hell.
And shall we not sing
Our Master and King
While men are at rest,
And Jesus admitted at midnight to feast?
Here only we may
With innocence stay,
Th’ enjoyment improve,
And abide at the banquet of Jesus’s love.
In Him is bestowed
The spiritual food,
The manna divine,
And Jesus’s love is far better than wine;
With joy we receive
The blessing, and give
By day and by night
All thanks to the Source of our endless delight.
Our concert of praise
To Jesus we raise,
And all the night long
Continue the new evangelical song;
We dance to the fame
Of Jesus’s name;
The joy it imparts
Is heaven begun in our musical parts!
Thus, thus we bestow
Our moments below,
And singing remove
With all the redeemed to the Zion above;
There, there we shall stand
With harps in our hand,
Interrupted no more,
And eternally sing, and rejoice, and adore!
