When our Incarnate God

Verse 1
When our Incarnate God
No longer spake to men,
His church expanded all abroad
Thro’ the wide world was seen;
Their net th’ Apostles spread,
Where’er their Lord they brought,
And strangely took with rapid speed
Whole nations at a draught.

Verse 2
None hath a right to throw
The net of Jesus word,
Till Jesus bids the preacher go
Commission’d by his Lord:
But if his Spirit move,
Into the boundless sea
Into the world we launch, and prove
Our prosperous ministry.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Now when he had left speaking he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.’—[Luke 5,] v. 4.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Luke.” This manuscript is part of the collection of the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester (accession number MA 1977/575, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), pages 91-92. The first verse was published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 141.
Publishing: Public Domain