An angel of the church below

An angel of the church below
May leave us here forlorn,
And by the Spirit’s presage know
He never shall return:
But after him we soon remove,
The first-born church to join,
And with our minister above
Behold the face Divine.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more.’—[Acts 20,] v. 25." This hymn appears in the 1764 manuscript “MS Acts.” 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 1977/555, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 1). 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 401.
Publishing: Public Domain