Eternal God, my refuge now

Verse 1
Eternal God, my refuge now
In trouble and temptation Thou:
Tho’ still to sin inclin’d,
Safe from the snares of hell and death,
Thine everlasting arms beneath
My sinking soul I find.

Verse 2
Yet, Lord, I ask a farther grace:
The guilt original efface,
The inbred foe exclude;
I then shall dwell conceal’d with Thee
In spiritual security,
In blisful solitude.

Verse 3
Happy as the first sinless man,
I then my paradise regain,
And rival those above,
Inflam’d with pure, seraphic zeal
To do thine acceptable will,
In innocence and love.

Verse 4
O’re the high way of holiness
I walk with Christ in perfect peace,
Contemplating the prize,
Smooth, as on eagles wings, ascend,
Translated with my heavenly Friend,
And grasp Thee in the skies.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘The Eternal God is thy refuge.’—Deut. 33.” This hymn appears in the ca. 1786 manuscript “MS Miscellaneous Hymns.” 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 1977/556, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 2). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 9 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 115.
Publishing: Public Domain