GOD of the Patriarchal Race

Verse 1
GOD of the Patriarchal Race,
Whose Spirit in those antient Days
In Abraham’s faithful Breast did move,
To Us the Gospel-blessing give,
And let us by his Pattern live
The simple Life of Faith and Love.

Verse 2
Suffice the Time in Pleasures past,
When fashion’d to the Worldly Taste
We Liv’d the Life of Sense and Pride,
In Mirth and Ease, and harmless Play
We glided down the Spatious Way
Nor knew, nor sought The Crucified.

Verse 3
But now the glorious Gospel-Sound
That scatters Peace to All around,
Within these hallow’d Walls we hear,
And lo! the Phantoms of the Night,
The Dreams of Sensible Delight
At Jesus Rising disappear.

Verse 4

[unfinished]

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “For a Family.” This hymn appears in the mid-1750s manuscript “MS Richmond.” 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 1977/551, 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 1 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1988), page 266.
Publishing: Public Domain