Gripped by the’ arresting hand of death

Verse 1
Grip’d [Gripp’d] by th’ arresting hand of death,
The glutton too resigns his breath,
Lodg’d in a stately tomb!
His carcase leaves its bliss behind,
His soul with tort’ring fiends confin’d
Receives its fearful doom.

Verse 2
Below, he lifts his haggard eyes,
Curst with a glimpse of paradise,
And sees the beggar there:
The loss of heavenly happiness
Doth all his raging pangs increase,
And deepens his despair.

Verse 3
Thou epicure not yet in hell,
Thy danger now submit to feel
While thy damnation stays:
Awake out of thy worldly dream,
Lift up thine eyes in prayer to Him
Who offers all his grace.

Verse 4
Thou need’st not feel th’ infernal woe,
Or to that place of torment go,
That endless misery:
Repent, renounce thy wealth and ease,
Sell all for Jesus love, and seize
The heaven prepar’d for thee.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘The rich man also died, and was buried. And in hell he lift up his eyes being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.'—[Luke 16,] v. 22, 23.” 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 The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 244.
Publishing: Public Domain