Verse 1
Let the world lament their dead,
As sorrowing without hope,
When a friend of ours is freed,
We chearfully look up,
Cannot murmur or complain,
For our dead we cannot grieve,
Death to them, to us is gain;
In Jesus we believe.
Verse 2
We believe, that Christ our head
For us resign’d his breath,
He was numbred with the dead,
And dying conquer’d death;
Burst the barriers of the tomb:
Death could him no longer keep,
He is the first-fruits become
Of those in him that sleep.
Verse 3
God, who him to life restor’d,
Shall all his members raise,
Bring them quicken’d with their Lord,
The children of his grace.
We who then on earth remain,
Shall not sooner be brought home,
All the dead shall rise again
To meet the[1] general doom.
Verse 4
Jesus, faithful to his word,
Shall with a shout descend,
All heaven’s host their glorious Lord
Shall pompously attend:
Christ shall come with dreadful noise,
Lightnings swift, and thunders loud,
With the great archangel’s voice,
And with the trump of God.
Verse 5
First the dead in Christ shall rise,
Then we who yet remain
Shall be caught up to the skies,
And see our Lord again;
We shall meet him in the air,
All rapt up to heaven shall be,
See,[2] and love, and praise him there,
To all eternity.
Verse 6
Who can tell the happiness
This glorious hope affords,
Joy unutter’d we possess
In these reviving words;
Happy while on earth we breathe,
Mightier bliss ordain’d to know,
Trampling upon sin[3] and death
To the third heaven we go.
[1] Wesley changed “the” to “their” in 1761.
[2] Wesley changed “see” to “find” in 1745, but returned to “see” in later editions.
[3] Wesley changed “upon sin” to “down sin, hell” in 1745.