Riches to love and clothing gay

Verse 1
Riches to love and clothing gay,
Themselves to pamper every day,
And to neglect the poor,
Consigns the men who will not know
Their God, to everlasting woe,
And makes damnation sure.

Verse 2
Ye rich who live yourselves to please,
Your pleasures and luxurious ease
Compare to Jesus’ cross:
How doth your life with his agree,
Your pomp with his humility,
Your riot with his laws?

Verse 3
Daily do you yourselves deny,
Your lusts and passions mortify,
And strive and suffer on?
Set ye your hearts on things above,
God beyond all his creatures love,
And worship him alone?

Verse 4
Alas, ye scorn the Lord to fear,
To work out your salvation here,
Or all for Christ forego:
His needy members ye despise,
And shut against the light your eyes,
To lift them up—below!

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘There was a certain man which was clothed in purple and fine linnen, and fared sumptuously every day.'—[Luke 16,] v. 19.” 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 242.
Publishing: Public Domain