Sinner, alarm’d by judgment near

Verse 1
Sinner, alarm’d by judgment near,
Who foldst thine arms to sleep again
As far from death’s superfluous fear
And hell’s imaginary pain,
No more with harden’d heart presume,
But tremble at thine instant doom.

Verse 2
In pride, and delicacy bred,
Secure of a long length of days,
Justice divine will strike thee dead;
And when thou goest to thy own place,
That bitterness is never o’re,
That death shall last for evermore.

Verse 3
But all who Jesus Spirit breathe,
By faith on Jesus passion cast,
With them the bitterness of death,
The bitterness of life is past;
And O! for ever happy I,
With these indulg’d to live, and die!

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Surely the bitterness of death is past.’—[1 Sam.] 15:32.” This hymn appears in the 1783 manuscript “MS Scriptural 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 1977/576, 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. 9 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 159.
Publishing: Public Domain