Sole self-existing God most high

Verse 1
Sole self-existing God most high,
From all eternity the same,
Why wilt thou let thy foes deny
Thy Godhead, and revile thy name?
Jesus, Jehovah, Jah, descend,
And bid the hour of darkness end.

Verse 2
The star[1] (in thy right-hand no more)
Which on th’ imbitter’d waters fell,
How has he shed his baleful power,
Wasted the earth, and peopled hell,
While millions drink the Arian lie,
Or poison’d by Socinus, die!

Verse 3
Less pestilent the men who dare
Thy coming in the flesh gainsay,
And sitting in the scorner’s chair
Cast all thine oracles away,
Led by their own sufficient light
To horrors of eternal night.

Verse 4
How long shall Antichrist blaspheme,
And trample on thy written will?
How long shall the Pelagian dream
The doom of fallen spirits seal;
And error in ten thousand forms
Destroy the souls of ransom’d worms?

Verse 5
Destroy the souls—which cannot end!
Tho’ Satan may a while deceive,
That liar old, and murderous fiend,
Who tells them, “They at last shall live.”
Extinguishes th’ eternal fire,
And makes the deathless worm expire.

Verse 6
What but th’ essential truth divine
Can all this gloom of hell disperse?
Jesus, the Father’s glory, shine,
To teach our darkened universe,
In every new-born soul to prove,
That thou art God, and God is love!

[1] Wesley added the footnote: “Arius, see Rev[elation] VIII. 10.”

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: "For the Arians, Socinians, Deists, Pelagians, &c." Introduced in Charles Wesley, Hymns of Intercession for All Mankind (Bristol: E. Farley, 1758). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 6 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 139.
Publishing: Public Domain