The form of godliness remains

Verse 1
The form of godliness remains,
Which the dead church its saviour makes,
Or each a different form maintains,
The shadow for the substance takes,
But all the living power deny,
And call the truth of God a lie.

Verse 2
The living power, which saves from sin,
Which pardon on the conscience seals,
Which writes the law of love within,
And all the promises fulfils,
The christen’d infidels blaspheme,
As folly’s creed, or phrenzy’s dream.

Verse 3
By this, divinely warn’d, we know
The latest perilous times are come,
And look for Christ t’ appear below,
His antichristian foes to doom,
And reign o’er all our earth renew’d,
The sole, supreme, eternal God.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.”—[2 Tim.] iii. 5. Introduced in Charles Wesley, Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 2 (Bristol: Farley, 1762). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 13 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1872), page 107.
Publishing: Public Domain