The Lord, the sovereign Lord

Verse 1
The Lord, the sovereign Lord
To every careless heart
Preaches himself that awful word,
“Be ready to depart!”
He bids us all give heed,
Nor seem to hear in vain:
He calls a preacher from the dead
To caution mortal man.

Verse 2
Sinner, the warning take,
With meek and lowly fear,
The slumber from the spirit shake,
For death is always near:
Thy gracious season know,
And carefully attend:
Thy life, and trial here below
May with this moment end.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘As Paul was long preaching, Eutychus sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead.’—[Acts 20,] v. 9." This hymn appears in the 1764 manuscript “MS Acts.” 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 1977/555, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 1). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 400.
Publishing: Public Domain