The righteous man awhile concealed

Verse 1
The righteous man awhile conceal’d
May for his full commission stay,
But soon, or late, with courage fill’d
Appears for Christ in open day,
His body mystical receives,
And honour to his members gives.

Verse 2
His secret ones to God are known,
Whom God doth for a season hide,
But surely they their Lord shall own,
And suffer with the Crucified,
Renounce their honourable name,
And Christ in life and death proclaim.

Verse 3
They do not with the world conspire,
Or to his daily death agree,
But wait with faith’s intense desire
His reigning power of grace to see,
And till his heavenly kingdom come,
They rest themselves in Jesus’ tomb.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘There was a man named Joseph, a counseller, and he was a good man, and a just, the same had not consented &c.’—[Luke 23,] v. 50–52.” 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 S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 205.
Publishing: Public Domain