The water pure must go before,
And cleans’d in the baptismal flood
We our redeeming Lord adore:
The mystery of his sprinkled blood,
Commemorating the slaughter’d Lamb,
With Him we sing, with Him we feast,
Thro’ whom we out of Egypt came,
Thro’ whom we gain that heavenly rest.
The water pure must go before
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘There shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water: follow him.’—[Mark 14,] v. 13.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Mark.” 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 1977/574, 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 63.
Publishing: Public Domain