The world thine oracles despise

Verse 1
The world thine oracles despise,
The Christian world, with careless eyes
Thine ancient judgments see,
Nor will they shun their doom foretold,
Or know they read in those of old
Their own sad history.

Verse 2
As born their appetites to please,
Their own conveniency and ease
They only live t’ insure,
Add house to house, and field to field,
Marry, and feast, and plant, and build,
To make their names endure.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘They did eat, they drank ... till the day that Noah entred into the ark: and the flood came and destroyed them all.'—[Luke 17,] v. 27.” 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 and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), pages 165-66.
Publishing: Public Domain