There is a time for souls to toil

Verse 1
There is a time for souls to toil,
To cast our nets into the sea:
But call’d apart, to rest a while,
Fishers of men employ’d by Thee,
Jesus, our labours we suspend,
And know the time our nets to mend.

Verse 2
We gain in solitude and prayer
Strength to pursue thy love’s design,
Ourselves for dangers fresh prepare,
And fortified by grace divine,
We boldly launch into the main,
And cast the gospel-net again.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘He saw other two brethren, James and John, with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them.’—Matt. 4, v. 21.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Matthew.” 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 1977/577, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 10 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 159.
Publishing: Public Domain