What Christian crowds the kingdom lose

Verse 1
What Christian crouds the kingdom lose
Which heathens and barbarians gain!
The church’s sons their Head refuse,
They will not in his glory reign,
Will not the cross and crown receive,
Or die with Christ, with Christ to live.

Verse 2
A moment’s joy they dearly buy,
Consign’d to endless pains in hell,
Gnaw’d by the worm that cannot die,
Scorch’d by the fire unquenchable,
Who might have sung on Seraphs’ thrones,
They justly pour eternal groans.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.’—[Matt. 8,] v. 12.” 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 212.
Publishing: Public Domain