What fatal madness to delay

Verse 1
What fatal madness to delay
Our flight from sin and wrath Divine,
To linger, till the winter’s day,
And age’s languishing decline!
How shall we then the work begin,
Make ourselves ready to depart,
Or disengage from earth and sin
A barren, cold, unactive heart?

Verse 2
Saviour, thy weak disciple hear
Presenting my injoin’d request:
I feel the chilling winter near,
And seek for shelter in thy breast:
My soul with active faith supply,
E’er yet the helpless season come,
And let me to thy bosom fly,
My sun, my everlasting home.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Pray ye that your flight may not be in the winter.’—[Matt. 24,] v. 20.” 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 370.
Publishing: Public Domain