When the celestial light appears (Mine eyes are ever unto Thee)

Verse 1
When the celestial light appears,
O’rewhelm’d with huge, increasing fears,
The sinful soul astonish’d lies,
Afraid to lift his guilty eyes:
Ruled by the Saviour’s will alone,
He would, he would renounce his own,
And waits, as unopposing clay,
Till Jesus gives the power t’ obey.

Verse 2
Mine eyes are ever unto Thee,
Till open’d by thy love they see:
Yet still thou must thy counsel shew,
For still I know not what to do:
I would not see, but in thy light,
I would not walk, but by thy might,
Or work a work, or speak a word,
Or think a thought, without my Lord.

Hymnal/Album: The second verse was originally titled “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”—[Acts] ix. 6 and was introduced in Charles Wesley, Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 2 (Bristol: Farley, 1762). Several years later, he moved this to be a second verse and added a first verse in his 1764 manuscript “MS Acts.” 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 1977/555, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 1). 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. 12 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 235.
Publishing: Public Domain