Wesley Corpus

The Love-Feast. Part I. Source: Hymns and Sacred Poems (1740), Part I Author: Charles Wesley (attributed) --- O let the dead now hear thy voice, Now bid thy banish’d ones rejoice, Their beauty this, their glorious dress, Jesu, thy blood and righteousness! The Love-Feast. Part I. Come, and let us sweetly join Christ to praise in hymns divine; Give we all with one accord Glory to our common Lord: Hands, and hearts, and voices raise, Sing as in the antient days, Antedate the joys above, Celebrate the feast of love. Strive we, in affection strive: Let the purer flame revive, Such as in the martyrs glow’d, Dying champions for their God. We, like them, may live and love, Call’d we are their joys to prove; Sav’d with them from future wrath, Partners of like pretious faith. Sing we then in Jesu’s name, Now, as yesterday the same, One in every age and place, Full for all of truth and grace. We for Christ our Master stand Lights in a benighted land; We our dying Lord confess, We are Jesu’s witnesses. Witnesses that Christ hath died, We with him are crucified: Christ hath burst the bands of death, We his quick’ning Spirit breathe. Christ is now gone up on high, (Thither all our wishes fly): Sits at God’s right-hand above, There with him we reign in love! Part II. Come, thou high and lofty Lord, Lowly, meek, incarnate Word; Humbly stoop to earth again, Come, and visit abject man. Jesu, dear, expected guest, Thou art bidden to the feast; For thyself our hearts prepare, Come, and sit, and banquet there. Jesu, we the promise claim, We are met in thy great name: In the midst do thou appear, Manifest thy presence here; Sanctify us, Lord, and bless, Breathe thy Spirit, give thy peace, Thou thyself within us move; Make our feast a feast of love. Let the fruits of grace abound, Let in us thy bowels sound; Faith, and love, and joy increase, Temperance, and gentleness: Plant in us thy humble mind; Patient, pitiful, and kind, Meek, and lowly let us be, Full of goodness, full of thee. Make us all in thee compleat, Make us all for glory meet, Meet t’ appear before thy sight, Partners with the saints in light. Call, O call us each by name To the marriage of the Lamb, Let us lean upon thy breast, Love be there our endless feast. Part III. Let us join (’tis God commands) Let us join our hearts and hands; Help to gain our calling’s hope, Build we each the other up. God his blessing shall dispense, God shall crown his ordinance, Meet in his appointed ways, Nourish us with social grace. Let us then as brethren love, Faithfully his gifts improve, Carry on the earnest strife, Walk in holiness of life. Still forget the things behind, Follow Christ in heart and mind, Toward the mark unwearied press, Seize the crown of righteousness. Plead we thus for faith alone, Faith which by our works is shown; God it is who justifies, Only faith the grace applies, Active faith that lives within, Conquers hell, and death, and sin, Hallows whom it first made whole, Forms the Saviour in the soul. Let us for this faith contend, Sure salvation, is its end; Heaven already is begun, Everlasting life is won: Only let us persevere Till we see our Lord appear, Never from the Rock remove, Sav’d by faith which works by love. Part IV. Partners of a glorious hope, Lift your hearts and voices up. Jointly let us rise and sing Christ our Prophet, Priest, and King. Monuments of Jesu’s grace, Speak we by our lives his praise, Walk in him we have receiv’d, Shew we not in vain believ’d. While we walk with God in light, God our hearts doth still unite, Dearest fellowship we prove, Fellowship of Jesu’s love; Sweetly each with each combin’d, In the bonds of duty join’d, Feels the cleansing blood applied, Daily feels that Christ hath died. Still, O Lord, our faith increase, Cleanse from all unrighteousness, Thee, th’ unholy cannot see; Make, O make us meet for thee: Every vile affection kill, Root out every seed of ill; Utterly abolish sin, Write thy law of love within. Hence may all our actions flow, Love the proof that Christ we know; Mutual love the token be, Lord, that we belong to thee: Love, thy image love impart, Stamp it on our face and heart, Only love to us be given, Lord, we ask no other heaven.