Rapturous Anticipation

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Come, let us ascend, My companion and friend

Author: Charles Wesley
Published in 101 hymnals

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Representative Text

1 Come let us ascend,
My companion and friend,
To a taste of the banquet above!
If thy heart be as mine,
If for Jesus it pine,
Come up in the chariot of love.

2 Who in Jesus confide,
They are bold to outride
The storms of affliction beneath!
With the prophet they soar
To that heavenly shore,
And out-fly all the arrows of death.

3 By faith we are come
To our permanent home:
By hope we the rapture improve:
By love we still rise,
And look down on the skies,
For the heaven of heavens is love.

4 Who on earth can conceive
How happy we live
In the city of God, the great King?
What a concert of praise,
When our Jesus's grace,
The whole heavenly company sing?

5 What a rapturous song
When the glorify'd throng
In the spirit of harmony join?
Join all the glad choirs,
Hearts, voices and lyres,
And the burden is mercy divine.

6 Hallelujah they cry
To the King of the sky,
To the great everlasting I AM;
To the Lamb who was slain,
And liveth again,
Hallelujah to God and the Lamb.

7 The Lamb on the throne,
Lo! he dwells with his own,
And to rivers of pleasure he leads;
With his mercy's full blaze,
With the sight of his face,
Our beatify'd spirits he feeds.

8 Our foreheads proclaim
His ineffable name;
Our bodies his glory display:
A day without night
We feast in his sight,
And eternity seems as a day!

Source: A Pocket Hymn Book: designed as a constant companion for the pious, collected from various authors (9th ed.) #CLXXXIX

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Author: Charles Wesley

Charles Wesley, M.A. was the great hymn-writer of the Wesley family, perhaps, taking quantity and quality into consideration, the great hymn-writer of all ages. Charles Wesley was the youngest son and 18th child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, and was born at Epworth Rectory, Dec. 18, 1707. In 1716 he went to Westminster School, being provided with a home and board by his elder brother Samuel, then usher at the school, until 1721, when he was elected King's Scholar, and as such received his board and education free. In 1726 Charles Wesley was elected to a Westminster studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1729, and became a college tutor. In the early part of the same year his religious impressions were much deepene… Go to person page >

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First Line:	Come, let us ascend, My companion and friend
Title:	Rapturous Anticipation
Author:	Charles Wesley
Meter:	6.6.9.6.6.9
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

Come, let us ascend, My companion and friend. C. Wesley. [Christian Fellowship.] This is No. 231, in vol. ii. of the Hymns & Sacred Poems, 1749, in 8 stanzas of 6 lines (Poetical Works, 1868-72, vol. v. p. 457). M. Madan gave 6 stanzas in his Collection, 1760; Toplady repeated the same in his Psalms & Hymns, 1776, and thus the hymn came into use in the Church of England. With the change in stanza iv. line 3, of "In the city" to "In the palace," it was included in full in the Wesleyan Hymn Book, 1780, No. 486, and is retained in the revised edition, 1875, No. 499. Both this text, and that of Madan, are in common use. Interesting notes on the spiritual benefits conferred on persons by this hymn, are given in Steven¬son's Methodist Hymn Book Notes, 1883.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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