When the last trumpet’s awful voice this rending earth shall shake, When op’ning graves shall yield their charge, and dust to life awake; | Those bodies that corrupted fell shall incorrupted rise, And mortal forms shall spring to life immortal in the skies. | Behold what heav’nly prophets sung is now at last fulfilled That Death should yield his ancient reign, and, vanquished, quit the field. | Let Faith exalt her joyful voice, and thus begin to sing; O Grave! where is thy triumph now? and where, O Death! thy sting? | Thy sting was sin, and conscious guilt, ’twas this that armed thy dart; The law gave sin its strength and force to pierce the sinner’s heart: | But God, whose name be ever bless’d! disarms that foe we dread, And makes us conqu’rors when we die, through Christ our living head. | Then stedfast let us still remain, though dangers rise around, And in the work prescribed by God yet more and more abound; | Assured that though we labour now, we labour not in vain, But, through the grace of heav’n’s great Lord, th’ eternal crown shall gain. | |