30b Why should we start and fear to die?

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Tune: Prospect

1 Why should we start and fear to die?
What tim’rous worms we mortals are!
Death is the gate to endless joy,
And yet we dread to enter there.

2 The pains, the groans, the dying strife,
Fright our approaching souls away;
And we shrink back again to life,
Fond of our prison and our clay.

3 O if my Lord would come and meet,
My soul would stretch her wings in haste,
Fly fearless through death’s iron gate,
Nor feel the terrors as she passed.

4 Jesus can make a dying bed
Feel soft as downy pillows are;
While on His breast I lean my head,
And breathe my life out sweetly there.

29b Death, 'tis a melancholy day

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Tune: Tribulation

Text: Isaac Watts 1709

1 Death, ’tis a melancholy day
To those who have no God,
When the poor soul is forced away,
To seek her last abode.

2 In vain to heav’n she lifts her eyes,
For guilt, a heavy chain,
Still drags her downward from the skies
To darkness, fire, and pain.