And Will the Judge Descend?

And will the Judge descend,
And must the dead arise
And not a single soul escape
His all discerning eyes?

And from His righteous lips
Shall this dread sentence sound
And through the numerous guilty throng
Spread black despair around:

“Depart from Me, accursed,
To everlasting flame,
For rebel angels first prepared,
Where mercy never came”?

How will my heart endure
The terrors of that day
When earth and Heav’n before His face
Astonished shrink away?

But ere that trumpet shakes
The mansions of the dead,
Hark from the Gospel’s cheering sound
What joyful tidings spread:

Ye sinners, seek His grace
Whose wrath ye cannot bear;
Fly to the shelter of His cross
And find salvation there.

Author: Philip Doddridge

Year: 1730

This is a well-known hymn by English Nonconformist minister and hymn writer Philip Doddridge (1702–1751). It was first published posthumously in 1755 in his collection Hymns Founded on Various Texts in the Holy Scriptures. The text matches the opening stanzas of his Judgment hymn exactly.