Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/96

 84 THE METHODIST HYMN-BOOK ILLUSTRATED

Hymn 61. A thousand oracles divine.

CHARLES WESLEY (i).

From second part, Hymns and Prayers to the Trinity, 1767 ; Works, vii. 312. Eight lines are omitted.

Ver. 6 begins, The King whose glorious face ye see.

Young s Night Thoughts, Night 4, 603, Father of angels ! but the Friend of man ! has given the Methodist poet the beautiful thought of ver. 5 ; and 11. 437-40

This theme is man s, and man s alone ; Their vast appointments reach it not : they see On earth a bounty not indulged on high, And downward look for Heaven s superior praise !

inspired the lines here omitted before ver. 6 Ye seraphs nearest to the throne,

With rapturous amaze, On us, poor ransomed worms, look down,

For Heaven s superior praise.

Charles Wesley says, in July, 1754, I began !once more transcribing Young s Night Thoughts. No writings but the inspired are more useful to me. When Dr. Young was in deep melancholy after the loss of his step-daughter, the Countess of Huntingdon introduced him to Charles Wesley, with the hope that he might find relief. The two poets conversed freely, and Dr. Young afterwards spoke very highly of Charles Wesley co the Countess. He attended Methodist services, from which he derived much comfort and help. John Wesley published an extract from that noble work, Young s Night Thoughts, in 1770.

A tract by the Rev. W. Jones, Curate of Finedon, Northamp tonshire, suggested Charles Wesley s Hymns on the Trinity. It is entitled The Catholic Doctrine of a Trinity proved by above a hundred short and clear arguments expressed in the terms of Holy Scripture, compared in a manner entirely new, 1754, enlarged 1767. Charles Wesley made a hymn or set of hymns on each text Mr. Jones adduced. His first stanza owes much to Mr. Jones s preface. In the fourth and last chapter, the passages of the Scripture have been laid together, and made to unite their beams in one common centre, the Unity of the Trinity, which union is not metaphorical and figurative, but strict and real.

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