Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/99

 THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 87

Hymn 67. Thy ceaseless, unexhausted love. CHARLES WESLEY (i).

Short Hymns on Select Passages of Scripture, 1762; Works, ix. 55. Exod. xxxiv. 6. The first line is Thy causeless unexhausted love.

The debt to Matthew Henry s Commentary has been de scribed under hymn 55. Ver. 4 is based on Henry s words, The spring of mercy is always full, and streams of mercy always flowing. There is mercy enough in God, enough for all, enough for each, enough for evermore.

Thomas Jackson says (C. Wesley, ii. 200), Few persons would think of going to the verbose Commentary of Matthew Henry for the elements of poetry ; but the genius of Charles Wesley, like the fabled philosopher s stone, could turn everything to gold. Some of his eminently beautiful hymns, strange as it may appear, are poetic versions of Henry s expository notes.

This hymn furnished Dinah Morris with the closing appeal in her sermon on the village green

Dear friends, come and take this blessedness ; it is offered to you ; it is the goodness that Jesus came to preach to the poor. It is not like the riches of this world, so that the more one gets the less the rest can have. God is without end ; His love is without end

Its streams the whole creation reach,

So plenteous is the store ; Enough for all, enough for each,

Enough for evermore.

(Adam Bcde, ch. ii.)

Hymn 68. Great God of wonders ! all Thy ways. SAMUEL DAVIES (1723-61).

Mr. Davies visited England in 1753 on behalf of New Jersey Presbyterian College, Princeton, and on his return was appointed President in succession to Jonathan Edwards. After his death, Dr. T. Gibbons, the biographer of Watts, published five volumes of his sermons, and sixteen of his hymns in Hymns adapted to Divine Worship, 1769. One of these was Great God of wonders, his most popular hymn. The third verse of the original is here omitted

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