Page:The poetical works of John and Charles Wesley - Volume 5.djvu/17



"Hymns and Sacred Poems," of which this Volume completes the reprint, differ from other Wesleyan publications having the same title in being originally published in two volumes, and in bearing the name of Charles Wesley alone. His brother John not only contributed nothing to them, but did not see them before they were published, as we learn from an express statement made many years afterwards in the eighteenth section of his "Plain Account of Christian Perfection." (Works, vol. xi., p. 391.) As a consequence, he distinctly declined to be responsible for all they contained, and particularly for those passages which favour the notion that to those who are perfected in love apostasy is impossible. Traces of this disagreement will be found in various parts of the present Volume. In the main, however, he approved and admired the publication, and drew largely upon it for that "Collection of Hymns" to which the Methodist Societies are so deeply indebted.

Some of the pieces contained in these volumes had appeared previously, being appended to various publications designed to explain or defend Methodism; and in this form supply a beautiful illustration of the oneness of heart subsisting between the two brothers. Others had been circulated in MSS. among admiring