Begone unbelief, my Saviour is near

Begone unbelief, my Saviour is near. John Newton* (1725-1807).  First published in Olney Hymns (1779), Book III, ‘On the Rise, Progress, Changes, and Comforts of the Spiritual Life’. It was headed ‘I will trust and not be afraid’ and had seven stanzas in a combination of iambic and anapaestic metre reminiscent of Charles Wesley*. It has been particularly valued by Methodists: all seven stanzas appeared in The Primitive Methodist Hymnal (1887, 1889). It featured in several denominational collections up to the 1950s, after which its popularity declined, although it was retained in The Moravian Hymn Book (1975), The Song Book of the Salvation Army (1986) and HP, and still appears in...