Being of beings, God of love

Being of beings, God of love. Charles Wesley* (1707-1788). First published in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739), entitled ‘Grace after Meat’, in five 4-line stanzas. Though it was not included in A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People called Methodists (1780), it appeared in the supplements, and in ‘Wesley’s Hymns’ in 1876. It was in all 20th- and 21st-century Methodist hymnbooks. The full, original text can be found in HP, except that ‘pant’ in stanza 2, line 1, has been replaced by ‘long’ and in stanza 4, line 3, ‘beget’ has been changed to ‘revive’. The first alteration was made in MHB; the second dates from the 1876 ‘Wesley’s Hymns’. The original text was: Being of Beings, God of...