Hail, holy, holy, holy Lord

Hail, holy, holy, holy Lord. Charles Wesley* (1707-1788). First published in Hymns on the Trinity (1767), in three 8-line stanzas. The hymn was included in John Wesley*’s A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People called Methodists (1780), in the section, ‘For Believers Rejoicing’, and reproduced in the 1831 and 1876 editions of the Collection and in every British Methodist hymnbook of the 20th and 21st centuries. It has not been widely used outside Methodism. It is based on the repeated ‘Sanctus’* of Isaiah 6: 3, with a note ‘See also Rev. 4:8’. Revelation 4:8 repeats the ‘Holy, holy, holy’ of Isaiah 6: 3, now said by the four beasts with six wings. Since 1780, the hymn has appeared...

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