Jesu, Lover of my soul

Jesu, Lover of my soul. Charles Wesley* (1707-1788). First published in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1740) in five 8-line stanzas, with the title ‘In Temptation’. The Preface to that collection suggested that the hymns it contained were concerned with salvation as the gift of grace, and with ‘the gradual process of the work of God in the soul or… the chief hindrances in the way.’ Thus two other hymns in the volume were headed ‘In Temptation’ and others ‘Written in the Stress of Temptation’ or ‘At the Approach of Temptation’. The third stanza has often been omitted, though it appeared in John Wesley’s* selection, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1753): Wilt Thou not regard my Call? Wilt Thou...

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