O God of our forefathers, hear

O God of our forefathers, hear. Charles Wesley* (1707-1788). First published in Hymns on the Lord’s Supper (Bristol, 1745) in four 6-line stanzas, in the section entitled ‘The Holy Eucharist as it implies a Sacrifice’. It was included in John Wesley’s A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People called Methodists (1780), in the section entitled ‘For Believers seeking for Full Redemption’, where its eucharistic significance was obscured, as it has been by its placing in subsequent Methodist hymnbooks. JJ noted that Stanza 2 ‘certainly suggests most strongly, if it does not actually teach, the doctrine of the "Real Presence"’ (p. 832).  The stanza is capable of being interpreted more...