Wesley Corpus

WITH A SUPPLEMENT. vi Octavo. 1. For many years I have been importuned to publish such a hymn-book as might be generally used in all our congregations throughout Great Britain and Ireland. I have hitherto withstood the importunity, as I believed such a publication was needless, considering the various hymn-books which my brother and I have published within these forty years last past; so that it may be doubted whether any religious community in the world has a greater variety of them. 2. But it has been answered, " Such a publication is highly needful upon this very account ; for the greater part of the people, being poor, are not able to purchase so many books : and those that have purchased them are, as it were, bewildered in the immense variety. A proper collection of hymns for general use, carefully made out of all these books, is therefore still wanting; and one comprised in so moderate a compass, as to be neither cumbersome nor expensive." 3. It has been replied, " You have such a collection already, (entitled • Hymns and Spiritual Songs,') which I extracted several years ago from a variety of hymn-books." But it is objected, "This is in the other extreme; it is far too small. It does not, it cannot, in so narrow a compass, contain variety enough ; not so much as we want, among whom singing makes so considerable a part of the public service. What we want is, a collection not too large, that it may be cheap and portable ; nor too small, that it may contain a sufficient variety for all ordinary occasions." , -- 4. Such a Hymn-Book you have now before you. It is not so large as to be either cumbersome, or expensive: and it is large enough to contain such a variety of hymns, as will not soon be worn threadbare. It is large enough to contain all the important truths of our most holy religion, whether spe- dilative or practical; yea, to illustrate them all, and to piove them both by Scripture and reason: and this is done in a ular onltr. The hymns are not carelessly jumbled together, hut carefully ranged under proper heads, according to the experience of real Christians. So that this book is, in effect, a little body of experimental and practical divinity.