To Jesus draw nigh:
To you is it nothing that Jesus should die?
is, owing to its cheerful metre, hardly suited to the solemn services of Good Friday, and was intended for the open air. It was headed ‘Invitation to Sinners,’ and was used by Whitefield with great effect when preaching at the Market Cross, Nottingham, and elsewhere.
John Wesley appointed many fast days, and was careful to fix them on Friday, but the observance of Lent does not seem to have been enforced, or even strongly recommended, in the Methodist Society. Hymns for saints’ days and for the minor festivals are unknown to the Wesley poetry.
2. Hymns on the Lord’s Supper.[121]
This pamphlet contains 166 hymns, many of which are admirable and very close paraphrases of passages in Brevint’s Christian Sacrifice, but others are independent of that devout treatise. Many lend themselves readily to use in ‘catholic’ services, and have often been quoted as indicating high sacramentarian views.[122]
On the other hand, such verses as the following must be taken in an entirely evangelical sense—
The cup of blessing, blessed by Thee,
Let it Thy blood impart:
The bread Thy mystic body be,