Wesley Corpus

Here in the depth of sweet distress Again our vineyards we possess, And drink the dead-reviving wine: He lifts our drooping spirits up, Gives us an open door of hope, And chears with confidence divine. 17Manuscript versions combining this and the next two hymns as three stanzas of a hymn on Hosea 2 appear in MS Richmond, 2:132-33; and MS Spencer, 5-6 (in shorthand). Two variants from these manuscript versions are noted below. Page 66 Again the hidden God appears, He scatters all our gloomy fears, The joy of conscious faith imparts, He gives us back our former love, Restores the kingdom from above, And stamps18 forgiveness on our hearts. "She shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt." Hosea ii. 15. We sing as in those19 earliest days, That rapt'rous infancy of grace, When first we felt the sprinkled blood, Exulting out of Egypt came, And shouting our Redeemer's name, Triumphant pass'd the parted flood: Jesus the Lord again we sing, Who did to us salvation bring, And now repeats our sins forgiven; We now his glorious Spirit breathe, Tread down the fear of hell and death, And live on earth the life of heaven. "I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her." Hosea ii. 14. Allur'd into the desert Of trouble and temptation, Again we hear The Comforter, The God of our salvation: The door of hope is open'd Ev'n in the depth of sadness, His pard'ning voice Restores our joys, And fills our heart with gladness. 18The two manuscript versions have "writes" instead of "stamps." 19The two manuscript versions have "our" instead of "those." 20John Wesley drew a vertical line through this entire hymn (continuing onto the next page) in his personal copy, commenting "Nothingly" in the margin.A manuscript draft of a five-stanza hymn that is split here into separate hymns on Hosea 2:14 and 2:15 appears (in shorthand) in MS Spencer, 6-7. Revisions made from this draft in the published form are noted below. Page 67