1 Christ's Birth and Circumcision too,
His Fasting and Temptations shew,
His Agony and bloody Sweat,
His wounded Heart and Torments great,
His Blood, his Death, and all shall prove
The Fulness of the Godhead-Love.
2 'Tis he who groans and cries aloud,
And weeps, and sighs, and hangs in Blood;
'Tis as his Soul was put to Pain,
And as he was most sharply slain;
That he is worthy to unseal
The Book of God, and all reveal.
3 Under this Form, we hear him preach,
And, by his Wounds, his Brethren teach,
And God is Love to favour'd Man,
And was ere Worlds of Time began;
His Being, Name, and Nature, Love:
This calls us up to Worlds above.
4 Our Nature's Curse, our Sin and Pride,
Are now destroy'd, and all beside,
Which renders it unmeet for God;
The Lamb hath purg'd us by his Blood:
Our Happiness he always wills,
And in us all his Joy fulfils.
Source: Christian Hymns, Poems, and Spiritual Songs: sacred to the praise of God our Saviour #I.XXXIV
James Relly was born about 1722 at Jeffreston, Pembrokeshire, Wales, and died in 1778. He was converted to Christianity during the Great Awakening ushered in by George Whitefield. He worked under George Whitefield as a Calvinistic Methodist preacher and missionary. However, Whitefield and Relly separated ways over Relly's seemingly universalist teaching that all humanity was elect (i.e. saved) when Christ took the punishment for all sin when he died. He also departed from both the Calvinists and Methodists by taking the doctrine of Justification further, in teaching that believers no longer sin and the Law's sole purpose is to condemn humanity and point them to Christ.
He was the mentor of John Murray, the founder of the Universalist Ch… Go to person page >
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