Thomas Pestel › Recommendations

Pestel, Thomas, one of the chaplains to King Charles I., was Rector of Packington, Leics., until he was sequestrated from it by the Westminster Assembly in 1646. His hymns appeared in his Sermons and Devotions old and new. Revived and published as an obligation of gratitude to all such of the nobility, gentry and clergy as retain the noble conscience of having ministered to the weak condition of the Author, now aged 73 .... by Thomas Pestel, the meanest among his late Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary , London, 1659 (B. M. copy is 4452. am.). He seems to have died soon after the publication of this work. The Sermons are of 1638 and other years. Of the poetical pieces two have come into use:—
1. Fairest of Morning Lights appear. [Christmas.] In 1659, as above, as "A Psalm for Christmas Day Morning." The English Hymnal, 1906, gives sts. v.-ix., beginning "Behold, the great Creator makes," as No. 20.
2. Come, ravisht Souls with high Delight. [Praise to God.] In 1659, as above, as "A Psalm for Sunday Nights." Of this stanzas ii.-iv., vi., vii., beginning "O sing the glories of our Lord," are in Horder's Hymns Supplemental, 1894, No. 1016.
Two other pieces are in W. T. Brooke's edition of Giles Fletcher's Christ's Victory and Triumph , 1888, pp. 193, 195. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]