Come on, my partners in distress. C. Wesley. [Heaven anticipated.] This hymn has interwoven itself into the personal spiritual history of Methodists probably more completely than any other hymn by C. Wesley. The instances given in Stevenson's Methodist Hymn Book Notes, 1883, p. 235, and the Index, although numerous and interesting, but very inadequately represent the hold it has upon the Methodist mind and feeling. Its literary merits also place it high amongst the author's productions. Its history is simple. It appeared in the Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1749, in 8 stanzas of 6 lines; in M. Madan's Collection, 1760, in 5 stanzas; and again in the Wesleyan Hymn Book, 1780, with the omission of stanza iii., as No. 324. The last form of the text has passed into numerous hymnals in all English-speaking countries. Two centos from the hymn are also in common use, both commencing with stanza ii.:—"Beyond the bounds of time and space." The first is in the Leeds Hymn Book, 1853, No. 638, and others, and the second in Mercer, Oxford ed. 1864-72, No. 404. Original text, Poetical Works, 1868-72, vol. v. p. 168.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)