Vine

Representative Text

1 Jesus, the grace reveal'd,
The great salvation shown,
The sum of love's decrees unseal'd,
The plant of great renown.

2 Rais'd by the Father's grace,
The plant of his right hand,
To represent before his face,
The souls from ev'ry land.

3 Plant of the Father's care,
On whom his love did shine;
The branches in him hidden were,
'Till he grew to a vine.

4 Th' eternal husbandman,
To make the branches pure,
In wisdom infinite began
Our barrenness to cure.

5 He then this vine did dress,
Whilst Love his hand did urge,
That ev'ry branch in righteousness
He in one vine might purge.

6 From each superfl'ous shoot,
The buds of man's offence;
This to destroy, he purg'd the root,
And in it ev'ry branch.

Source: Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs: selected and original, designed for the use of the Church Universal in public and private devotion #CCXLVI

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Author: James Relly

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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