But thicker darkness overspread
Their hearts who nail’d Him to the tree,
And could not thro’ that dreadful shade
Perceive the dying Deity:
Admonish’d by that sacred night
Let us to Christ the glory give,
Whose death hath merited the light
By which we now in Him believe.
But thicker darkness overspread
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘There was darkness over all the earth.’—[Luke 23,] v. 44.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Luke.” This manuscript is part of the collection of the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester (accession number MA 1977/575, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 304.
Publishing: Public Domain