True Light of the whole world, appear

Verse 1
True Light of the whole world, appear,
Answer in us thy character,
Thou uncreated Sun;
Jesus, thy beams on all are shed,
That all may by thy beams be led
To that eternal throne.

Verse 2
Lighten’d by thy interior ray,
Thee every child of Adam may
His unknown God adore,
And following close thy secret grace,
Emerge into that glorious place
Where darkness is no more.

Verse 3
The universal Light Thou art,
And turn’d to Thee the darkest heart
A glimmering spark may find:
Let man reject it, or embrace,
Thou offer’st once thy saving grace
To me, and all mankind.

Verse 4
Light of my soul, I follow Thee,
In humble faith on earth to see
Thy perfect day of love,
And then with all thy saints in light,
To gain that beatific Sight,
Which makes our heaven above.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled “That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”—[John] i. 9. Introduced in Charles Wesley, Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 2 (Bristol: Farley, 1762). 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 319. Wesley later altered this hymn in his 1763-64 manuscript “MS John.” 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 1977/573, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School.
Publishing: Public Domain