To be thy ministers above
Seraphic flames aspire,
But we by thy redeeming love
We are exalted higher:
Our thoughts and praises it transcends
The love on men bestow’d;
Men are the favourites and friends,
The bosom-friends of God!
To be Thy ministers above
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled “I have called you friends.”—[John] xv. 15. Introduced in Charles Wesley, Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 2 (Bristol: Farley, 1762). 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. Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 12 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 27.
Publishing: Public Domain