Chosen by God’s immediate will

Verse 1
Chosen by God’s immediate will,
Seal’d with the Spirit’s authentic seal,
He was ordain’d before,
As Christ’s Ambassador had gone,
And made his Lord to sinners known,
His truth, and love, and power.

Verse 2
Yet lo, the Holy Ghost commands
The elders to lay on their hands,
And recognize his call,
To teach the Apostolic way
That preachers may the church obey,
And each be sent by all.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Saul &c.’—[Acts 13,] v. 2.” This hymn appears in the 1764 manuscript “MS Acts.” 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 1977/555, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 1). 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 273.
Publishing: Public Domain