is furnished with this note by Dr. Osborn (Poetical Works as above).
No evidence, however, of its being such is forthcoming, and the revised edition of the Wesleyan Hymn Book, 1875, retains the old reading.
Wretched, helpless, and distressed. C. Wesley. [Lent.] First published in Hymns & Sacred Poems, 1742, p. 43, in 8 stanzas of 8 lines, as a second hymn on Rev. iii. 17. In 1780, stanza ii. was omitted when the hymn was given in the Wesleyan Hymn Book, No. 105, and in the same form it is still retained. Original text Poetical Works, 1868-72, vol. ii. pp. 92-94. The somewhat peculiar lines:—
"My whole heart is sick of sin,
And my whole head is faint"
is furnished with this note by Dr. Osborn (Poetical Works as above).
"This singular transposition of the Prophet's words (Isaiah i. 5) though found in all the editions, must still be regarded as an oversight."
No evidence, however, of its being such is forthcoming, and the revised edition of the Wesleyan Hymn Book, 1875, retains the old reading.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)