364 Southwell - Robert Seagrave and George Whitfield?

[Antonio James Higgins]

Dear all,

Hello. I was looking at the attribution of the text for Southwell, and I noticed that Seagrave's original is in simple L. M., and not the C. P. M. of Southwell. On Hymnary, the earliest attribution I could find for the C. P. M. version of it is in A Selection of Psalms and Hymns: done under the appointment of the Philadelphian Association (1790). This briefly mentions "The Coll[ection]" as a source, and indeed, Hymnary mentions Whitefield's collection as a source for this hymn. Indeed, the C. P. M. version does indeed appear in in Whitfield's Collection of hymns for social worship (1753). 

So far, I'm not aware of Whitefield's sources-- meaning he could have gotten this from another means-- but he also could have adapted it for his own use, we know he did that for other hymns. But there's about a decade gap between the two, which leaves room for ambiguity. The C. P. M. version does also contain couplets not found in Seagrave's original. 

Sincerely,

A. J. Higgins

[Antonio James Higgins]

Errata: Never mind about the couplets; on closer examination, they are definitely rephrased couplets from the original, barring one at the end.