[9] The omission of the second stanza is consistent with several other loci of textual variation in the hymn in this respect: the passages which are most subject to change tend for the most part to be those that advance a distinctively Wesleyan "Perfectionist" account of the Christian life—i.e.

those that suggest that one can be completely cleansed of sin in this life,[3] by means of a "second blessing" whereby committed and sanctified Christians rest wholly in God and may be said to share the holiness of Christ himself.

Wesley's original probably meant (in crude paraphrase) "let us experience the great salvation that you provide, so that we will be perfected by participation in you"; unease with the ambiguity, and probably also with the theology, led to revised language that if less striking was felt to be clearer and more orthodox.

The phrase "Second Rest," to those for whom it was not simply obscure, would seem an explicit reference to Wesleyan "Second Blessing" theology; and the request to be stripped even of the ability to sin doubtless seemed to many unrealistic at best and blasphemous or immoral at worst, as appearing to "be a prayer to take away our free moral agency.

In one American Universalist version from 1841 (and similarly in the Unitarian hymnal of 1872[26]) the four-stanza Trinitarian hymn to Christ and his Spirit is transformed into a two-stanza paean to God narrowly addressed as "Father...almighty"; [27] in another, widely but mistakenly attributed to Yorkshire Baptist John Fawcett[28] under the title "Praise to Thee, Thou Great Creator," "Love Divine" serves as a source for a cento, or pastiche, combined with the final stanza of Fawcett's genuine hymn, "Lo!

the bright and rosy morning" (1782), this combination appearing apparently for the first time in the Exeter Unitarian Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Social and Private Worship (1812).

[29] More recent times have in general been more respectful of Wesley's original, with the exception of those collections that by policy eschew the second-person singular, replacing "thee" and "thou" with "you" and sometimes introducing other changes in order to maintain meter and rhyme.

[30] Another exception is the two-stanza adaptation by Carroll Thomas Andrews (1969) that has been reprinted in several Roman Catholic hymn books set to the tune 'Hyfrydol.'

[33] On a larger scale, it is found almost universally in general collections of the past century, including not only Methodist and Anglican hymn books and commercial and ecumenical collections, but also hymnals published by Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist, Brethren, Seventh-day Adventist, Lutheran, Congregationalist, Pentecostal, and Roman Catholic traditions, among others including the Churches of Christ.

[citation needed] The hymn, initially sung by small Methodist societies, is now commonly performed at British state occasions, such as the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana[35] and the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.