THEIR AUTHORS AND ORIGIN. 233
of November. Shortly before his death, he said, " I shall not recover ; but Christ is mine : He is my foundation, He is the rock I build upon ! "
Among Mr. De Courcy s works were, " Some Elegiac Lines on the Death of the Rev. G-. Whitefield," 1771; "A Letter of Solemn Counsel to a Person in a Declining State of Health," 1778 ; and a large work in two volumes, a reply to Dr. Priestley, entitled " Christ Crucified," 1791. He was also the author of a pamphlet with the curious title, " Jehu s Looking-glass ; or, a Treatise on True and False Zeal." He also published some sermons.
In 1775, Mr. De Courcy published " A. Collection of Psalms and Hymns extracted from different Authors." In the preface he finds fault with Sternhold and Hopkins, with Tate and Brady, and even with Merrick, as well as with the Scotch paraphrases. He says that " in all these compositions we labour through great Old Testament obscurity, which is manifestly done away in Christ." His object was to produce a book full of Christ. The preface is dated December 6th, 1775, Shrewsbury. The third edition, which was much enlarged, appeared in 1784 : it con tained several hymns by Mr. De Courcy. Mr. John Nunn, of Manchester, marks ten as De Courcy s in his copy bearing date 1806, but there are only seven that remain his undisputed pro ductions. They are Nos. 192, 204, 260, 261, 263, 311, 312 as the numbers are given in the fourth edition of 1793.
The first of these, No. 192
"Jesus, at Thy command,"
is No. 609 in the "New Congregational Hynin Book," erroneously attributed to Toplady. It is said to have been written on the occasion of Mr. Whitefield sailing to America. If this is so, it must have been when he went on one of his later voyages, as Mr. Whitefield s first voyage to America was before Mr. De Courcy was born. In the original, the hymn has another verse a second verse. Mr. de Courcy s hymns, though
�� �
