Hymn for ministerial installation

This post is as much historical as anything, but perhaps interesting. I would have posted it in the Music Ministry forum, but since it was moved off somewhere near Timbuktu...

The following hymn can be found on pages 20-21 in Customs of Primitive Churches by Morgan Edwards. The hymn is found within the text of “Prop. VIII. Of the election of a minister.” There a suggested hymn is sung in a service for the licensure of a minister. “I Will Sing the Wondrous Story”: a History of Baptist Hymnody in North America, by David Music, mentions it among five texts in Edwards’s church manual “that lack attributions.” He contrasts its “rough style” with the poetry by Isaac Watts also included in the manual. This ministerial hymn may have been written by Edwards specifically for his church manual. It is not Watts or Wesley, but overall maybe not that bad. Hymns this specific are not as common as more generic ones.

1. The ministry! a noble scheme!
‘Mongst all the means of grace, supreme;
And best contriv’d to save.
We sing the author’s worthy praise
And bless the care he took to raise
The ministers we have.

2. He, bounteous still, bids others rise,
In lieu of each that fails, or dies;
Nor shall the order cease;
And when he sends by whom he’ll send.
He makes the means attain the end,
By adding the increase.

3. Let each that hears the preached word,
Admire this goodness of their Lord,
And in his praise agree;
For ministers, their work, and call,
Their shining gifts, their use, and all
Are fruites of his decree.

“I Will Sing the Wondrous Story”: a History of Baptist Hymnody in North America, David Music, Paul Richardson, 2008, p. 122