Thomas Olivers

Thomas Olivers was a Welsh-born Wesleyan Methodist preacher, controversialist, editor, and hymn writer. Born at Tregynon in Montgomeryshire in 1725, he lost both parents while still a young child and received only limited schooling. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker and later worked as a travelling craftsman. A decisive change came after he heard George Whitefield preach at Bristol. Olivers subsequently joined the Methodist society and in 1753 entered the itinerant ministry under John Wesley, travelling through England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

In 1775 Wesley placed Olivers in charge of important printing work connected with Methodist publications, including the “Arminian Magazine.” Wesley removed him from that responsibility in 1789 after repeated editorial and printing problems, although their friendship continued. Olivers also wrote theological and controversial prose and an elegy after Wesley’s death.

His enduring contribution to hymnody is “The God of Abraham Praise.” Probably written around 1770 after he heard Meyer Lyon sing the Jewish Yigdal in London, it was not a literal translation but an extensive Christian paraphrase and expansion. Olivers retained the Jewish source’s majestic confession of the eternal God while developing themes of Abrahamic faith, pilgrimage, grace, Christ, and Trinitarian praise.