Charles Wesley was born in England in 1707 during the rule of Queen Anne. After a lifetime spanning the complete reigns of George I and II, he died ‘full of years’ during the reign of George III in 1788.
So what has this 18th-century clergyman to offer 20th-century Christian practice? Our patterns of singing and our forms of praise have changed. The songs we sing to celebrate our love for God and his salvation are different in rhyme and metre, not to say theology. Is there anything to learn from this figure from two centuries ago which will improve our corporate singing and enhance our understanding of the grace of God in Christ? My answer would have to be a resounding “Yes!”
While in the history books, Charles Wesley’s ministry is usually mentioned after the celebrated ministry of his brother John, Charles was as well-educated a graduate of Christ Church, Oxford and arguably a better preacher and as fervent in spirit. Bernard Manning wrote of his hymns, “There is a reminiscence of Holy Scripture in every verse, almost in every line, that Charles Wesley wrote”. Only four books of the Old Testament are not referred to in his full output: Ezra, Nehemiah, Nahum and Zephaniah. Of the New Testament canon, only 3 John is not touched on. There are 30 references to Romans 8 alone in the first edition of the New Methodist Hymn Book of 1904. Wesley is possibly the most Christ-centred of all the hymn writers of his time.
A recurring characteristic of the hymns of this prolific poet is a use of the Bible that shows exegetical care in harnessing doctrine to poetry. Consider the well-known lines of the still frequently (and joyously) sung ‘And can it be’ The description of his (or yours or my) conversion rings so true:
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth and followed Thee.
Note the stress on the sovereignty of God: “Thine eye diffused …” the quickening ray of divine grace that alone could release the sinner from the bondage of sin. If you want a challenge, try to match the lines of the verses of this and other Wesley hymns with the texts you think he may have used. A verse like this from another hymn may be more straightforward but perhaps no less of a challenge:
The God of love, to earth he came,
That you might come to heaven;
Believe, believe in Jesu’s name,
And all your sin’s forgiven.Believe in him that died for thee, And,
sure as he hath died,
Thy debt is paid, thy soul is free,
And thou art justified.
It is often said that the language of the Victorians, let alone the 18th-century writers, is archaic—we don’t need all the thees and thous, let alone the haths and doths—they’re too antiquated. But consider what is lost in this modernized version of ‘And can it be’:
My chains fell off, your voice I knew,
I rose, went forth and followed you
What a world of doctrinal difference there is between “Your voice I knew” and “My heart was free”. In the first, the emphasis is on the sinner’s achievement in identifying the voice of God; in the second, the natural response to losing the chains of sin’s bondage is the joyous experience of knowing our sins have been irrevocably cancelled.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Wesley doctrine/poetry is how it reveals the passion at the roots of this man’s soul: he is passionate in his obsession with Jesus and the gospel of grace. It is a constant wonder to him that the Son of God loved him and gave himself up for him. Listen to him marvelling at this ‘amazing love’:
O Lord divine! what hast thou done?
The immortal God has died for me!
The Father’s co-eternal Son
Bore all my sins upon the tree;
The immortal God for me hath died?
My Lord, my love is crucified
But not only was Wesley a master at expounding in poetry the great doctrines of saving grace, he was also masterly at presenting New Testament teaching on the outworking of these doctrines. He knew how to apply them to living the Christian life. The hymn beginning: “Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go, My daily labour to pursue …” is a fine example of his facility to apply doctrine to practice:
Thee may I set at my right hand,
Whose eyes my inmost substance see,
And labour on at thy command,
And offer all my works to thee
There are Bible texts for each line of that verse, two of them almost verbatim quotes. Why not see if you can match text to line?
Nothing here is intended to denigrate modern hymns; there are many excellent compositions, more often than not truly biblical. I have no wish to draw comparisons between Wesley and any individual modern hymnwriters. But there is an important difference that must not be overlooked, and it is not good enough to dismiss it on the grounds that archaic language in personal pronouns simply does not reflect the way we talk today. Take the contents of ‘Ring of Praise’ as a basis for comparison. It contains many fine examples of modern hymn composition which are faithful to the Bible’s teaching and to the centrality of Christ. If there is a vital distinction (and I think there is), it is that so many modern hymns are written in blank verse. Have you ever tried to memorize blank verse? It’s no easy task. Try a few lines of this hymn titled “Rejoice!”:
Though we are weak, His grace is everything we need;
We’re made of clay but this treasure is within.
He turns our weakness into His opportunities,
So that the glory goes to Him.
Now a four-line verse plus two-line chorus from Wesley (albeit much shorter lines) on the same topic of rejoicing:
Rejoice in glorious hope;
Jesus the Judge shall come,
And take his servants up
To their eternal home:
We soon shall hear the archangel’s voice;
The trump of God shall sound, Rejoice!
Is it not less daunting to memorize Wesley’s verses than the other? It’s not that the content of either is less biblical than the other, it’s just easier to memorize a rhyming verse than a verse in plain prose. And where the metre is reasonably simple it gets better still! Another factor that is inclined to weigh against the modern hymn without rhyme and with difficult metre is that it is hard to find a tune to easily fit it. With the regular metre hymns, there’s plenty of familiar tunes available and this facilitates the memorizing process.
However, not every hymn, old or new, is worth memorizing. The tune is simply an ‘aide-memoire’; the words themselves must determine the value of committing a hymn or a verse of a hymn to memory. If they are truly biblical, they sing of the love of Jesus. They set forth his glorious death, resurrection and triumphant return, jointly or severally, and if they rhyme in a way that maintains these truths with clarity, then it would seem to me that the hymn or verses of it would be worth remembering. After all, when Wesley writes his poetry, it is certain to be biblical propositions we are memorizing. The ongoing treasury of the “songs of Zion” is a most important one. Not only do most of us love to sing, if we love the Lord Jesus then we will love to sing of his glory.
Perhaps there is a case for encouraging more musically adroit Christians to put their hand to composing music for hymns—more poetically gifted people to apply themselves to joining theology with good verse. There is a real challenge for us in the life and work of Charles Wesley. The poet Robert Southey wrote of him, “Perhaps no poems have ever been so devoutly committed to memory as these, nor quoted so often upon a death bed”. Wesley was passionate about evangelism, or, rather, about Jesus, the great subject of our evangelism. He seems to have had no ulterior motive in doing what he did, no pride in numbers gathered, popularity attained, sinners repenting. It was Jesus he desired to know, and as much desired others to know. He knew that for any man or woman to die without Christ and the power of his blood, was to experience the fearfulness of falling into the hands of the living God.
In 1749, Charles wrote the hymn ‘Give me the faith which can remove, And sink the mountain to a plain’. The second verse surely sets the agenda for Christians of every generation:
I would the precious time redeem,
And longer live for this alone,
To spend and to be spent for them
Who have not yet my Saviour known
So what has this passionate poet of the gospel to say to us? Is there a passion for Christ stirring in our soul? Do we care deeply and compassionately for those “who have not our Saviour known”? I wonder if, today, we comfortable Christians, heirs to the benefits of a materialist culture, are happy with our lot? Do we love this world more than our true and heavenly home? Already we are celebrating the new millennium and gleefully anticipating its forerunner, our 2000 Olympic Games. Does this adversely affect our love for Jesus or for “Adam’s helpless race”? Tough for Wesley that he had to live without all the technical incredibilia we prize so highly. But not without the clear certainty he was being, like all true believers, “changed from glory into glory, til in heaven we take our place”.
So if we are challenged by this passionate poet’s life and ministry, has he a word to say about death? Early or late, sudden or lingering, it is, due to sin, the “necessary end” Shakespeare wrote of. Not for nothing did Paul call it “the last enemy”. The devil is out there, waiting permission to exercise his permitted power. Even here Wesley can bring us encouragement. In 1781, he wrote:
I have nothing to fear. I have nothing to hope for
here, only to finish my course with joy
He had seven years left in which to run that course. Earlier he had affirmed with characteristic passion:
Happy, if with my latest breath I might but gasp his name;
Preach him to all, and cry in death: Behold, behold the Lamb!
Could you seriously doubt that he actually did?
