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Reflections

Charles Wesley’s Gift in hymnody

Singing. as many will know, has been a key part of worship for centuries. Indeed, it predates the birth of Christianity. The Psalms that form part of the Hebrew testament were intended to be sung – and were sung. Jewish sources tell us that the psalms were originally sung in front of the tabernacle. Later, when the temple was built, they were sung there. We know that King David was a musician. We also know that he wrote at least 73 of the psalms. Other scriptures such as Exodus ch15 tell us that Moses and the Israelites sang to the Lord, followed by Miriam dancing and singing to the Lord. Such scriptures point to the prevalence of singing praise to God long before the Christian Church came into being.

In the New Testament Paul speaks of congregations in the early church singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs “making melody in their hearts to the Lord” Eph. 5:19. This sentiment is echoed in other NT places as well. So, there is considerable Biblical precedent for the singing of psalms and hymns. Singing to the glory of God is part of our heritage as Christians whatever our denomination.

In the Christian era, prior to the birth of Protestantism, we know that people like Bernard of Clairvaux wrote hymns. Three of his hymns, Jesus, the very thought of thee, with sweetness fills the breast; O Sacred head sore wounded; and Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts are well known outside of the Catholic Church. Each of these eventually found their way into Methodist hymnbooks. They appear both the 1933 Methodist Hymnbook and later in With One Voice. Others in the medieval period, such as Hildegard of Bingen, Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas, also engaged in the writing of hymns.

Isaac Watts, born in 1674 was an English Congregational minister, hymn writer, and theologian. He was born some thirty-three years before Charles Wesley. Watts can. I believe, claim to be the person who popularised hymn singing amongst dissenting churches and Protestants in general. He wrote over 700 hymns, amongst them such well known hymns as: When I survey the wondrous cross (which I think is one of the finest hymns in the English language); Joy to the World; and O God our help in ages past. He was an able hymnwriter who, due to the popularity of his hymns, helped set the scene for Charles Wesley.

Charles Wesley’s father, Samuel, had the poetic gift but largely channelled that into an extended meditation on the life of Christ amongst other similar enterprises. The meditation on Christ’s life runs into some 500 pages, and is written in rhyming couplets, which to my mind, quickly become monotonous. Samuel did however write the occasional hymn. One of these made its way into the 1933 Methodist hymnbook. (MHB 193) Though I confess I have no recollection of any congregation I know actually singing it! Charles inherited his father’s gift, fine-tuned it, and went on to channel his considerable skill into the writing of hymns. Most historians of hymnology would agree that he wrote somewhere between 6000 and 7000 hymns. More than 240 of these were considered worthy of being placed in the 1933 British Methodist hymnbook. The hymnbook that Methodists of my generation were raised on!

The ministry of the Wesley brothers took place during the early stages of the Industrial revolution. It was also the time when wealthy land owners were enclosing their land. In the process such enclosing often meant taking over what for decades if not centuries, had been common shared land. As a result, many peasant farmers were robbed of their livelihood. These people with their families then moved to swell the population of nearby towns.

For centuries many of these peasant farmers had lived in the one spot. There the generations attended the same village church. But now in their new environment they were often both poverty stricken and church less. These were the people to whom the Wesley brothers and others like George Whitefield ministered. As well as being poor, dislocated, and often uneducated, they were also now churchless. Churchless, because they did not readily find a home in the town churches. Those churches predominately catered for the bureaucrats, the merchant class, the scholars, and the aristocracy. Charles Wesley understood this and rose to the occasion with his hymns.

For Charles Wesley hymns were not only a means of offering praise and glory to God they were also a means of theological education. Theological education for the masses many of whom could neither read nor write. Hymns filled a void. Because they were poetic, they could with relative ease be memorised and pondered in the process. Charles capitalised on hymns as a means of sharing the Christian message, albeit from a Wesleyan perspective, in a way that was both memorable and educational in theological terms. He grasped that and put his God given talent for poetry to good use.

Let me give you some examples – examples both of praise and adoration, along with theological insight. But first, a comment: Charles Wesley’s hymns, are far from being what one Methodist minister categorised as “theological nursery rhymes”. As sadly, some contemporary worship songs are. Wesley’s hymns were rich in theological content and often challenging at that point.

Perhaps the best known of all Charles Wesley’s hymns is the carol: Hark! The herald angels sing, Glory to the new born king.

Those two lines which begin the first verse announce Christ’s birth while the rest of that verse speaks about peace, mercy, and reconciliation – each a great theme in themselves. Charles then returns to the annunciation at the end of the verse. Verse two takes us a stage further, whether you agree with all its sentiments or not, and is much more theological, educational, mind stretching for those willing to ponder its meaning …

Christ, by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord.

Think of that “Christ the everlasting Lord! There is a depth of meaning to be explored there. The verse culminates in a powerful statement that is mind stretching for us, never mind the uneducated, the poor, the churchless of Wesley’s day …

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;

Hail the Incarnate Deity!

These are challenging thought-provoking statements, but they were sung, and pondered, and deeply believed by many. Consequently, theological seeds were sown amongst the uneducated, the poor and the churchless of the day. The theology, shared, sung, pondered, and believed would have been nothing other than orthodox Christian theology at that time. The recipients may well have been uneducated but let us not write off the uneducated, many were nonetheless were quite capable of grasping the significance of mystery and awe. And many wanted to be taken beyond the mundane drudgery of daily life into the realm of the spirit and the ultimate mystery of God.

A second hymn that has been significant in shaping Methodism is Charles Wesley’s hymn which starts with the words And can it be. The significance of this hymn is that it highlights Methodism’s focus on the Christian’s experience of God. Experience being one key element of the Wesleyan quadrilateral identified by the late Methodist historian Albert Outler. This hymn also combines the twin aspects of praise and education. The hymn has a strong focus on the love of God shown in the self-giving of Jesus Christ. The first verse ends with the words:

“Amazing love! How can it be that Thou, my God, should'st die for me!”

Here is praise to God, but notice also that the Incarnation is proclaimed in those words as well. It is God who is dying on the cross for us!

Then in verse three we find echoes of Philippians 2:7 in Wesley’s words:

He left His Fathers’ throne above – so free, so infinite His grace –

Emptied Himself of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race.

Emptied himself! Presumably Charles Wesley has in mind here the divine attributes often ascribed to God of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. Essentially Wesley is following Paul here and underlining the humanity of Christ while emphasising the retention of the greatest attribute of all “love”. However, it is the fourth verse, that powerfully states the experiential side of faith, culminating in the final two lines:

My chains fell off, my heart was free,

I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

I have no doubt that Charles Wesley was thinking of the experience of Paul and Silas in prison in Phillippi when he wrote those words. But not only that, Charles was also reflecting some of the dramatic conversions he himself had witnessed as he and his brother John proclaimed the gospel to the masses across the length and breadth of England and Ireland. This is a reminder too of John and Charles own personal experience of God’s grace. John put it in gentler terms when he wrote of his heart being “strangely warmed”. Charles wrote of his experience on the day of Pentecost in 1738 saying “the Spirit of God strove with my own … till by degrees he chased away the darkness of my unbelief.” …but essentially, they had in mind the same thing. The Christian faith is not a matter of sterile, formal, purely rational, belief – the outcome to be found at the end of some kind of logical argument. Instead, Christian faith is relational, warm, experiential. An encounter of the love of God in and through Jesus Christ our Lord. John warned the Methodists of his day to hold to this. He said:

“I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power.”

Charles and John Wesley lived and died as members of the Church of England. They longed for that Church to become more evangelical in the best sense of that word, more experiential, less formal. That needs to be balanced however against their equally strong belief in the sacramental side of the faith. Holy Communion for them was an essential means of grace, even a converting means of grace, and was to be participated in regularly.

Another key aspect often addressed in Charles Wesley’s hymns has to do with the all inclusive nature of God love. The Wesley’s were strongly opposed to the Calvinistic focus on predestination, especially the idea held by some in their day of double predestination. This belief excluded all but the elect from heaven and consigned those excluded to hell. This is clearly addressed Charles’ hymn What shall I do my God to love. The second verse reads:

Thy sovereign grace to all extends,

Immense and unconfined;

From age to age it never ends

It reaches all mankind.”

Notice the use of the word “all” in both the first and the fourth lines! The third verse continues that theme:

Throughout the world its breadth is known,

Wide as infinity;

So wide it never passed by one,

Or it had passed by me.

Charles addresses the subject again in the hymn Father, whose everlasting love (MHB 75). The second verse reads:

Help us Thy mercy to extol,

Immense, unfathomed, unconfined;

To praise the Lamb who died for all,

The general Saviour of mankind.

And the last two lines of the next verse read:

For all Thou hast in Christ prepared

Sufficient, sovereign, saving grace.

This belief in the immense, unconfined love of God has, I believe, touched the heart of Methodism leading to an inclusive understanding with practical outcomes.

In his well-known hymn O for a thousand tongues to sing, Charles speaking of Jesus, but also his own experience of people’s response to the gospel says this:

He Speaks, and, listening to His voice,

New life the dead receive,

The mournful, broken hearts rejoice,

The humble poor believe.

That undoubtedly was the Wesley’s experience as they carried out their mission.

I have been speaking about the 18^th century and some of the theological concerns Charles Wesley chose to emphasise back then. It is my view that it is largely due to Charles influence that Methodism became a congregational rather than a choir singing Church. It is also my view that because many of Charles Welsey’s hymns have been sung over and over again by Methodist congregations down the decades that it is Charles who has in fact helped shape the theology and perspectives of Methodism more than John. John set up the structure and preached many sermons. Today, the sermons are read by theological students and occasionally by ordained ministers but not by the vast majority of people in the pews. Charles hymns however touch base with all Methodists. Seldom would a month pass without one or more of Charles Wesley’s hymns being sung in Methodist congregations around the world. Though admittedly the selection of his hymns deemed suitable is now considerably less that when the British Methodist Hymnbook was published in 1933.

So, what is Charles Wesley’s gift to the Church. Let me summarise:

1. Hymns that combine praise to God with love for all people

2. Hymns that have a theological content and seek to educate people in the faith

3. Hymns that touch the heart and help people sense the presence of God

4. Hymns that help enrich people’s sense of belonging to the worshipping community

5. Hymns that seek to marry Gospel insights with the current context

Of course, hymn singing is not confined to Methodism. Nor are what I have called Charles Wesley’s gifts confined to Methodism. Congregational hymn singing is now almost universal at least in main stream Christianity. The Methodist story is part of that story and the influence of Charles Wesley has extended well beyond the borders of Methodism. Likewise, Methodism has had its hymnology enriched by hymns from other traditions. In addition, Methodism has spawned those who have followed in the steps of Charles Wesley – poets, hymnwriters, in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, and now in the 21^st century both overseas and here in Aotearoa New Zealand. I think of Fred Pratt Green in England, and of Colin Gibson, Shirley Murray, and others in this country.

Norman E Brookes

April 2025