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Amazing Love
By William C. Goold

Happy birthday Charles Wesley! Charles Wesley was born December 18, 1707. For three weeks, the sickly, premature infant struggled for his life. As the eighteenth child of Susanna and Samuel, he was the ninth to survive infancy. Each time we sing his Advent carol, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” we recognize this Christmas baby won his battle for life. This year we observe and celebrate his tercentennial birthday.

Since his death in 1788, Charles has received consider­ably less scholarly attention than his older brother, John. Wesley scholar Frank Baker has rightfully stated, “The main reason for the neglect of Charles Wesley is, of course, John Wesley.” The occasion of his 300th birthday is a fitting time for Charles Wesley to receive the study, recognition, honor, and tribute due him.

Conversion and song
Charles readily identified Whitsunday (Pentecost), May 21, 1738, three days before John, as the date of his personal conversion and faith in Christ’s atoning work for him. On that day, he opened the Scriptures to Psalm 40:3 and read these words: “He hath put a new song in my mouth; many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord.” The text proved to be prophetic; saving faith was kindled. He began writ­ing his first hymn the very next day. (It remains uncertain whether his first hymn was “Where shall my wond’ring soul begin?” or “And can it be?” Both are written about the same time. Each is largely autobiographical, as are numerous other hymns he wrote.)

For the next 50 years, his pen seldom stopped. To our present day, the English-speaking world has yet to witness another pen like it. Few topics escaped his poetic mind, including politics, current events, love of his wife, loss of his beloved son to Catholicism and, most of all, religious hymnody. Charles seems to have literally breathed, thought, dreamed, processed, and worshiped via poetic form. “The poetical medium was so firmly ingrained in Charles Wesley as his mode of expression that almost everything he had to say (not just on religious matters) was expressed through poetry.”

 

Forming the poet
The years 1707–1738 appear to be critical and forma­tional in terms of Charles’ character, values, and spiritual journey to saving faith and holy living. During the 31 years prior to his conversion, several significant influences seemed to have occurred in pairs. It is helpful to view him as the product of multiple sets of two. The following synop­sis will illustrate the many pairings.

His paternal and maternal grandparents were non-con­formist, seventeenth-century Puritans of strong conviction. His strong-willed mother, Susanna, and studious father, Samuel Sr., (a classic scholar and a hymn writer) encour­aged him to frequently express himself in rhymed meter even before his conversion. Two older brothers, loving but firm, actively guided two vital educational experiences (Samuel Jr. at Westminster school in London, and John while Charles attended Christ Church in Oxford). Early on Charles’s language study was paired between the classic language of Latin and the biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek. At Westminster School, under brother Samuel Jr., employed there as a master, Charles (with other boys eight years and older) awakened at 5:30 a.m. to then study, write, translate, and speak Latin until bed at eight. Subsequently, he would master seven languages.

Two disappointing but vital personal experiences included a rather dismal first year at Christ Church (Oxford) followed by a disastrous ten months (February–December, 1736) spent in America as personal secretary to Governor Oglethorpe in Georgia. His conversion was largely influ­enced by two profound encounters, including Moravian believer-missionary-witness, Peter Bohler, and a spiritual, godly Mr. Bray whom Charles described as “...a poor igno­rant mechanic who knows nothing but Christ.”

Charles’s writings also reveal two negative worship expe­riences that helped significantly shape him, including his early exposure to the miserable practice of Anglican congre­gational singing (largely the stilted Psalm singing from the several Psalters of the day) and what he repeatedly termed poetically as the “horrible decree” of the prevailing doctrine and preaching of election.

Wesley the author
Charles Wesley’s paper trail is large, but it differs con­siderably from John’s in both organization and content. He left a significant collection of personal letters, a journal, various tracts, essays, fragments, and a minimal number of printed sermons, with only two sermons printed during his lifetime.

Whereas John readily and faithfully accounted for nearly every minute of his life, Charles struggled with main­taining a consistent personal journal. While a student at Oxford, he wrote to John in 1729 requesting John’s advice on how to, “Write a diary of my actions...If you would direct me to the same or a like method with your own, I would gladly follow it, for I’m convinced of the usefulness of such an undertaking.”

Prior to his marriage to his beloved Sally Gwynne on April 8, 1749, (Sally was nineteen years younger than Charles) and for the rest of their lives together, his many love letters often began without date, salutation, or location of origin. He simply put pen to paper and wrote.

The anointed pen
Although his journal and diary may lack John’s detail, Charles’s hymn production staggers the imagination. With John as editor and publisher, the brothers’ first joint ven­ture was launched in 1739 with Hymns and Sacred Poems, a title also used for three subsequent publications. From 1741 to his death in 1791, John published a series of 30 hymn tracts on various subjects with corresponding titles that were offered to the public for pennies per copy. In all, John published at least 64 different hymnals. Of these, 36 con­sisted of texts written exclusively by the brothers. Charles was by far the major author.

From his conversion in 1738, Charles wrote no fewer than 8,989 religious poems. About 6,500 are considered to be sing-able hymns. Once started, he could not stop. If we do the math with modest minimums of four stanzas per hymn (a conservative number), six lines per stanza, three hymns per week, he produced twelve lines of religious hym­nody every day, seven days per week, for 50 years! Such vol­ume has never been equaled.

In 1780 publisher John offered what is generally recog­nized as the definitive volume of Charles’s hymns, A Collec­tion of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodist (three shillings, sewed). John saw the hymnal as a theological publi­cation, not just a songbook. As its editor and publisher, he also expressed his highest regard for Charles’s poetry and pure use of the English language.

Charles seemed to be incapable of editing his own work. John regularly tinkered with the texts, but he abso­lutely did not want others doing so. Ever the vigilant editor, the same Preface forcefully stated his expectations that while others would reprint the hymns, they should do so with­out changing a note or a word. Charles’s poetic expression of the Methodist doctrine of Christian perfection was not, however, beyond John’s red ink.

Charles Wesley’s legacy
Beyond their sheer quantity and the fact that he wrote extensively for 49 years, Wesley’s hymns deserve serious attention for at least four reasons. First, he perfected an emerging genre, the Scriptural hymn. Building upon his­toric Psalm singing from the Apostolic church, with its Jew­ish background, to the Hymns of Human Composure of Isaac Watts (1674–1748), he moved fully into singing the Bible. For Charles, Holy Scripture was his mother tongue. The Bible fueled the poetic oxygen which he breathed. Wesley’s texts are biblically comprehensive. Numerous authors have commented that if the Bible were to be suddenly taken from the Methodists, it could he nearly fully reconstructed from the texts of Wesley’s hymns. Commenting on the 1780 A Collection of Hymns, Bennard Manning notes:

“Of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, only four are not recorded as illustrated: Ezra, Obadiah, Nahum, and Zephaniah. Of the 27 books of the New Testament, only one: the Third Epistle of St. John. Some books, e.g. Romans and Isaiah, are illus-treated chapter by chapter, almost verse by verse. There are, for instance, over 30 refer­ences to Romans 8.”

Second, Wesley’s hymns are unparalleled in being con­sistently Christocentric. John Lawson dearly recognizes the Wesleys’ interpretation of the Old Testament as preparing the world for Christ’s cooling and the New Testament as the fulfillment of that promise. Charles found Christian truth throughout the Bible and expressed it spontaneously with his poetic genius.

Third, these are solid, substantive texts, underpinned with broad-based resources. Writings and wisdom from the Patristic fathers such as Augustine and Ignatius of Antioch, exegetical reference works of his day, the Book of Common Prayer, and the authorized version of the 1611 King James Bible were familiar source materials for Charles’s hymn texts.

Fourth, Charles Wesley’s hymns are theology in song. His stanzas are digestible doctrine in song. These hymnals were written to teach. John’s sermons, conference minutes, notes, and commentaries were versified by Charles to teach Methodist doctrine as found in Scripture.

The challenge for Wesley today
Pastors and laypersons often ask why the hymns of Charles Wesley are so unknown, seldom used, and even doctrinally rejected in the worship world of today. The answer is admittedly complicated. To sing Wesley is to confront no fewer than five daunting challenges. First, Wesley is no longer known. Pastors, musicians, and laypersons are largely unaware of the vast resources available in these hymns. They are off our repertoire radar. From seminary to pulpit to pew, we have failed to expose and teach these hymns. Second, ours is a generation of biblical illiteracy. In preaching to our pain, our felt needs, and our story, we have fallen short in producing a people who know enough of the biblical story to understand Wesley’s Scripture-in-song. Like his brother John, Charles was “a man of one Book.” Third, ours is a generation that lives in theological poverty. We know much of how we think; we know precious little of how God thinks. To sing Wesley one must constantly strive to know the mind of God, revealed through His Son by the power of His Spirit. We seem now to sing much about Jesus but precious little of the Trinity. Fourth, communication mediums have radically changed. Picture and sound have all but displaced Wesley’s much-valued classic language. The nobility of the spoken word suffers. Fifth, and incred­ibly challenging, is the matter of melody, rhythm, and har­mony, the stuff of music. Classic, eighteenth-century poetic language does not easily lend itself to the musical idioms of CCM (Contemporary Christian Music). A new musical language combined with skillful, thoughtful, theologically accurate, and even prayerful paraphrasing is a must for our day. Wesley can and should live again.

At his 300th birthday, Charles Wesley provides his own appropriate conclusion in one of his hymns: “O heavenly King, look down from above, Assist us to sing Thy mercy and love.”

Dr. William C. Goold is the Dwight M. and Lucille S. Beeson Professor: Church Music & William Earle Edwards Professor: Church Music at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ken­tucky. This article first appeared in The Asbury Herald, Winter 2007. Reprinted with permission.

 

Sidebar

Modern day circuit rider

His horse is actually a car and his “circuit” is nationwide, but Wesley Putnam’s passion for spreading the Gospel is as strong as that of bygone circuit riders.

Wesley has come to rely on God’s faithfulness. “We arrived at Asbury Seminary knowing God had led us there, but with no financial means to pay for it. We watched in amazement as God provided for us month after month.” While at Asbury, he pastored two churches, beginning a “circuit” of 160 miles each day. Wesley states, “When God calls us to a work, he provides the resources necessary to accomplish it.”

As a young man he completed an undergraduate music degree, planning a career as a high school choir director. When God called him to preaching, Wesley resolved to give up a life in music. However, after beginning a life in ministry, “…music began to come out of me. I would prepare a sermon and before I preached it, I would write a poem to sum up what I had said in the ser­mon. Then I would set the poem to music and sing it at the close of the sermon.”

Soon he was being invited to sing and preach at other churches. It was quickly apparent he could not pastor a church and maintain an extensive travel schedule; God was calling him into an evangelistic ministry. Again, God faithfully provided.

“I wrote 30 friends who had experienced my ministry and asked if they would be a part of my board and support with prayer and financ­es; 28 agreed. This affirmed the call to evangelism,” Wesley said. Soon after, he was appointed as a General Evangelist.

“With fear and trembling we stepped out into this new faith experience as a home missionary with bookings for six months and a blank calendar after that. God began opening doors and before long we were booked one year out and then a year-and-a-half. The call has been confirmed over and over again,” Wesley said.

Over the past 25 years, Wesley and his wife, Felicia, have traveled in 35 states and several foreign coun­tries, telling God’s love in ways the current generation will hear. Pack­aged in preaching, storytelling, and music, his relevant message uses con­temporary characters to bring life to ancient stories.

Wesley states, “We have the Old Testament prophet, Elijah, as a Bronx cop. Daniel becomes ‘Cow­boy Dan,’ and Gideon is a Yiddish ‘Barney Fife.’ The stories are true to the text, but by using these char­acters and a good dose of humor, people are able to relate in new ways to the message.  It has been remark­able to watch.”

In the fall of 2005, Wesley was Asbury Seminary’s “artist in resi­dence,” allowing him to update the lyrics and music of 12 of Charles

In the fall of 2005, Wesley was Asbury Seminary’s “artist in residence,” allow­ing him to update the lyrics and music of 12 of Charles Welsey’s most loved hymns.“So much of the language and music has changed since these songs were originated,”Wesley shared. “I wanted towrite them in a way that preserves the rich theology ofCharles Wesley while mak­ing them accessible in thechurch today. "

Welsey’s most loved hymns. “So much of the language and music has changed since these songs were originated,” Wesley shared. “I wanted to write them in a way that preserves the rich theology of Charles Wesley while making them accessible in the church today. My goal was simple— singable melodies with lyrics that were true to the original message.”

As Wesley travels he is continually amazed at God’s work: “It blows me away to think of the altar rails filled with people who have made significant decisions to allow Christ to be Lord in their lives.” Just as circuit riders of years ago had to be relevant to reach their audiences for Christ, Wesley seeks to minister in fresh new ways today—with the same passion and purpose.

Tina S. Pugel is the Director of Communications at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. Printed with permission by The Asbury Herald, Asbury Theological Seminary. Visit www.wesleyputnam.org for more information on Wesley’s ministry.



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