HYMNWRITER CHARLES WESLEY (1707–1788)

Charles Wesley was born at Epworth in Lincolnshire on 29th December, 1707. He was the son of the Rector of the parish, Samuel Wesley. At the age of eight he was sent to Westminster School and in 1726 he went on from there to Oxford University, where he graduated in 1733. He says for the first two years at University he was negligent of religion and knew no separation from the world. But about 1728 he had his first serious thoughts and started to read his Bible regularly and pray and go to the Lord’s Supper, and he says that among his fellow students, “this gained me the harmless name of Methodist.” He had been brought up in a Christian home and so in his early years the change in him was not so visible as that in a man like Newton. He was one of a group at Oxford who took the religion of the Church of England more seriously than most and were mocked for regularly attending the Communion Service and other practices, such as visiting the poor and sick, and going to the prisons.

So the work in him began gradually with a study of the Scriptures and followed with a desire to help others. One of the new members, who was added to the group, was called George Whitefield and it is interesting to know that Charles Wesley was instrumental in his call by grace. They all suffered much ridicule in Oxford in their day. In 1735 Charles was ordained a minister in the Church of England and in the same year he sailed for America, a very risky undergaking in those days. While there he suffered much ill health from dysentery and returned to England the following year. The ship was caught in a bad storm at sea and was in danger but for Wesley it was a time of blessing in his soul. He wrote, “In this dreadful moment, I bless God, I found the comfort of hope; and such joy in finding I could hope, as the world can neither give nor take away. I had that conviction of the power of God present with me, overruling my fear and raising me above what I am by nature, as surpassed all rational evidence and gave me a taste of the divine goodness.” It is interesting to know that this visit of the Lord to his soul came after much wrestling in prayer, for in the early part of the storm he says, “I strove vehemently to pray but in vain. I persisted in striving yet still without effect. I prayed for power to pray continually repeating the name of Jesus till I felt the virtue of it at last.” He arrived at Dover and was welcomed back in London by his friends.

At this time in his life he was influenced by several books among which were, “A Serious Call” by William Law, and “The Life of God in the Soul of Man” by Scougal. He also met Count Zinzendorf, leader of the Moravians, who had talked with him; also another Moravian Missionary Peter Bohler influenced him. He was in fact not blessed in his soul as he would have wished and felt to have very little evidence of his interest in the truth. About this time he met his sister Kezzy who was in deep soul trouble and she told him weeping that she believed now that there was such a thing as the new creature . . . she owned there was a depth of religion she had never fathomed and said that she was not, but longed to be converted and would give up all to obtain the love of God. Charles says, “I prayed for her and blessed God from my very heart.” He felt in the same place himself and the echo of his feelings and his sister’s comes out in the hymn which he later wrote,

Love divine, all love excelling,
Joy of heaven to earth come down!
Fix in us thy humble dwelling;
All thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesus, thou art all compassion;
Pure unbounded love thou art;
Visit us with thy salvation;
Comfort every sinking heart.

He resumed his ministry in England preaching at Oxford and London mainly. But ill-health overtook him and in 1738 he had a severe attack of pleurisy and at the same time felt in a very dark place spiritually. In this illness the Lord appeared and greatly blessed him in a remarkable way. He went to recover to the home of a poor but godly man whose sister had just been called by grace and still felt much blessing in her own soul. She told Charles of her blessing and longed to comfort him. On Whitsunday morning she had a strange persuasion to go outside the door of his bedroom and utter the words, “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise and believe and thou shalt be healed.” Though at first Charles did not realise who had spoken the words, they were so powerfully blessed of the Lord to him that they were the means of delivering him from his darkness and unbelief. The lady afterwards confessed to him, “It was I, a weak sinful creature, spoke; but the words were Christ’s; he commanded me to say them, and so constrained me that I could not forbear.” And so in this unusual way the Lord brought to Charles Wesley that assurance of His mercy that he had wished to feel. In taking up his Bible he opened on the words, “He hath put a new song in my mouth, even a thanksgiving unto our God. Many shall see it and fear and shall put their trust in the Lord.” That night he wrote in his diary, “I now found myself at peace with God and rejoiced in the hope of loving Christ … I saw that by faith I stood; by the continual support of faith, which kept me from falling, through of myself I am ever sinking into sin . . . yet confident of Christ’s protection.” This experience he recorded in many of his hymns — the most well-known probably being,

O for a thousand tongues to sing,
My blest Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace.

He breaks the power of cancelled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.

After this blessing he again knew times of darkness but never so great as he had experienced before it. He now assisted for six months as a Curate at St. Mary’s Church, Islington, London, then in May, 1739, he began preaching in the open air — first on village greens in Essex and then to the great crowds at Moorfields, London, who had gathered to hear Whitefield. At the same time he was to be found preaching before the University at Oxford. It was to high and low that the gospel went forth in England in those days and the Lord took these men from the great Universities, such as Berridge from Cambridge and Wesley and Whitefield from Oxford, together with others like Cennick, Newton, Doddridge and Toplady to spread the Gospel in our land. The days were dark but the light of the Gospel shone forth and our purpose in looking at the lives of these men is not just to raise an interest in the history of the times but also to inspire in us a desire that the Lord would again work in our own day in such a powerful and manifest way. Charles Wesley preached also at Blackheath and Kennington Common to very large crowds. He preached extempore with great power and hundreds were affected in a saving way, some who later preached the gospel themselves. Often he was in great danger from the crowds. At Sheffield a meeting house where he was due to preach was razed to the ground by a mob and Charles was arrested, accused of being the cause of a riot. On occasions he was hit with stones. Once he was attacked by a man with a sickle, when he exclaimed, “In the Name of the Lord Jesus, keep back,” and the effect of these words was to make the man desist. At one house in which he stayed near Leeds the mob broke all the windows and doors. Once when preaching in America he just moved his position when a bullet flew past his head and struck a nearby tree. Thus the Lord protected the life of his servant and enabled him to suffer many attacks and dangers for the truth’s sake along with other labourers at the time. In the controversy between Whitefield and John Wesley, his brother, over free grace and free-will, Charles was in a difficult position, but it is clear from his hymns, especially 1077 (Gadsby) where he stood himself,

Dearest Lord, what must I do?
Only thou the way canst show;
Thou canst save me in this hour;
I have neither will nor power.

For ten years from 1739–1749 his itinerant labours were great. Then in 1749 he was married to a Welsh girl Sarah Gwynne and set up a home at Bristol. He still travelled and she at first travelled with him, but gradually with a family and as he grew older his travels lessened. They had eight children between 1757 and 1768, only three of whom survived. About 1760 he gave up itinerating and in 1771 he moved to London where he died on 29th March, 1788, and was buried in St. Marylebone Churchyard near his home in Chesterfield Street. He was eighty-two. His wife who was younger than him did not die until 1822.

He published the first volume of his Hymns together with those of his brother in 1738, entitled “Psalms and Hymns.” In 1749 a two volume collection was published entitled, “Hymns and Sacred Poems, by John and Charles Wesley.” In both of these editions most of the hymns were composed by Charles and five by his brother John. From this it appears quite clear, that the hymnwriter of the Methodist movement — for these hymns formed the core of the book used in the Methodist Denomination — was Charles and not his brother. In Gadsby’s hymnbook there are about forty of Charles Wesley’s hymns.

We close with lines which are the last he composed and which he dictated to his wife on his death bed,

In age and feebleness extreme,
Who shall a sinful worm redeem?
Jesus, my only hope thou art,
Strength of my failing flesh and heart.
O could I catch a smile from thee
And drop into Eternity!

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