THE
P RTAL
January 2013
Charles Wesley
by Fr Keith Robinson
Page 7
Anglican
Luminary
There never was a time when Christians lacked hymnody. Inheriting the hymnody of the Hebrews
(the Psalms), we are told that our Lord and his disciples concluded the Last Supper with a hymn. Then there
are the medieval office hymns, and great hymn writers like St Thomas Aquinas. But surely one of the greatest
Christian hymn writers of all time must be an Anglican: Charles Wesley!
No list of Anglican Luminaries
would be complete without his
name. But, just a minute, wasn’t
he a Methodist? Well, actually
no! It is recorded that at his end,
he summoned the local Rector
of St Marylebone and said to
him, “Sir, I have lived, and I
die, a member of the Church of
England. I pray you to bury me
in your churchyard.” And so it
was.
earned the nick-name
“Methodists”
Charles was, famously, the
eighteenth of nineteen children
born to the Revered Samuel
Wesley, the Rector of Epworth
in Lincolnshire, and his wife.
Born in December 1707 and educated at Westminster
School, he then read Classical languages and literature
at Christchurch Oxford, where, in 1727 he formed a
group of evangelically minded students who sought
to take their Christian faith seriously at a time when
religion in England had become formalistic and had
largely lost its cutting edge. Because of their disciplined
lives they earned the nick-name “Methodists”, but
it was neve r their intention to break away from the
National Church. They were indeed the beginnings of
the great Evangelical Revival in the Church of England
which took place in the century before the Oxford
Movement.
he lived in Bristol, where he
married in 1749, and where his
house still exists. He became an
itinerant preacher along with
other members of the movement.
The family nevertheless had
nine children, of whom six died
in infancy. In 1771 he bought
a house (since demolished)
in the London borough of St
Marylebone, from which he
continued to work, and where he
died on 29th March 1788.
nine thousand hymns
Charles Wesley is said to have
composed almost nine thousand
hymns, making him certainly
the most prolific British hymn-
writer. They cover an extremely wide range of subject
matter, and display a profound and rare depth of
spirituality. For this reason many of them remain even
today among the most popular and enduring hymns
in the English language, appealing to many traditions.
Here, evidently is a man who has truly wrestled with
difficult experiences and faith in God, and yet who has
come out of it all with a stronger, more radiant trust
than before.
He is able to express these spiritual experiences
in such a way that to sing his words is to be shifted
wonderfully forward on our own journey. Certainly I
he lived in Bristol
have personally received many an insight which has
Charles is often overshadowed by his brother John, helped me to make sense of my life in the light of Faith.
who is more properly regarded as the founder of How many English speaking churches will not sing his
Methodism, and of whose un-canonical ordinations “Hark, the herald …” on Christmas Day, or did not
he strongly disapproved. Both brothers were ordained, sing his “Lo, he comes …” on Advent Sunday? And
Charles in 1735, and summoned together to minister his Eucharistic hymns are full of beautiful catholic
in the American colonies.
understanding of that Mystery.
Charles was chaplain to the colony at Fort Frederica,
So, as we still sing so many of his hymns week by
but the enterprise was not regarded as successful, and week, let us praise God for this tuneful part of our
they returned to England within a year. Thereafter Patrimony!