THE HYMNS OF CHARLES WESLEY – Part 2 of 3

O that the world might know the all-atoning Lamb!
Spirit of faith, descend and show the virtue of His name;
The grace which all may find, the saving power, impart,
And testify to humankind, and speak in every heart.  (Charles Wesley)

The most impressive factor in Wesley’s hymns of salvation, and in his work in general, was the massive biblical content.  J. Ernest Rattenbury contends that a skillful person, if the Bible were lost, “might extract much of it from Wesley’s hymns…”

…Wesley wrote 5,100 hymns in Select Passages of Scripture, most of which are unread today, but which effectively retold the biblical story, in the form of a kind of devotional commentary.

Very few contemporary congregations can do full justice to the singing of Wesley’s hymns because they don’t have the biblical knowledge to appreciate what they are singing.  Rattenbury says that Holy Scripture was Wesley’s “sole literary inspiration,” because even when he took phrases from other authors, they were generally nothing other than a recasting of some biblical truth. But Wesley’s weaving of phrases, allusions, and biblical insights is so masterful that even the careful reader will find it hard to catch them all.

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in “Our First Song: Evangelism in the Hymns of Charles Wesley”

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