This pamphlet contains 166 hymns, many of which are admirable and very
close paraphrases of passages in Brevint’s _Christian Sacrifice_, but
others are independent of that devout treatise. Many lend themselves
readily to use in ‘catholic’ services, and have often been quoted as
indicating high sacramentarian views.[122]
On the other hand, such verses as the following must be taken in an
entirely evangelical sense—
The cup of blessing, blessed by Thee,
Let it Thy blood impart:
The bread Thy mystic body be,
And cheer each languid heart.
. . . . .
With solemn faith we offer up,
And spread before Thy glorious eyes,
That only ground of all our hope,
That precious, bleeding Sacrifice,
Which brings Thy grace on sinners down,
And perfects all our souls in one.
. . . . .
By faith we see Thy sufferings past
In this mysterious rite brought back:
And on Thy grand oblation cast,
Its saving benefits partake.
In these paraphrases there are naturally expressions which represent
Brevint and not the Wesleys, except in so far as they indicate a
general approval of his teaching. The hymns which most closely follow
the treatise are often the least happy. Yet, when every deduction is
made, this little book is one of the most edifying of devotional
preparations for the Communion.
These hymns have had a permanent influence upon Methodist worship.
Many of them were probably suggested by the Order of Administration in
the Book of Common Prayer, the most beautiful of all the Anglican
services. Both the brothers had a profound reverence for the Holy
Communion, as the supreme act of Christian worship, and constantly
impressed upon Methodists the duty of its regular observance. Never at
any time was there a danger of the Methodist Societies cutting
themselves off from the Catholic Church by neglect of the Sacraments,
or of their becoming an exclusively evangelistic organization on the
plan of the Salvation Army. This pamphlet, of which many editions were
issued during the lifetime of John Wesley, shows how serious a view
they desired their people to take of the value of this sacrament,
whilst its great popularity suggests that the intelligence of the
Methodists of a hundred and fifty years ago was very much above that
with which we are accustomed to credit them. The republication of
Brevint’s _Treatise_, in a small series of devotional manuals, edited
by Dr. George Osborn, did not revive interest in it, as it might have
done had a judicious selection from the hymns been included.[123]
Several hymns familiar to us in other sections of our hymn-books were
written for, or included in, this series. The prayer for the Church
militant, with its remembrance of and thanksgiving for those in
trouble and for those who have ‘departed this life in Thy faith and
fear,’ probably suggested the hymn—
What are these arrayed in white?
whilst the _Ter-Sanctus_ is the inspiration of—
Lift your eyes of faith and see
Saints and angels joined in one.
The thought of communion with the Church triumphant was very precious
to Charles Wesley, and there is a most beautiful and solemn
appropriateness in the lifting of the eyes as well as of the heart,
when, having claimed in faith the forgiveness of sins, we take our
unchallenged place at the table of the Lord. The Holy Communion
includes fellowship with those who have ‘crossed the flood’ and are
for ever with the Lord.
Nor is the other aspect of the communion of saints forgotten. It is
often easier for earnest souls to claim fellowship with the
white-robed company of heaven than with those on earth who are divided
from them by divergencies of doctrine and practice. But if, on the one
hand, the Eucharist has been a stone of stumbling and a rock of
offence to theologians and ecclesiastics, on the other it is the bond
of union between all ‘holding fast the Head.’[124] The true evangelic
and the typically Wesleyan position is well stated in the verse—
Part of His Church below,
We thus our right maintain;
Our living membership we show,
And in the fold remain,—
The sheep of Israel’s fold,
In England’s pastures fed;
And fellowship with all we hold,
Who hold it with our Head.[125]
This is the attitude our Church has consistently adopted. We do not
claim exclusive privileges or profess that our boundaries are the
walls of that city of God which lieth four square. We are but ‘part of
His Church below,’ but we _are_ a part, and in obedience to our dying
Lord’s command ‘we thus our right maintain.’ What matter though some
deny the validity of our ‘orders,’ the efficacy of our sacraments, our
title to a place in the Holy Catholic Church? They may drive us from
their local altars, but they cannot exclude us from the Lord’s table.
They may deny us a place in that family for which our blessed Lord was
content to be betrayed into the hands of sinful men. What then? We do
not deny theirs.
Fellowship with all we hold,
Who hold it with our Head.
This is a note too seldom heard in Communion hymns. I do not remember
to have found it so clearly put anywhere else, though Major Turton’s
prayer for unity comes graciously near to it.
For all Thy Church, O Lord, we intercede;
Make Thou our sad divisions soon to cease;
Draw us the nearer each to each, we plead,
By drawing all to Thee, O Prince of Peace;
Thus may we all one Bread, one Body be,
Through this blest Sacrament of Unity.[126]
The _sacramental_ character of the Lord’s Supper as the sign and
pledge of the believer’s consecration to the service of Christ is
represented in the hymn beginning—
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
One in Three, and Three in One,
As by the celestial host,
Let Thy will on earth be done;
Praise by all to Thee be given,
Glorious Lord of earth and heaven.
which in some of its verses suggests the prayer known as the First
Thanksgiving,[127] though it is based upon a beautiful paragraph of
Brevint’s.
A few hymns under the heading ‘After the Sacrament’ form an
unimportant supplement, but the long series really ends with a joyous
song well-suited to be the happy close of the solemn commemoration of
the sacrifice of Calvary and the renewal of the Christian’s oath of
allegiance
Let Him to whom we now belong
His sovereign right assert,
And take up every thankful song
And every loving heart.
This final note of glad thanksgiving reminds us that in our Communion
Service the ‘Gloria in Excelsis’ immediately precedes the
Benediction.[128]