From the first the Methodists made their own experience the
starting-point of their preaching. John Wesley desired no help from
any who had not ‘the witness in himself.’ His itinerants must set to
their seal that God is true. ‘We are witnesses of these things, and so
is also the Holy Ghost.’ This personal element, the testimony of the
man who believed and therefore spoke, differentiated at once Methodist
preaching from the cold impersonal moral essays of the parish church.
But Methodist preaching would not have been what it was had John
Wesley’s sermons rather than Charles Wesley’s hymns represented
Methodism to the masses. John Wesley’s keen intellect held his deep
religious fervour in check, but Charles took full advantage of the
poet’s licence to say what was in his heart without reserve and
without modifying explanations.
His hymns of invitation strike a new note. There is nothing to compare
with them in earlier hymn-writers, and comparatively little in later.
They are the battle-songs of an open-air preacher, and are borne on
the wings of the tempest that raged around the heroic little poet as
he faced cheerily the rage or ridicule of the mob. His metres are
bright and lilting, winning the ear of the simple and arresting the
casual passer-by.
The mercy I feel To others I show,
I set to my seal That Jesus is true:
Ye all may find favour Who come at His call,
O come to my Saviour, His grace is for all!
O let me commend My Saviour to you,
The publican’s Friend And Advocate too,
For you He is pleading His merits and death,
With God interceding For sinners beneath.