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LOVE DIVINE
By Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley was undoubtedly one of the most prolific hymn-writers ever, having produced more than 6,000 during his lifetime. Most of them aren’t sung any more – Wesley had a fair number of misses among his hits – but a good number are.
Among these are some which rank among the greatest hymns ever written, in that they bring together sound doctrine, spiritual wisdom, evangelical passion, poetic flair, and an instinct for what congregations can do with their voices.
Love Divine, All Loves Excelling is sung in almost every Christian tradition in the English-speaking world. It’s very densely written; full of theology, but with a real feeling of devotion too.
Its theme is the indwelling of God in the heart of the believer. As such, it’s really a hymn about the Spirit; Jesus is addressed in the first verse – ‘thou art all compassion’ – and asked to ‘breathe thy loving Spirit/ into every troubled breast’ in the second. (One hymnbook, Baptist Praise and Worship, omits this verse, destroying the theological sense of the hymn.) The idea is from the Apostle Paul, who wrote, ‘Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? (1 Corinthians 6: 19) and ‘We are the temple of the Living God’ (2 Corinthians 6:18).
Like many old hymns, this one has been modernised by some hymn book compilers to remove the archaic language. Of course, there’s nothing wrong in principle with this, and a little judicious tinkering can preserve a good hymn for modern use. It has to be done very carefully, though. In one version, ‘Jesus, thou art all compassion / Pure, unbounded love thou art’ becomes, ‘Jesus, you are all compassion / Boundless love that makes us whole.’ The second version shifts the focus from Jesus to us; the concern with ‘wholeness’ is a very modern preoccupation. But once ‘trembling heart’ is changed to ‘trembling soul’, a rhyme must be found somehow.
Love Divine also speaks of Wesley’s belief in the doctrine of Christian Perfection. This is not quite the same as sinlessness; but it is, according to Charles’ brother John, ‘the mind which was in Christ, enabling us to walk as Christ walked’, ‘purity of intention, dedicating all the life to God’. This, he believed, was achievable through prayer and selfdiscipline.
This doctrine is contained in the second verse, with the lines, ‘Let us find that second (or ‘promised’) rest (i.e. when we no longer wish to sin) and ‘Take away our bent to sinning (or, ‘love of sinning’)...’
Most Christians today would be uncomfortable with the idea of Perfectionism, being all too familiar with their shortcomings. But it’s still a good prayer to pray, and it doesn’t really take away from one of the most glorious hymns in the language.
Love Divine is usually sung to Blaenwern, by William Rowlands, though a number of other tunes are also popular.
Mark Woods
PEACE PERFECT PEACE
by Edward Bickersteth
Many of us live lives that are far too busy. We rush from work to home and back, with not enough time to be quiet and think, or pray, or just spend quality time with people we love. There’s too much going on, and we feel guilty about not achieving something every day.
Or perhaps we’re overwhelmed not by business, but by circumstances beyond our control – illness, or sorrow, or some kind of failure. How, we wonder, can we find peace?
Edward Henry Bickersteth (1825-1905) wrote Peace, Perfect Peace in 1875, at the height of the Victorian era – now distant in time, but not so far in terms of human nature and the trials and tribulations which we still face today.
He was Dean of Gloucester and then Bishop of Exeter, but he was first and foremost a pastor. He wrote the hymn on holiday in Harrogate, after hearing a sermon on Isaiah 26:3, ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee’ (AV).
In Hebrew, the preacher said, what’s translated as ‘perfect peace’ is the word for ‘peace’ repeated – ‘peace, peace’ – to express perfection.
That afternoon he had to visit a dying relative, and read Isaiah’s words to him; then he wrote down the hymn just as we have it now and read it to him.
It’s a beautiful expression of profound faith and trust in God, whatever the circumstances of life might be. Its simplicity masks the skilfulness of the verse.
It’s a series of questions and answers, each question expressing a real dilemma for Christians today. How can there be perfect peace in this world of sin, when we’re oppressed by ‘thronging duties’, when sorrows surge round, when we’re far from those we love, fearful of the future, living every day in the knowledge that we will one day die?
These are deep questions, which we aren’t always comfortable asking. Bickersteth doesn’t offer easy answers; he points us to Jesus, and invites us to look for hope in him. It is sung to Pax Tecum (‘peace be with you’). This tune, with its first line of repeated notes, can drag if it isn’t played sensitively and at a reasonable speed. But as the melody enters in the second line, it’s very well adapted to the sense of the verses; an opening tension, with a satisfying resolution for each one.
Mark Woods
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