Narrator:
TSS William Genthree
Duration:
4min
It is sad to see that the end of the Reformation was deadness. “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God” (Revelation 3:1-21And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. 2Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. (Revelation 3:1‑2)). Once Protestantism was established in a land and the persecutions ceased, people sank again into a state of spiritual poverty. Such was the condition of England at the beginning of the 18th century when John and Charles Wesley were born. Distressed as to their own salvation and disturbed as to the state of the nation, they, along with George Whitefield, began to preach the gospel of salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. However, such simple teaching from the scriptures did not please their peers and they were soon shut out from the pulpits of the Church of England and forced to preach in the open air of the village greens. Though the revivals of the 18th century had a profound effect, the teaching never rose beyond the truth recovered during the Reformation. It is interesting to note though, that it was during this period of revival that a large number of our hymns were written.
Near the beginning of this period we find Isaac Watts (1674-1748). Isaac Watts was the son of a persecuted Dissenter. He was a very small man and there was nothing attractive about his appearance. A young lady to whom he proposed remarked that, “while she loved the jewel she could not admire the casket that contained it.” The following verse from a well-known hymn is just one example of the many that he wrote:
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Lord of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Charles Wesley (1708-1788) was a less vigorous man than his brother John, but his disposition was fitted for the hymn writer that he was. Charles was an ordained minister before he was saved! But, through God’s grace, the day came when he was born again. During his life he published nearly 4000 hymns, and at his death 2000 more remained unpublished.
John Newton’s (1725-1807) story is a remarkable one. The inscription on his tombstone says it in a nutshell: “JOHN NEWTON, Clerk, once an Infidel and Libertine, a Servant of Slaves in Africa, was, by the Rich Mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, pardoned, and appointed to preach the Faith he had long labored to destroy.” Though well known as the author of “Amazing Grace,” he wrote many other hymns including:
How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.
Newton’s name is ever linked with William Cowper (1731-1800) as the authors of the Olney Hymns — Olney being the town in which they met and lived for a period. Cowper was of a sensitive and timid nature, further compounded by the early loss of his mother. At the age of 33, after much suffering in the mind, the light of the gospel come to him through the verse: “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth [to be] a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God” (Romans 3:24-2524Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; (Romans 3:24‑25)). We sing of that wonderful gift in the lines of his hymn:
Of all the gifts Thy love bestows,
Thou Giver of all good!
Not heaven itself a richer knows
Than the Redeemer’s blood.
A number of other hymn writers could be mentioned, and perhaps should be, but we finish with Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-1789). Toplady was saved though the preaching of an illiterate man named James Morris, who spoke on the verse: “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:1313But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:13)). Walking one day through Burrington Combe in the Mendip Hills, Toplady took refuge from a sudden storm in the cleft of a rock, and there, while sheltering from that storm, he composed:
Rock of Ages! cleft for sin,
Grace hath hid us safe within!
Where the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Are of sin the double cure;
Cleansing from its guilt and power.