Guest Post by Ryan Rindels
As a general rule, those who study Christianity’s growth and expansion—missiologists—know that a given culture has truly embraced the faith when its people compose their own songs for worship. Similarly, hymns that remain popular centuries after their composition are often traced to times of reformation and revival. Two well-known Christmas carols in the English language are Joy to the World, written by Isaac Watts (1674-1748), and Hark the Herald Angels Sing, by Charles Wesley (1707-1788).
Watts and Wesley keenly understood that the average Christian believes the theology they sing. By the time he died, Wesley had produced 6,000 to 9,000 sacred hymns and songs—a staggering achievement.[1] Watts himself penned around 750, a feat overshadowed only by Wesley’s seemingly superhuman effort.
On a 2018 trip to England, I visited Charles Wesley’s home in Bristol. The tour guide asked if any of us present had sung a Charles Wesley hymn in a worship service. A majority raised their hand. He then asked if we had ever heard a John Wesley sermon—he preached 40,000 of them, mind you. The group stared blankly. The guide’s point was that music leaves a greater theological imprint for future generations of believers.
Judging from the substance of their hymns, Watts and Wesley appear quite similar. As British Protestants in the Reformed theological tradition, they had a high view of Scripture, but also emphasized the importance of the Holy Spirit in Christian life. Watts and Wesley were ordained ministers, respectively, in Congregationalist and Anglican churches whose influence would extend beyond denominational and geographical boundaries.
Watts was born a generation prior to Wesley, yet both lived during the genesis of evangelicalism in the 1730’s. Along with his famous older brother John (1703-1791), the Wesley name would be henceforth linked to Methodism. There are a variety of reasons why we are less familiar with Watts than Wesley. Perhaps most interestingly, a major portion of Isaac Watts’ ministry came during a spiritually-arid time in English religious history. The early 1700’s saw an increase in deism, a belief that one creator God exists but who does not involve himself in human affairs to answer prayers, perform miracles, or save sinners. Another popular heresy called Socinianism denied the deity of Christ and emphasized a rational religion centered on Jesus as a moral teacher whose conduct one should emulate. Christian denominations in Britain were adversely affected by these trends. The number of churches that were either empty, shrinking, or in danger of both because of bad theology, grew as the decades passed.
Watts’ awareness of this decline is recorded in the following excerpt from a sermon he preached.
As for the savour of piety, and inward religion…spiritual mindedness, and zeal for God and for the good of souls; as to the spirit and power of evangelical ministrations, we may all complain, the glory of God is much departed from our Israel.[2]
“Departed from…Israel” is an allusion to the book of 1 Samuel 4, where the prophet Eli’s daughter-in-law died in childbirth after hearing that the Ark of the Covenant had been captured by the Philistines. Watts labored hard to combat this downward spiritual trend in the pulpit, by pen, and through hymnody. Nearing the end of his ministry, he witnessed the stirrings of the Holy Spirit as God raised up a new generation of young preachers that included, among others, Charles Wesley. John and Charles Wesley had been converted in the early 1730’s at a meeting in London led by Moravian missionaries from Germany.
John and Charles witnessed an openness to the gospel by vast numbers of people to a degree that is exceptional in church history. Watts, on the other hand, devoted the prime of his life serving God without spectacular results, a far more typical experience. This did not preclude his being faithful in service to Christ’s bride, notably, in writing hymns for congregational worship. Interestingly, in a display of remarkable humility, after reading Charles Wesley’s “Wrestling Jacob,” Watts confessed that Wesley’s singular hymn was worth all that he had ever written. As in the days of Eli, the Spirit had not departed, even if it appeared this way for a time. Watts accepted that a generation would reap a great harvest in a field of which he long labored.
While you may have learned something new about Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts, we generally know little, if anything about the composers of most songs and hymns we sing. What we do have is the author's words, that when sung, unite us in worship to the eternal, Triune God as one undivided chorus. By faith we confess our individual contributions fit into a larger spiritual symphony whose final composition remains, in many ways, hidden from our ears and eyes.
Another notable Wesley Christmas hymn “Come thou long expected Jesus,” is especially poignant when one takes into account Wesley’s own experience of Christ’s “coming” in the power of the Holy Spirit during the mid-1700’s. Recitation of the words ought to raise our hearts to attain the joyful beauties of heaven.
Come thou long expected Jesus
Born to set thy people free
From our sins and fears release us
Let us find thy rest in thee
Israel’s strength and consolation
Hope of all the earth thou art
Dear desire of every nation
Joy of every longing heart.
——
Ryan Rindels is pastor of First Baptist Church in Sonoma, CA. He earned his PhD in historical theology from Gateway Seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention. His dissertation explored Andrew Fuller's theology of revival. Ryan teaches as an adjunct professor at Gateway Seminary's Bay Area campus. He is married to Janai and they have three young children.
——
[1]Jonathan Yeager, ed., Early Evangelicalism: A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 43.
[2]Isaac Watts, “Sermons on Various Subjects Divine and Moral,” in Works of Isaac Watts, vol. 2, xxiii.