VI. CHARLES WESLEY’S HYMNS QUITE SUBJECTIVE
By the necessities of the situation, by the character of the work, and by his own temperament, Charles Wesley was led to write subjective, emotional hymns, keeping personal experience to the fore. But his emotionality was not shallow sentiment, but spontaneous and genuine feeling, based on clear recognition of the actual truths of the Scriptures. In a very intense way he had actually experienced the sorrow for sin, the joy of salvation from its guilt and power, complete assurance of divine acceptance, the longing for divine communion, the sense of the love of God as it planned and fashioned his inner as well as his outward life, the certainty of safety from the power of sin in sanctification. He could write affecting invitations to sinners, for he knew their condition and danger, and also the results of peace and joy, of power and efficiency, that the acceptance of Christ would bring. The truths of the Gospel in passing through the crucible of his personality acquired an actuality, a poignancy of appeal, that made his hymns a mighty power, not only in the immediate campaigns of the Wesley brothers, but in the life and work of the Church in the generations to come.[4]