XII. CALVINISTIC-METHODIST HYMN WRITERS
There were no poetic restraints felt by the adherents of the Calvinistic wing of the Methodist movement as met the associates of the Wesleys, and the number of hymn writers in its ranks is larger.
William Williams (1717-1791), “the Watts of Wales,” spent his life in working in the Welsh Calvinistic-Methodist connection. Early in his career the need of appropriate Welsh hymns was so pressing that recourse was had to a sort of Eisteddfod of hymn-writing in which he easily won first honors. He was an indefatigable preacher, taking all Wales for his parish. His chief claim to immortality is his hymn, “Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,” originally written in Welsh, but soon used in the Whitefield Methodist Connection in England. His missionary hymn, “O’er the gloomy hills of darkness,” while not so popular, has had a wide use.
John Cennick (1718—1755) was originally associated with the Wesleys as a preacher, but the burning question of Calvinism separated them and he became associated with Whitefield and later with the Moravians. Two hymns of his were extremely popular both in Great Britain and in the early years of Methodism in America: “Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone,” and “Children of the heavenly King.” The former was used as the verse basis of a great many “spiritual” choruses in pioneer times. His “Lo! He comes with clouds descending” was reshaped and rewritten by Charles Wesley and Martin Madan. The literary quality of his hymns is not high, but their sincerity and adaptation to universal Christian experience give them practical value.
Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-1778) was associated with the Wesleys and with the Calvinistic-Methodist leaders, but was a Church of England clergyman. He wrote four hundred and nineteen hymns; only a few continue in use. Notable among these is “Rock of Ages, cleft for me,” which has been almost universally used and most mercilessly amended and revised. It has been translated into many languages: Gladstone having translated it into Latin, Greek, and Italian.
Montgomery says of Toplady’s hymns: “There is a peculiarly etherial spirit in some of these, in which, whether mourning or rejoicing, praying or praising, the writer seems absorbed in the full triumph of faith.” Another hymn of Toplady’s, “Deathless principle, arise,” has been characterized as “almost peerless,” but it is rather a reading hymn.