For all, for all my Saviour died![141]
This was a new voice crying in the wilderness of dull religious mediocrity or of self-satisfied religious devotion, it was the clarion-cry of one that brought good tidings to the outcasts of Israel.
4. Hymns of the Methodist Evangel
From the first the Methodists made their own experience the starting-point of their preaching. John Wesley desired no help from any who had not ‘the witness in himself.’ His itinerants must set to their seal that God is true. ‘We are witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost.’ This personal element, the testimony of the man who believed and therefore spoke, differentiated at once Methodist preaching from the cold impersonal moral essays of the parish church. But Methodist preaching would not have been what it was had John Wesley’s sermons rather than Charles Wesley’s hymns represented Methodism to the masses. John Wesley’s keen intellect held his deep religious fervour in check, but Charles took full advantage of the poet’s licence to say what was in his heart without reserve and without modifying explanations.
His hymns of invitation strike a new note. There is nothing to compare with them in earlier hymn-writers, and comparatively little in later. They are the battle-songs of an open-air preacher, and are borne on the wings of the tempest that raged around the heroic little poet as he faced cheerily the rage or ridicule of the mob. His metres are bright and lilting, winning the ear of the simple and arresting the casual passer-by.
The mercy I feel To others I show,
I set to my seal That Jesus is true:
Ye all may find favour Who come at His call,
O come to my Saviour, His grace is for all!
O let me commend My Saviour to you,