On the Day May 21 1738

Remembering Charles Wesley

Khen Lim



Charles Wesley (Image source: thetimes.co.uk)

The Wesley brothers, Charles and John, had always yearned for a meaningful walk with God, one in which they can experience an ethereal sense of peace that can only be sought through very rigorous spiritual exercises that they eventually named themselves ‘Methodists,’ after their methodical strictness of spiritual discipline. And so together with other like-minded spiritually-filled men at Oxford – such as George Whitefield – the brothers established the ‘Holy Club.’

However both brothers felt they still needed to learn more about what religion really was. Having first learned from Peter Böhler, a very devout Moravian, Charles separated from his brother and went to reside with a poor brazier called Thomas Bray in Little Britain who though uneducated knew much about Christ.

Ordained in 1735, Charles would labour for Christ together with his brother John, they journeyed to Georgia, a fledgling part of Early America as part of a missionary team where they struggled hard to win souls. In the process, he also became secretary to Governor Oglethorpe.

However, within a year of his arrival, he was taken ill and in utter dejection, Charles had no choice but to retreat to mother England, dealing a serious blow to his plans to convert the Red Indians in the New World.

Even as he recuperated back home, Charles felt a sense of emptiness, like there was a hole in his life that could yet not be filled with anything meaningful. He lacked that something that made him feel that none of his work was fruitful. No matter what he did to try to avert that feeling, he could not escape the hollowness of it all.

Having then struck down with pleurisy and lying sick in Thomas’ home, his continued emptiness prompted him to seek the Holy Spirit. He felt that this, perhaps, was what he needed and so he began to pray earnestly that he would be a witness of Him.

On May 21 1738 – a Pentecost Sunday – Charles awoke with fresh anticipation, heartily looking forward to finally seeking the Holy Spirit. One night, around 9pm, John and a few friends came over to visit him and all of them began to sing a hymn to the Holy Spirit. Overjoyed by their fellowship and their spirited enthusiasm, Charles’ hopes were raised. 

He later said, “We sang the hymn with great joy and parted with prayer.” After they left, he began to pray intensely. In his prayer, he reminded Christ of His promise to deliver a Comforter:

“O Jesus, Thou hast said, ‘I will come unto you’; Thou hast said, ‘I will send the Comforter unto you’; Thou hast said, ‘My Father and I will come unto you and make Our abode with you.’ Thou art God who canst not lie; I wholly rely upon Thy most true promise; accomplish it in Thy time and manner.”

Following his prayer, Charles laid back to rest and as he did so, he suddenly heard a friend calling, “In the Name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise, and believe, and thou shalt be healed of all thine infirmities.”

A plaque erected by the International Methodist Historical Board some two hundred years later in commemoration of the evangelical conversion of the Wesley brothers, John and Charles (Image source: en.wikipedia.org)

Those words went straight to his heart but still he laid there frightened and apprehensive though his hopes were intact. Thinking it was his friend Mrs Musgrave who was present, he rang the bell in his room and called out for Mrs Turner (Thomas’ sister) to send for her. 

She then came to his room and said, “Mrs Musgrave had not been up here.” 

Though his heart sank at those words, he willed himself to trust in Christ and after sending Mrs Turner back down to verify, he felt a strangeness in his heart and in trepidation, he uttered, “I believe, I believe!” 

Mrs Turner returned to his room and surprisingly confessed, “It was I, a weak, sinful creature, spoke but the words were Christ’s: He commanded me to say them and so constrained me that I could not forbear.”

According to Charles’ journal, he knew that was the day when he finally received the witness of the Holy Spirit as he had asked for. A few days later, his brother John was converted. 

Thereafter, John travelled and taught renewal groups that were organised within the Church of England and he reused the term ‘Methodists’ to refer to them. Despite the Anglican connection, these groups met distinctly on their own, which might be unsurprising considering that their worship services set them apart from the Anglicans. While the mother church worshipped by singing psalms, these Methodist groups picked up on the Wesley brothers’ preference for hymns, most of which were Charles’ penmanship.

Over the many centuries since, a few names stood out for their immense and unprecedented contribution to the composition of hymns in praise of Christ. They included Fanny Crosby, Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley. For Charles, some of the best known and most evergreen ones include ‘Arise, My Soul, Arise,’ ‘Depth of Mercy, Can There Be…,’ ‘A Charge to Keep Have I,’ ‘Hark, the Herald Angels Sing’ and ‘And Can It Be that I Should Gain’ and numerous others.

Some years later, the experience he had with Mrs Turner made Charles think about the Name of Jesus. The hymn he wrote called, ‘Jesus! The Name High Over All,’ recalled that night in the first stanza and in the second, he was thinking of what shy Mrs Turner had told him years earlier, saying, “In the Name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise, and believe!”

Jesus! The Name High Over All

Lyr: Charles Wesley (1707-1788); Mus: Praxis Pietatis Melica, Berlin, 1653; Johann Cruger (1598-1662)

Reference: Lk 10:17-20, Eph 1:20-21, Php 2:9-11)

Themes: Worship, Victory, Praise

Jesus! The Name high over all,

In hell or earth or sky;

Angels and mortals prostrate fall,

And devils fear and fly.

Jesus! The Name to sinners dear,

The Name to sinners given;

It scatters all their guilty fear;

It turns their hell to heaven.

O that the world might taste and see

The riches of His grace!

The arms of love that compass me

Would all mankind embrace.

Thee I shall constantly proclaim,

Through earth and hell oppose,

Bold to confess Thy glorious Name

Before a world of foes.

His only righteousness I show,

His saving grace proclaim;

‘tis all my business here below

To cry, ‘Behold the Lamb!’

Happy, if with my last breath

I may but gasp His Name,

Preach Him to all and cry in death,

‘Behold, behold the Lamb!’

For an online rendition, go to the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la4sZDDwjEA