Charles Wesley was born just before Christmas in 1707. He was premature and neither cried nor opened his eyes. His mother, Susanna, kept him tightly wrapped in wool until his actual due date, whereupon he opened his eyes and cried. Charles was the eighteenth child of Susanna Wesley and Samuel Wesley.
Wesley had religious training at home. He learned the Bible well but did not yet experience affirmation of new birth or the wholeness of grace in his life. At age eight, he was taken to London to attend Westminster School.
At thirteen, he became a King’s Scholar at Westminster University in London. Upon graduating, Charles enrolled at Oxford University. He was nineteen and full of life. He later said, "My first year of college was lost in diversions."
During his second year at Oxford, he grew serious about
spiritual things. Neither he nor his brother, John, had yet received Christ as
Savior, but they began seeking to live the Christian life.
While in college at Oxford, Charles and two friends started a small religious group on religious self-discipline. They had lengthy devotions, exhorting each other to live piously and do good works. They took food to poor families, visited lonely people in prison and taught orphans how to read. After college, Charles went as a missionary to Native Americans, but he was still not converted. With spiritual despair and physical exhaustion, he returned to England. He had no peace in his heart.
One day in 1738, he met with a group of Moravians in Aldersgate Hall in London. There he came to realize that salvation was by faith alone. While convalescing in the home of John Bray, a poor mechanic, he heard a voice saying, “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise, and believe, and thou shalt be healed of all thy infirmities.” The voice was most likely Mr. Bray’s sister who felt commanded to say these words in a dream.
Anglican hymn writer Timothy Dudley-Smith notes that the following then happened: "Charles got out of bed and opening his Bible read from the Psalms, chapter 40, verse 3: 'He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God,' followed by the first verse of Isaiah 40, 'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.' Charles wrote in his journal, 'I have found myself at peace with God, and rejoice in the hope of love in Christ.'"
Charles wrote in his diary: “I labored, waited and prayed to feel who loved me, and gave Himself for me. At midnight I gave myself to Christ, assured that I was safe, whether sleeping or waking. I had the continual experience of His power to overcome all temptation, and I confessed with joy and surprise that He was able to do exceedingly abundantly for me above what I can ask or think . . . I now found myself at peace with God and rejoice in hope of loving Christ.”
According to The Oxford Edition of the Works of John Wesley, "And Can It Be" was written immediately after the conversion of Charles Wesley.
Charles felt renewed strength to spread the gospel to ordinary people and it was around then that he began to write the poetic hymns for which he would become known.
Wesley was the beloved musician of the Methodist Church. This hymn is considered one of the best-loved of Wesley’s hymns. It carries the themes of conversion, love, grace and forgiveness.
Early publications of "And Can It Be" set the
hymn to a variety of tunes. One of the first settings was to the tune Surrey,
composed by the songwriter and dramatist, Henry Carey.
Today the hymn is most commonly sung to the tune Sagina
(Pearlwort) which was composed by Yorkshireman, Thomas Campbell, 1800-1876.
“The exultant melody titled ‘Sagina’ was composed by Thomas
Campbell, a wandering, well-known Scottish poet. Sagina borrows its name from
the pink family of herbs, which includes baby’s breath and the carnation. Sing
this tune vigorously and in parts, especially at the refrain."
"Thomas Campbell, born in Sheffield, Yorkshire in 1800, died
in Sheffield in 1876. In 1825 he published The Bouquet, a collection of tunes composed
and adapted to Wesley's Hymns which included 23 tunes, all of which were given
botanical names. The most well-known is Sagina (Pearlwort), a small plant in the
pink family)." (From Dictionary of Composers for the Church in Great Britain and
Ireland by Robert Evans and Maggie Humphreys)
Joni Eareckson Tada described this hymn as the doctrine of salvation set to music.
Wesley starts the first stanza by expressing admiration over the love shown by Jesus dying for Him and wonders how we who "pursued" His death are now graced by it. It is a mystery that we who caused His death now benefit from it.
The sacrifice of Christ on the cross of Calvary arose out of the heart of God filled with the love of God. Circumstances did not bring Christ to the cross, the divine plan of God did. The wonder and amazement at the redemptive act of God and His offering of free grace to all is emphasized by the repeated phrase “for me” in lines three and four.
From the Liberty Bible Commentary: God demonstrated His love by sending Christ Jesus to die for us while we were yet sinners, something no one else would even consider doing. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross of Calvary arose out of the heart of God filled with the love of God. All these blessings are ours because at some point in the past, without our help, we have been justified by God and are now being treated as if we were righteous.
In the second stanza, Wesley recounts the infinite grace and mercy of Christ’s love and humility in the incarnation, death, and finding of lost sinners. The last line makes it very personal.
From the Liberty Bible Commentary: He emptied Himself
. . . He did not and could not cease to be God when He was made flesh (John
1:14). His deity remained throughout the whole course of His self-imposed
humiliation. He gave up something that was His . . . He did not empty something
from Himself, but He emptied Himself from . . . the form of God . . . He veiled
Himself with humanity.
In the third stanza, Wesley harkens to the "imprisonment" of his own sin and the freedom he found in Christ. Wesley borrows a line from a popular story of romantic fiction from his day, Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope, 1688-1744, “Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,” to symbolize God’s love and power coming down to release the captives. (The Canterbury Dictionary).
From The Spurgeon Library: They are hard pressed. "Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble." Why did they not do so before? Because people do not begin to pray to God as long as they have any hope. But when all hope is gone, then comes the first real living, agonizing cry to heaven; and no sooner is that heard than God answers it.
Finally, Wesley reviews the results of Christ’s loving and merciful work: there is no condemnation for those made alive in Christ and clothed in His righteousness; rather, there is open access to the throne as we have the right to claim the divine crown. Wesley speaks of the present justification we now have in Christ and our future glorification in the life to come.
WordAtWork.org and Beacon Light: This passage is talking about the newfound confidence that those who trust in Jesus have to enter into His presence . . . When Jesus died, that temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom. It was a picture that said Jesus has removed the barrier between us and God by His body. Jesus, the great high priest, grants access to God through the curtain of His body . . . This gives the Christian a great and secure hope for the future, until we finally meet Him face to face when we die, or on "the Day" when He returns.
This hymn celebrates personal salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and is one of the most popular hymns today. Amazing love, how can it be? Because God first loved us!
