Wesley Corpus

Funeral Hymns (1759)1 Baker list, 232 Editorial Introduction: In eighteenth-century English spirituality the life of a Christian in this world was generally seen as a pilgrimage, with death bringing release from our probationary state into the reward of the afterlife. Charles Wesley was deeply shaped by this perspective, often commenting at funerals about how he envied the dead, who had reached their peace. Of course, this assumed that they had lived as faithful pilgrims. Not only did Charles share this spirituality of the faithful life, the good death and the glorious afterlife; he repeatedly gave it poetic expression. He made a regular practice of writing hymns on the occasion of the death of friends or prominent members of the Methodist movement. These hymns comment on their faithful lives and affirm their translation into the blessed hope of the Christian departed. An early set of examples was published in HSP (1742), 124-31. Then, in 1746, Charles issued a volume devoted entirely to Funeral Hymns. The present volume gathers several additional hymns on the death of close friends and family members of Charles Wesley in the years following Funeral Hymns (1746). The most poignant is the multi-part hymn on the death of his first-born child, John, in January 1754 (see hymns 19-27). Editions: Charles Wesley. Funeral Hymns. London Strahan, 1759. Bristol: Pine, 1769. Last updated: September 5, 2022.