Wesley Corpus

Last updated: December 2, 2009. Whole Armour (1742)1 Baker List, 56; cf. 57 Editorial Introduction: The British Library holds the only known surviving copy of a broadsheet containing a hymn titled The Whole Armour of God, which is a poetic expansion of Ephesians 6. The broadsheet does not list author, publisher, or date. However the poem also appeared in early March 1742 appended to John Wesley's tract The Character of a Methodist (the setting reproduced below). There is a textual variant in verse 13 of the broadsheet that is not found in any edition of Character that contains the hymn, nor is this variant found in the version that Charles Wesley placed in his collection HSP (1749), 1:236-39. This would suggest that the broadsheet was the earliest appearance of this hymn, likely in February 1742. The presence of the hymn in HSP (1749) and MS Thirty (pp. 22-27) establishes that Charles was its author. The most likely printer for the broadsheet at that time would have been Farley, in Bristol. The theme of the hymn is the importance of developing mature Christian character through use of the means God has provided. It is easy to see why John would choose to append such a hymn to his tract describing the spiritual ideal to which the Methodist movement was committed. Nearly two decades later another Methodist writer, Thomas Walsh, also appended the hymn to a sermon he had written on Ephesians 6. Editions: Charles Wesley. The Whole Armour of God. Bristol: Farley, 1742 ? Charles Wesley. "The Whole Armour of God." Appended to John Wesley's The Character of a Methodist, 18-20. Bristol: Farley, 1742. 2nd Bristol: Farley, 1743. 3rd Bristol: Farley, 1743. hymn not included in any of the later editions of the tract, likely to shorten and reduce cost Also appended to Thomas Walsh. The Whole Armour of God: a Discourse, 33-36. London: Widow Englefield, 1759.