THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 173
The opposers admire
The hammer and fire,
Which all things o'ercomes,
And breaks the hard rocks, and the mountains consumes.
With quiet amaze
They listen and gaze,
And their weapons resign,
Constrain'd to acknowledge — the work is divine!
Charles Wesley's Journal enables us to watch the birth of this hymn. On Sunday, August 10, 1746, he had a congregation of nine or ten thousand at Gwennap Pit, 'who listened,' he says, 'with all eagerness, while I commended them to God, and the word of His grace. For near two hours I was enabled to preach repentance towards God, and faith in Jesus Christ. I broke out again and again into prayer and exhortation. I believe not one word would return empty. Seventy years' suffering were over paid by one such opportunity.'
The meeting with the Society pleased him as much as this noble congregation. 'Never had we so large an effusion of the Spirit as in the Society. I could not doubt, at that time, either their perseverance or my own; and still I am humbly confident that we shall stand together among the multitude which no man can number.' Next day 'I expressed the gratitude of my heart in the following thanksgiving —
All thanks be to God
Who scatters abroad.'
So the hymns leaped forth from a heart and mind set on fire by the events of the Evangelical Revival.
Hymn 218. See how great a flame aspires.
Charles Wesley (i).
Hymns and Sacred Poem, 1749; Works, v. 120. The last of four hymns entitled 'After preaching to the Newcastle Colliers.'
It is one of the hymns that still lives and grows. Every advance made by the cause of Christ gives it fresh emphasis. Thomas Jackson says, 'Perhaps the imagery was suggested by the large fires connected with the collieries, which illuminate the whole of that part of the country in the darkest nights.'
