A devotion in 24 days – Day 22.

O, For A Thousand Tongues to Sing – Charles Wesley 1739

Scripture:

Isaiah 1:18 Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

I Corinthians 1:30-31And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

In 1739, for the first anniversary of his conversion, Charles Wesley wrote an eighteen-stanza text beginning “Glory to God, and praise and love.” The familiar hymn “Oh, for a Thousand Tongues” comes from stanzas 1 and 7-12 of this longer text. Wesley acquired the title phrase from Peter Böhler, a Moravian, who said to Wesley: “If I had a thousand tongues, I would praise Christ with them all”, a quote from Johann Mentzner’s German hymn “O dass ich tausend Zungen hätte”.

1 O for a thousand tongues to sing
my great Redeemer’s praise,
the glories of my God and King,
the triumphs of his grace!

2 My gracious Master and my God,
assist me to proclaim,
to spread thro’ all the earth abroad
the honors of your name.

3 Jesus! the name that charms our fears,
that bids our sorrows cease,
’tis music in the sinner’s ears,
’tis life and health and peace.

4 He breaks the power of cancelled sin,

he sets the prisoner free;

his blood can make the foulest clean;

his blood availed for me.

5 To God all glory, praise, and love

be now and ever given

by saints below and saints above,

the Church in earth and heaven.