Hymn #60: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

Lyrics: Charles Wesley

Music: BEECHER by John Zundel. This tune is the only one I’ve ever heard for this hymn, but as I began to explore I found it set to all sorts of tunes: HYFRYDOL, BLAENWERN (said to be a popular choice for British weddings?), LOVE DIVINE (STAINER) by John Stainer. And finally, there’s this modern composition by British composer Howard Goodall, which I’m not sure would work at all for a normal congregation, but it’s a beautiful choral piece:

Theme: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.
I Corinthians 5:17-19.

Conjubilant With Song: “He sometimes wrote hymn texts that would suggest other works familiar to his followers. One of his best-known hymns was intended to evoke memories of the poet John Dryden’s ode to England, Fairest isle, all isles excelling. Wesley’s text has now far outlived Dryden’s, being sung across many denominations around the world and to many different tunes. Though I would not go so far as to call this my favorite hymn, I do think that it is one of the most perfect hymns ever written.”

Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven, to earth come down;
fix in us thy humble dwelling; all thy faithful mercies crown!
Jesus thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art;
visit us with thy salvation; enter every trembling heart.

2.
Breathe, O breathe thy loving Spirit into every troubled breast!
Let us all in thee inherit; let us find that second rest.
Take away our bent to sinning; Alpha and Omega be;
end of faith, as its beginning, set our hearts at liberty.

3.
Come, Almighty to deliver, let us all thy life receive;
suddenly return and never, nevermore thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing, serve thee as thy hosts above,
pray and praise thee without ceasing, glory in thy perfect love.

4.
Finish, then, thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee;
changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise.

Read The Journal of Charles Wesley.

3 thoughts on “Hymn #60: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

  1. For whatever reason, at least in the United States, there seems to be a strong correlation between denominational inclinations and choice of “Love Divine” tunes: the more “liberal” or “liturgical” a church is, the more likely it is to sing it to HYFRYDOL, and the less likely to sing it to BEECHER. The dividing line seems to be somewhere between the United Methodists and the PCUSA. Personally, I rather like BLAENWERN, though like you I was raised staunchly in the BEECHER camp (in which virtually all Baptists have been for generations). One of the neat things about the 2006 Christian Life Hymnal is that it sets this hymn to all three of these tunes, so you can try them all out and make up your own (individual or collective) mind. (This is not a commercial announcement, just a genuine recommendation to evangelical hymnlovers that it’s a hymnal worth having. Not to mention inexpensive ;-))

  2. Just heard this hymn on Morning Worship.

    Utterly transfixed. such beauty in new tune for a well-known hymn – not usually the case, sadly. This should not be TOO difficult to teach a congregation in the basic form without the interludes, antiphony and coda.

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