A Charge to Keep I Have

A charge to keep I have

Author: Charles Wesley (1762)
Tune: BOYLSTON
Published in 1151 hymnals

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1 A charge to keep I have,
A God to glorify!
A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky;

2 From youth to hoary age,
My calling to fulfil;
O may it all my powers engage
To do my Master's will.

3 Arm me with jealous care,
As in Thy sight to live;
And, O Thy servant, Lord, prepare
A strict account to give.

4 Help me to watch and pray,
And on Thyself rely;
Assured, if I my trust betray,
I shall for ever die.

Hymnal: according to the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, 1871

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Author: Charles Wesley

Charles Wesley, the son of Samuel Wesley, was born at Epworth, Dec. 18, 1707. He was educated at Westminster School and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated M.A. In 1735, he took Orders and immediately proceeded with his brother John to Georgia, both being employed as missionaries of the S.P.G. He returned to England in 1736. For many years he engaged with his brother in preaching the Gospel. He died March 29, 1788. To Charles Wesley has been justly assigned the appellation of the "Bard of Methodism." His prominence in hymn writing may be judged from the fact that in the "Wesleyan Hymn Book," 623 of the 770 hymns were written by him; and he published more than thirty poetical works, written either by himself alone,… Go to person page >

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Text Information

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First Line: A charge to keep I have
Title: A Charge to Keep I Have
Author: Charles Wesley (1762)
Meter: 6.6.8.6
Language: English
Publication Date: 1833
Copyright: This text in in the public domain in the United States because it was published before 1923.
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Notes

A charge to keep I have. C. Wesley. [Personal Responsibility.] First published in his Short Hymns on Select Passages of Holy Scripture, 1762, vol. i.. No. 188, in 2 stanzas of 8 lines and based on Lev. viii. 35. It was omitted from the second edition of the Short Hymns, &c, 1794, but included in the Wesleyan Hymn Book 1780, and in the P. Works of J. & C. Wesley, 1868-72, vol. ix., pp. 60, 61. Its use has been most extensive both in Great Britain and America, and usually it is given in an unaltered form, as in the Wesleyan Hymn Book No. 318; and the Evangelical Hymnal, New York, No. 320. The line, "From youth to hoary age," in the American Protestant Episcopal Hymnal No. 474, is from the American Prayer Book Collection, 1826.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Media

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Instances

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