O for an heart to love my God

O for an heart to love my God

Author: Charles Wesley (1742)
Published in 971 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, Sibelius
Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ

Worship the King

Instrumental

Sing It Simply (25 Congregational Hymn A…

Choral

ACCLAMATION ON "AZMON"

Full Text

1 O for an heart to love my God!
An heart from sin set free;
An heart that's sprinkled with the blood,
So freely shed for me!

2 An heart resigned, submissive, meek,
My dear Redeemer's throne;
Where only Christ is heard to speak,
Where Jesus reigns alone.

3 An humble, lowly, contrite heart,
Believing, true, and clean;
Which neither life nor death can part
From Him that dwells within.

4 An heart in every thought renew'd,
And filled of love divine,
Perfect and right, and pure, and good,
A copy, Lord! of thine.

5 Thy tender heart is still the same,
And melts at human woe;
Send down thy grace, O blessed Lamb!
That I thy love may know.

6 Thy holy nature Lord! impart
Come quickly from above,
Write thy new name upon my heart,
Thy new best name of love.

The Christian's duty, exhibited in a series of hymns, 1791

All full texts • Compare texts^ top

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 >

^ top

Text Information

Related Texts

First Line: O for an heart to love my God
Author: Charles Wesley (1742)
Meter: 8.6.8.6
Place of Origin: Great Britain
Language: English
^ top

Notes

O for a heart to praise my God. C. Wesley. [Holiness desired.] Appeared in Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1742, p. 80, in 8 stanzas of 4 lines. (Poeticl Works, 1868-72, vol. ii. p. 77). It is based on the Prayer Book version of Psalms li. 10. From its appearance in M. Madan's Psalms & Hymns, 1760, No. 3, to the present time, it has been one of the most widely used of C. Wesley's hymns. It was given in the Wesleyan Hymn Book, 1780, No. 334. G. J. Stevenson's note in his Methodist Hymn Book Notes, 1883, p. 245, is of more than usual interest.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

^ top

Tune

AZMON

Lowell Mason (PHH 96) adapted AZMON from a melody composed by Carl G. Gläser in 1828. Mason published a duple-meter version in his Modern Psalmist (1839) but changed it to triple meter in his later publications. Mason used (often obscure) biblical names for his tune titles; Azmon, a city south of C…

Go to tune page >


BEATITUDO

Composed by John B. Dykes (PHH 147), BEATITUDO was published in the revised edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1875), where it was set to Isaac Watts' "How Bright Those Glorious Spirits Shine." Originally a word coined by Cicero, BEATITUDO means "the condition of blessedness." Like many of Dykes's…

Go to tune page >


MARTYRDOM (Wilson)

MARTYRDOM was originally an eighteenth-century Scottish folk melody used for the ballad "Helen of Kirkconnel." Hugh Wilson (b. Fenwick, Ayrshire, Scotland, c. 1766; d. Duntocher, Scotland, 1824) adapted MARTYRDOM into a hymn tune in duple meter around 1800. A triple-meter version of the tune was fir…

Go to tune page >


All tunes published with 'O for an heart to love my God'^ top

Timeline

^ top

Media

The United Methodist Hymnal #417
^ top

Instances

Instances (12)TextImageAudioScore
Celebration Hymnal #650Image
Church Hymnal, Fifth Edition #638
Complete Anglican Hymns Old & New #494
Complete Mission Praise #495
Hymns Ancient & Modern, New Standard Edition #230
Hymns Old and New: New Anglican #361
Rejoice in the Lord #438Text
Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal #323
Sing Glory: Hymns, Psalms and Songs for a New Century #149
Sing Joyfully #396TextImage
The United Methodist Hymnal #417TextImageAudioScore
Together in Song: Australian Hymn Book II #568
All instances^ top