“Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”: Charles Wesley’s wedding favourite

It began as a reply to a popular song. Charles Wesley seems to have shaped “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” with an eye on a well-known lyric by John Dryden, “Fairest Isle, all isles excelling”, which Henry Purcell had set to music. Wesley took the pattern and turned it from praise of Britain into praise of God’s love. Published in 1747, it has become one of the most frequently sung hymns at Christian weddings.

Charles Wesley and the theme

Charles Wesley, the younger brother of John Wesley, was a founding figure of Methodism and perhaps the most prolific hymn writer in English. He is credited with thousands of hymns, among them “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, “And Can It Be” and “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing”. His hymns taught Methodist doctrine through song.

The hymn is a prayer for God’s love to come down and fill the believer’s heart. “Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven, to earth come down.” It asks God to “fix in us thy humble dwelling” and to make believers new. The final verse looks forward to being “changed from glory into glory” until believers take their place in heaven, “lost in wonder, love, and praise”.

A disputed verse

The original hymn included a line asking God to “take away our power of sinning”. John Wesley and others worried about how it could be read, and many hymnals altered or left out that verse. The debate reflected wider arguments in early Methodism about holiness and Christian perfection.

Welsh tunes and weddings

In Britain, the hymn is most often sung to Blaenwern, a Welsh tune by William Penfro Rowlands from the early twentieth century, or to Hyfrydol, by Rowland Hugh Prichard. Blaenwern became especially popular after it was sung at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011. Other churches use different tunes, but the Welsh melodies give the words a soaring, emotional lift.

The hymn’s focus on love has made it a natural choice for weddings, even though Wesley was writing about God’s love, not marriage. Couples choose it because it places their own love inside a larger love. Its final verse, about being transformed together, fits a service of commitment.

Ghanaian Methodism

Methodism came to the Gold Coast in 1835, and Wesley’s hymns came with it. In the Methodist Church Ghana, his hymns are part of everyday worship, sung in English and in Fante and Twi translations. “Love Divine” is sung at weddings, anniversaries and Sunday services across the church. The hymn ends with the believer “lost in wonder, love, and praise”. Wesley did not attempt to define God’s love in neat doctrine. He tried to show how it overwhelms the person who receives it. Nearly three centuries later, couples standing at the altar sing those lines and feel the same.