Joseph Hart spares no one’s feelings when he surveys the mass of humanity, men and women and boys and girls, and analyzes people in their natural condition apart from Christ. And it is not just that men are merely defective or slightly ill-adapted, or that they just need a little bit of tweaking. No, Hart paints a picture of our condition that aligns with the Holy Scripture: we are poor, wretched sinners. But right away, consider the good news in that opening stanza: “Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, joined with power.” And that’s a marvelous, balanced, biblical portrayal of the Savior.

This is an absolutely lovely hymn. The tune to which it is paired in the Trinity Hymnal (Selection No. 472) is called BRYN CALFARIA, which is one of those stirring, minor-key Welsh hymn tunes (of which there are so many). The tune is so full of pathos and is well-suited to the hymn text here. That Welsh tune name, by the way, in English means “Calvary’s Hill”[1]—a very apt name for the tune, especially when it is wedded to this text.

The Tune

Now, this tune is not the easiest to sing. It’s a little tricky, but I think that a determined congregation could learn and master it after singing through it just a few times. I have a Welsh pastor friend who has said that it is not uncommon for the Welsh to sing tunes like this when they come together at rugby matches. And, as he says, if 50,000 inebriated Welsh sports fans can learn a complex tune and sing it with some cogency, so can an average congregation!

The fundamental underpinning theme of this hymn is that it does not congratulate the sinner on his ability; it recognizes that all the ability belongs to Jesus Christ alone. Notice that the first refrain is, “He is able, He is able, He is willing, doubt no more.” No emphasis falls on the sinner’s power and ability; it’s all on the Savior’s power and ability.

The BRYN CALFARIA tune was originally composed by a Welshman named William Owen. Owen, born in 1813 and lived through 1893, was a publisher of several hymnals using Welsh tunes. He was born in Bethesda in Northern Wales, and he worked in a slave quarry as a young man at the age of ten. That gives us something of the historical context: both awful child labor and slave labor were alive and well at this time in early 1800s Wales.[2]

Owen lived near a church called St. Ann, and he loved to hear the organist playing there. He became a good musician himself and started composing. Some of his tunes at the time were very popular, but the style of these tunes fell out of favor years later. However, this tune has survived partly due to the efforts and interest of Ralph Vaughan Williams — the great English hymn collector, hymn publisher, and composer of symphonies. Vaughan Williams gave us that majestic tune to which we sing “For All the Saints,” for example (SINE NOMINE).[3]

Well, Vaughan Williams took Owen’s BRYN CALFARIA tune and tamed it so as to make it easier for congregations to sing it. He then published his arrangement of the tune in the English Hymnal. He also did an organ prelude on this tune.[4] If you are a classical music lover, you might have heard that organ prelude, and it is a lovely arrangement of this tune. So, it’s thanks to Vaughan Williams (at least in part) that this tune has been preserved in English hymnody.

The Text

Well, that’s a little about the tune and its composer (and popular arranger). How about a little bit about the man who wrote the stirring lyrics? Joseph Hart was born about a dozen years before John Newton. John Newton (the former slave-trader-turned-abolitionist who gave us hymns such as “Amazing Grace”) was born in 1725, and Joseph Hart was born in 1712. Hart was converted to Christ under George Whitefield’s ministry in the late 1750s, some ten years after the close of the “Great Awakening” (denominated the “Evangelical Revival” in Britain).

After his conversion, Hart went on to become a pastor and preacher for an independent chapel. He wrote a number of hymns and was later buried in Bunhill Fields in London, which is famous for being the final resting place of the likes of John Owen, John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, Susannah Wesley (mother of John and Charles), and other notables.[5]

The hymn “Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Wretched” was first published in 1759 in a collection of English hymns, and the original title given to this hymn was “Come, and welcome to Jesus Christ.” As an aside, that is one of my absolute favorite phrases in the English language. It’s also the title of one of John Bunyan’s little works. Read that book if you can. It expresses his delight and joy in the free and gracious welcome given to sinners by Jesus Christ. Some have suggested that that little book even helped pave the way for the modern missions movement.

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