A Charge To Keep I Have [MHB 578]
By Rev. Charles Wesley
 
Leviticus 8:35 Therefore you shall stay at the door of the tabernacle of meeting day and night for seven days, and keep the charge of the LORD, so that you may not die; for so I have been commanded.”

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

To serve the present age,
My calling to fulfill:
O may it all my powers engage
To do my Master’s will!

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

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

The lyrics of this Classic Hymn are based on Matthew Henry’s commentary on Leviticus as follows:
“We have every one of us a charge to keep, an eternal God to glorify, an immortal soul to provide for, needful duty to be done, our generation to serve; and it must be our daily care to keep this charge, for it is the charge of the Lord our Master, who will shortly call us account about it, and it is our utmost peril if we neglect it. Keep it “that ye die not”; it is death, eternal death, to betray the trust that we are charged with; by the consideration of this we must be kept in awe”.

The exact verse is Leviticus 8:35 and says: "Therefore shall ye abide at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation day and night seven days, and keep the charge of the Lord, that ye die not: for so I am commanded" (KJV).
It is recorded that Rev Charles Wesley had read the above stated Commentary by renowned English Minister and Bible Commentator Matthew Henry. The Commentary on that verse reportedly touched the Rev. Charles Wesley deeply. No wonder Rev. Wesley penned those lines, exact reflections from Henry's commentary. Wesley first published this hymn in his Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures in 1762.

Who was Matthew Henry? Matthew Henry was born in 1662 in a Welsh farmhouse close to the border of England and Wales. A few weeks earlier, his father Philip Henry (1631-1696) had been ejected from his ministry in the Established Church.
Matthew was Philip Henry’s second son. Born prematurely to his mother Katherine Henry, he suffered from a weak constitution during his childhood. What he lacked in physical health however he made up for in spiritual vigor.

There is credible evidence that he could read portions of the Scriptures when he was only three years old. And according to his own reckoning, his conversion took place before he turned eleven. It was one of his father’s sermons that, in Henry’s words, ‘melted’ him and caused him to ‘enquire after Christ’.
As a young man he chose to study Law and one of his places of study was Grays Inn, one of four principal London centers for law studies. All the time however Henry ‘ever kept in view’ the vocation of pastoral ministry, says John Bickerton Williams in his Biography of the Puritan commentator. However, this ambition was not realized until 1687.

Upon his return from London in June 1686, Henry began preaching in the neighborhood of his parents’ farm. The following year, while on business in Chester, he spoke for a number of evenings in the house of a baker.
His preaching made a favorable impression on a good number of Chester Nonconformists, and he was subsequently asked to become the minister of a Presbyterian congregation in the town.

Henry went once again to London this time to be ordained on 9 March 1687 by six Presbyterian pastors. This group included Richard Steele (1629-1692), a native of Cheshire who had been involved in the ordination of Matthew Henry’s father thirty years’ earlier.

Henry began his ministry in early June 1687. Over the course of the next two decades his congregation increased to more than 350 members. Not surprisingly, his success as a pastor caused other churches to seek him as their Minister. His work in the literary however made him one greatly sought for.

The ministry of George Whitefield (1714-1770), who was born the year Henry died, was deeply impacted by his commentary. He read it throughout his ministry. A recent study by an American scholar, David Crump, has shown that Henry’s ‘in depth, practical, Calvinistic and biblical exposition’ formed the backdrop for many of Whitefield’s sermons.

Whitefield was certainly not alone, his close friend and Great Poet of Methodism, Rev. Charles Wesley, was enchanted too. So guided by the Holy Spirit and verily inspired by Henry Matthew he penned this evergreen Hymn, which will for ages be a prayer and creed of the people called Methodists everywhere.