O for a heart to praise my God,
A heart from sin set free;
A heart that always feels Thy blood
So freely spilt for me.
A heart resigned, submissive, meek,
My great Redeemer’s throne,
Where only Christ is heard to speak,
Where Jesus reigns alone.
An heart in every thought renewed,
And full of love divine,
Perfect, and right, and pure, and good,
A copy, Lord, of Thine.
Public domain hymn text (1742). Words by Charles Wesley.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Charles Wesley wrote this hymn's text in 1742, building its entire structure around a single repeated wish, 'O for a heart,' each verse describing a different specific quality Wesley longed for his own inner life to possess — freedom from sin, meek submission, sensitivity to conviction, and ultimately full conformity to God's own character — rather than describing any single completed spiritual achievement already attained.
The hymn's title and central refrain draw directly on Ezekiel 36:26, in which God promises His people, 'A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh,' a passage Wesley returns to repeatedly across several of his hymns as a way of describing the ongoing, progressive nature of Christian sanctification rather than a single completed event.
That emphasis on ongoing, progressive spiritual transformation, rather than a single decisive moment of conversion treated as complete and finished in itself, reflects the specifically Wesleyan and Methodist theological doctrine of 'entire sanctification' or 'Christian perfection' — the belief that genuine spiritual growth continues meaningfully throughout a believer's life rather than concluding at the moment of initial conversion — a doctrine considerably more central to Wesley's own theology than to many of the other hymn writers represented elsewhere throughout this collection.
The hymn's later verses, less commonly printed in modern hymnals, go on to specifically request 'a heart in every thought renewed' and 'a copy, Lord, of Thine,' extending the hymn's opening wish into an increasingly ambitious and comprehensive request for complete inward transformation, verse by verse building toward an explicit prayer to be made, in the hymn's own words, into a living 'copy' of Christ's own character.
