Charles Wesley wrote And Can It Be on the day of his conversion, May 21, 1738. It is perhaps the hymn most saturated in personal experience, a man singing about the moment chains fell from him.
Watts's hymns are theology made public. Wesley's hymns are the body's response to grace, sung with almost reckless abandon. And Can It Be opens with shock: And can it be that I should gain / An interest in the Saviour's blood? The amazement never settles. The entire hymn is a man in disbelief at his own forgiveness.
The last verse is perhaps the most moving: No condemnation now I dread; Jesus, and all in Him, is mine. It is the paradox of justification stated in a single line. The law was my condemner; Christ became my defender. Wesley would spend the rest of his life writing hymns, and he would write thousands, but few capture the first shock of grace as this one does.