Scripture Verse

God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. Luke 3:8

Introduction

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Robert A. Schumann
(1810–1856)

Words: Charles Wes­ley, Hymns and Sac­red Po­ems 1740.

Music: Can­on­bu­ry adapt­ed from Nacht­stück, Op­us 23, No. 4, by Ro­bert A. Schu­mann, 1839 (🔊 pdf nwc).

Alternate Tune:

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Charles Wesley (1707–1788)

Anecdote

On Au­gust 31, 1739, [Wes­ley’s] Jour­nal says, ‘I spoke to the poor col­li­ers on The blind re­ceive their sight, the lame walk, &c.’ On Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 4, he ‘preached ov­er against the school in Kings­wood, to some thou­sands (col­liers chief­ly [see the last two vers­es, writ­ten with this au­di­ence in mind]), and held out the prom­is­es, from Isa. xxxv.: The wil­der­ness and the so­li­ta­ry place shall be glad for them; and the de­sert shall re­joice, and blos­som as the rose.

I tri­umphed in God’s me­rcy to these poor out­casts (for He hath called them a peo­ple who were not a peo­ple), and in the ac­comp­lish­ment of that scrip­ture, Then the eyes of the blind shall be op­ened, &c. Oh, how glad­ly do the poor re­ceive the gos­pel! We hard­ly knew how to part.’

When White­field told his friends in Bris­tol that he was go­ing to Am­eri­ca to preach to sav­ag­es, they re­plied, ‘What need of go­ing abroad for this? Have we not In­di­ans enough at home? If you want to con­vert In­di­ans, there are coll­iers enough at Kings­wood.’

Telford, p. 237

Lyrics

Glory to God, whose so­ver­eign grace
Hath ani­mat­ed sense­less stones;
Called us to stand be­fore His face,
And raised us in­to Ab­ra­ham’s sons!

The peo­ple that in dark­ness lay,
In sin and er­ror’s dead­ly shade,
Have seen a glo­ri­ous Gos­pel day,
In Je­sus’ love­ly face dis­played.

Thou on­ly, Lord, the work hast done,
And bared Thine arm in all our sight;
Hast made the rep­ro­bates Thine own,
And claimed the out­casts as Thy right.

Thy sin­gle arm, al­migh­ty Lord,
To us the great sal­va­tion brought,
Thy Word, Thy all-cre­at­ing Word,
That spake at first the world from naught.

For this the saints lift up their voice,
And cease­less praise to Thee is giv’n;
For this the hosts above re­joice,
We raise the hap­pi­ness of Heav’n.

For this, no long­er sons of night,
To Thee our thank­ful hearts we give;
To Thee, who called us in­to light,
To Thee we die, to Thee we live.

Suffice that for the sea­son past
Hell’s hor­rid lang­uage filled our tongues,
We all Thy words be­hind us cast,
And lewd­ly sang the drunk­ard’s songs.

But, O the pow­er of grace di­vine!
In hymns we now our voic­es raise,
Loudly in strange ho­san­nas join,
And blas­phe­mies are turned to praise!