Scripture Verse

His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22–23

Introduction

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Thomas Gibbons (1720–1785)
National Portrait Gallery

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Words: Tho­mas Gib­bons, in the Gos­pel Ma­ga­zine, 1775.

Music: Clap­ham, ano­ny­mous, in The Pri­mi­tive Me­tho­dist Hym­nal, ed­it­ed by George Booth (Lon­don: Pri­mi­tive Me­tho­dist Pub­lish­ing House, 1889) (🔊 pdf nwc).

Lyrics

Thy good­ness, Lord, our souls con­fess,
Thy good­ness we adore:
A spring, whose bless­ings ne­ver fail,
A sea with­out a shore.

Sun, moon and stars Thy love at­test,
In ev­ery cheer­ful ray:
Love draws the cur­tains of the night,
And love re­stores the day.

Thy boun­ty ev­ery sea­son crowns,
With all the bliss it yields;
With joy­ful clus­ters bend the vines,
With har­vests wave the fields.

But chief­ly Thy com­pass­ions, Lord,
Are in the Gos­pel seen;
There, like the sun, Thy mer­cy shines,
Without a cloud be­tween.

Thy Son, Thy nob­lest, choic­est gift,
Was from Thy bo­som sent
To bear from off a sink­ing world
Its load of pun­ish­ment.

Pardon, ac­cept­ance, peace and joy
Are pub­lished in His name;
Ours is the life, the glo­ry ours,
And His the death and shame.

Of so­ve­reign grace how wide the reign;
How strong the cur­rent rolls
That bears to Heav’n’s un­bound­ed bliss
Our hell-de­serv­ing souls!