Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Fish with Trish - The Terrors of Thy Holy Law

An amazing hymn sung by Trish, Nicole and Kelley (right before Kenny's baptism). Here are the very moving words:

With melting heart and weeping
eyes,
My guilty soul for mercy cries;
What shall I do, or whither flee,
To rid the vengeance due of me?
To rid the vengeance due of me?

Till late I saw no danger nigh,
I lived at ease nor feared to die;
Wrapped up in self-conceit and pride,
“I shall have peace at last,” I cried.
“I shall have peace at last,” I cried.

But when great God thy light divine,
Had shone on this dark soul of mine,
Then I beheld with trembling awe,
The terrors of Thy holy law.
The terrors of Thy holy law.

Should vengeance still my soul pursue,
Death and destruction are my due;
Yet mercy can my guilt forgive,
And bid this dying sinner live.
And bid this dying sinner live.

Does not Thy sacred word proclaim,
Salvation free in Jesus’ name?
To him I look and humbly cry,
“Lord, save a wretch condemned to die!”
“Lord, save this wretch condemned to die!”

Written by: John Fawcett 1740-1817

Fawcett was con­vert­ed at age 16 un­der the min­is­try of George White­field. He at first joined the Meth­od­ists, but three years lat­er be­gan at­tend­ing the Bap­tist Church in Brad­ford, Eng­land. Hav­ing be­gun to preach, he was or­dained a Bap­tist min­is­ter at Wains­gate, York­shire.

Despite his many ac­comp­lish­ments, Fawc­ett prac­ticed hu­mil­i­ty, as shown in the pre­face to Hymns Adapt­ed to the Cir­cum­stanc­es of Pub­lic Wor­ship and Pri­vate De­vo­tion. He writes:

I blush to think of these plain vers­es fall­ing in­to the hands of per­sons of an ele­vat­ed gen­i­us, and re­fined taste. To such, I know, they will ap­pear flat, dull and un­en­ter­tain­ing…If it may be con­du­cive, un­der di­vine bless­ing to warm the heart or as­sist the de­vo­tion of any hum­ble Christ­ian in the clo­set, the fam­i­ly or the house of God, I shall there­in sin­cere­ly re­joice, what­ev­er cen­sure I may in­cur from the po­lite world.

3 comments:

LivingForHim said...

I loved this so much… I watched/ listened and read the lyrics all at once… It was GREAT! This is so awesome… I am going to have to read and listen several times over today to be able to meditate fully on it.

For His Glory said...

What a wonderful hymn. Great words! To God be the Glory.

Fish With Trish said...

Thank you all for your wonderful comments! This Hymn is really God glorifying. :-)

Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God alone)