Sunday's Hymn: Irish Hymn Writers

Beneath the Cross

Beneath the cross of Jesus
I find a place to stand,
And wonder at such mercy
That calls me as I am;
For hands that should discard me
Hold wounds which tell me, “Come.”
Beneath the cross of Jesus
My unworthy soul is won.

Beneath the cross of Jesus
His family is my own—
Once strangers chasing selfish dreams,
Now one through grace alone.
How could I now dishonor
The ones that You have loved?
Beneath the cross of Jesus
See the children called by God.

Beneath the cross of Jesus—
The path before the crown—
We follow in His footsteps
Where promised hope is found.
How great the joy before us
To be His perfect bride;
Beneath the cross of Jesus
We will gladly live our lives.

—-Keith and Kristyn Getty

From Kristyn Getty:

A friend from Westminster Seminary inspired us in the thought of how the cross is not just something in our past providing a way for our salvation, nor is it only providing a secure hope for the future in Heaven, but actually it should impact everything we do today. When we come to the cross, we don’t just stand there by ourselves—we stand with thousands of people from every tribe and tongue under the same Savior and same grace. Considering how unworthy I am coming to the cross, and finding I am forgiven, how can I then turn and look at others and dishonor them or somehow think I am better than they are?

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Other hymns, worship songs, etc. posted today:

• Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah at IMD 2.0.
• A Hymn from Isaac Watts and more at Thirsty Theologian
  
• Take Up Thy Cross at Magic Statistics
• Update: Thou Art the Way at Fish and Cans
  

Have you posted a hymn for Sunday and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar, and I’ll add your post to the list.

Saturday's Old Photo

 

 

I was going to use another photo, thinking there’d been enough of them featuring me, me, me. But hey! Tomorrow’s my birthday, and , so if ever there was an appropriate time for one more photo of me as a child, this was it.

 

I’m guessing I’m four in this photo and that would make the year 1959. The house in the background is the ranch hand’s home on my uncle’s ranch, the P Lazy P, in Gannet, Idaho. We lived there while my dad helped my uncle with the ranch work and my mother cooked for the crew in the big kitchen of the beautiful log ranch house my uncle built by himself.

 

I amused myself outdoors while my mother worked indoors. There were always animals around—dogs, kittens, chickens—and people working. Sometimes I helped collect eggs, and sometimes I hung on the outside of the corral and watched the horse training or the calf branding. Another thing that fascinated me was the artesian well right outside the fenced-in yard, which gushed water from a 4 inch pipe and made a little stream that ran out into the field.

 

My family continued to go to the ranch in the summer whenever we could. My dad had been a cowboy, so he loved being there during round up, and my mother loved visiting all her relatives who lived nearby. The ranch was only twenty miles from the Sun Valley ski area, and eventually the area became a place for the rich and famous to have a vacation home. It became more and more difficult to keep cattle on the open range, so my uncle sold the ranch to someone with Hollywood connections and he moved further west to the Wallowa area of Oregon.

Everything's Coming Up Irish: Irish Articles of Religion

The Irish Articles of Religion are an important piece in the history of Protestantism in Ireland, and, as we will see, in the history of Protestantism as a whole. These 104 articles were put together by James Ussher, and adopted, as it’s introduction says,

by the Archbishops and Bishops
and the rest of the clergy of Ireland.
In the Convocation held at Dublin in the year of our Lord God 1615,
for the avoiding of Diversities of Opinions,
and the establishing of consent touching true Religion.

This document was a rule of public doctrine, and all Irish Protestent ministers were expected to teach in conformity to it. It served this purpose for twenty years, until public opinion turned against its strict Calvinism during the rein of Charles I. In 1635, the Irish Convocation adopted The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, and although it was agreed at the time that both The Thirty-Nine Articles and The Irish Articles would be used, that was the beginning of the end of the use of The Irish Articles as a rule of doctrine.

 

But that wasn’t the end of this historic document’s influence. It’s generally agreed that The Irish Articles served as the framework for The Westminster Confession of Faith, with the WCF using the general order of The Irish Articles, and retaining some of its language while expanding upon its ideas.

 

See for yourself. Here’s Article 11 of The Irish Articles of Religion:

11. God from all eternity did by his unchangeable counsel ordain whatsoever in time should come to pass: yet so, as thereby no violence is offered to the wills of the reasonable creatures, and neither the liberty nor the contingency of the second causes is taken away, but established rather.

If you’ve spent much time reading The Westminster Confession of Faith, that paragraph probably sounds familiar to you. Chapter 3, Article 1 of the WCF says this:

1. God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

Let’s move on to the next section in The Irish Articles and compare that with Chapter 3, articles 3 and 4 of the WCF.

 

• From The Irish Articles:

  12. By the same eternal counsel God hath predestinated some unto life, and reprobated some unto death: of both which there is a certain number, known only to God, which can neither be increased nor diminished.

• From The Westminster Confession of Faith:

  3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others fore-ordained to everlasting death.
  
  

  4. These angels and men, thus predestinated and fore-ordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it can not be either increased or diminished.

And you thought those Westminster Divines drew up the WCF all on their own, didn’t you?

 

Unfortunately for James Ussher, he might be remembered more for being the man who dated the creation of the world to 4004 BC than for his role in creating The Irish Articles, or for contributing, through them, to The Westminster Confession of Faith.

 

Would you like to this month’s Everything’s Coming Up Irish theme? Post anything related to Ireland or Irish things and send me the link (You can email me, or leave your link in the comments to this post.), then look for a link to your post in one of the upcoming ECUI posts. No blog? No problem. Email me your contribution or leave it in the comments and I’ll post what you’ve contributed in one of the Irish posts.