Sunday's Hymn: William Cowper

William Cowper’s childhood was full of difficult things, and he was not what we would call a resilient child. As an adult, he suffered from depression and tried to commit suicide several times over the years. After his first suicide attempt, he became convinced of his own deep sinfulness and that he was under God’s wrath, but along with this he also became convinced that his sin, especially his suicide attempt, was so offensive to God that there was no way for him to be forgiven of it.  

The conviction that he was beyond God’s forgiveness drove him even deeper into despair and he was sent to a mental asylum.  In the asylum, he was under the care of Dr. Nathaniel Cotton, who held out hope of God’s forgiveness to Cowper, but Cowper remained unconvinced.

 

What finally convinced him? It was reading the scripture while in the asylum, especially one verse from Romans. Quoting from John Piper’s account of Cowper’s life in Insanity and Spiritual Songs in the Soul of a Saint:

… he turned again to the Bible and the first verse he saw was Romans 3:25: “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.”

Immediately I received the strength to believe it, and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone upon me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He had made, my pardon sealed in His blood, and all the fullness and completeness of His justification. In a moment I believed, and received the gospel ….

So when you read the words of Cowper’s most well-known hymn, set them against that background.  Because Cowper had felt so fully the despair of the condemnation of his sin, he understood in a deeper way than most that his only hope was in the one sacrifice that turns away God’s wrath—the “propitiation … in his blood.”

 

There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood 

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
Be saved, to sin no more, be saved, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lies silent in the grave, lies silent in the grave;
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.

Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be,
For me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me!
’Tis strung and tuned for endless years, and formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father’s ears no other name but Thine.

(Listen: Piano or Choctaw singers.) 

---

Other hymns, worship songs, etc. posted today:

• The Collect for the Second Sunday after Easter at Magic Statistics. 
• Come, Let Us Join Our Cheerful Songs at IMD 2.0.
• Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence at John Dekker’s Journal
• O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus at The Happy Wonderer
• Thou Only Sovereign of My Heart at Seasonings of the Heart
• With a Prayer at joythruChrist.

Have you posted a hymn this 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.

Comments

[Catez]

Very interesting. I have difficulty with the "wrath" sometimes - maybe it's the word and the connotations it brings to mind. I know I spent some years thinking of God as a very angry person in the sky and didn't click to his love and forgiveness - but he didn't leave me that way thankfully.

[rebecca]

maybe it's the word and the connotations it brings to mind.

Maybe. I think "very angry person in the sky" is the wrong connotation. :)

For Cowper (and for all of us, I suppose), seeing the cross was the key to seeing the love of God. It was the thing that finally showed him (but sadly, not without long periods of deep, dark doubt throughout the rest of his life) that God is not only a God who had wrath toward his sin, but also a God who could love him and forgive him.

There is a lovely line in a poem that Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote about Cowper after he died called On Cowper's Grave: Christians at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was clinging. That about sums up his life with his mental illness, I think. He knew the cross was the only hope even when he was sure he had any hope at all.

[Catez]

I know that it was thinking about Jesus - his revolutionary kind of love, and his suffering as an innocent person so I could be forgiven - that was what spoke to me. The "angry person in the sky" was impersonal - what Jesus did was very personal. I did one day have a thought in my mind of God warning me (before I was a Christian) - of him not extending opportunity to me forever - it was a sense of his Sovreignty, and I suppose his wrath - although that word wasn't in my mind at the time. I hope it's ok to discuss this - it's something I've known but am pondering.

[Ellen B.]

Amazing. Thanks for the background info.