The A-Team Blog :: Poetry/Scripture/Liturgy/Etc.

The lyrics we sing today are at least one stanza shorter that what Robinson authored over 200 years ago. Most information I can find states that there were originally four stanzas, and that the final stanza was dropped from a hymnal published in 1860 by Martin Madan. What's curious is that the text found at CyberHymnal.org contains five stanzas and that the additional material is woven in as a different arrangement from every other edition of the hymn I can find. The material certainly sounds like it could have been written by Robinson, but I can't find any authoritative source noting whether Robinson may have written five stanzas or if the additional material was added in by someone else at a later date.

So here are the two possible original versions of the hymn. On the right is the curious five stanza version, on the left is the traditional four stanza. Today, most of us sing the four stanza version without the final stanza.

1. Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

2. Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

3. Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

4. O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

5. O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

1. Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's unchanging love.

2. Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I'm come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

3. O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace now like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

4. O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

Here are some contemporary renditions of the hymn on YouTube:

Sufjan Stevens - I enjoy his gentle peaceful approach. There's also a low-quality live version online.

David Crowder - He provides the hint of Irish flair without making it too much like a modern rock-worship song. (live version)

Mormon Tabernacle Choir - Though it looks like it was filmed in the early 90s, it is a majestically powerful presentation.

Gateway Worship - They use a couple of original stanzas as verses and write their own chorus. Not bad, but nothing can beat the traditional version.

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Sunday, November 25

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing -Authorship

by Roger on Sun 25 Nov 2007 10:36 PM PST

I've posted on my favorite hymn before, Be Thou My Vision. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing may be my next favorite. I'm not sure we need any other songs in our churches. I recently discovered that the version most of us are familiar with is a shorter version of the original. Though the song has an Irish feel to it (and I enjoy singing it with a hint of Irish), the music was written by an American pastor, Asahel Nettleton, and the lyrics written by an English pastor, Robert Robinson. The text appeared somewhere around 1757-1759 and (from what I can tell) the text was combined with the music in 1813 by John Wyeth. In my next post I'll explore the variations of the song that exist.

Here's a bit about the author:

"During his early teen years, Robert Robinson lived in London, where he mixed with a notorious gang of hoodlums and led a life of debauchery. At the age of 17 he attended a meeting where the noted evangelist George Whitefield was preaching. Robinson went for the purpose of 'scoffing at those poor, deluded Methodists' and ended up professing faith in Christ as his Savior. Soon he felt called to preach the gospel and subsequently became the pastor of a rather large Baptist church in Cambridge, England. Despite his young age, Robinson became known as an able minister and scholar, writing various theological books as well as several hymns, including [Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing] when he was just 23 years of age." Amazing Grace by Kenneth W. Osbeck, p343.

Robinson actually became a Calvinist Methodist pastor in Norfolk before becoming a Baptist. He became close friends with noted Unitarian Joseph Priestly and many speculated that Robinson had then become a Unitarian. "However, in a sermon he preached after he supposedly became a Unitarian, Robinson clearly declared that Jesus was God, and added, "Christ in Himself is a person infinitely lovely as both God and man.""(CHI)

"There is a well-known story of Robinson, riding a stagecoach with a lady who was deeply engrossed in a hymnbook. Seeking to encourage him, she asked him what he thought of the hymn she was humming. Robinson burst into tears and said, "Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then."" (songsandhymns.org)

This story of Robinson toward the end of his life has left many to wonder if, as he wrote in the hymn, he had wandered left the God he loved.

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