Baptist
Hymns #179, Appendix #5.
“Come, Thou fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for ceaseless songs of praise.”
Robert Robinson was brought to Christ through the preaching of George Whitefield, the Methodist gospel preacher. He was born in Cambridge, England in 1735 and was left without a father early in his life. His mother struggled to supply the family needs. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a hairdresser in London. He gave himself to books at every opportunity. He was led to conversion in a very unusual way-”God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform, “ as another has written. With several companions he stopped at a fortune-teller’s place and the old woman told him that he would live long and see his great-grandchildren. He said to himself, “I will then during my youth store my mind with all kinds of knowledge. I will see, and hear, and note all that is rare and wonderful. Then my company shall be pleasant, and I shall be respected in my old age. Let me see, what can I acquire first? Oh, here is the famous Methodist preacher, Whitefield; he is to preach here, they say, tonight; I will go and hear him.” So he went and the preacher took for his text, “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Mr. Robinson then heard Mr. Whitefield describe the Sadducees and thought, “This does not touch me, I am a good Christian.” But when the external decency of the Pharisees was described along with the poison of the viper in his breast, he said, “This rather shook me.” The preacher then with tears streaming down his cheeks cried out, “Oh, my hearers, the wrath to come! the wrath to come!” “Those awful words,” said Robinson, “followed me wherever I went.” After wandering for some time under deep conviction he was found on December 10, 1755. He expresses it so beautifully in Hymn #5 in the Appendix:
“Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.”
But being unstable he went from one thing to another. While in an unhappy state of soul he was traveling one day in a coach when a lady, a stranger, turned to him and asked if he had ever read this hymn. It was his own. She told him of the comfort and happiness it had been to her. He tried to turn the conversation, but she was persistent for an answer. Finally, bursting into tears he exclaimed, “Madam, I am the poor, unhappy man who composed that hymn many years ago; and I would give a thousand worlds if I had them to enjoy the feelings I had then.”
“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.”
(as originally written)
Not long before his death he wrote as to certain clergymen: “Alas, where is that ancient simplicity and power? They are modernized.” Of another person he asked, “Does he court popularity and applause? or is he aiming at winning souls for Christ?” As to his own restoration, all he had to do, as with us, was to act upon 1 John 2:1-21My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1‑2) and 1:9. The Lord has graciously made provision for the restoration of communion.
He had expressed the wish that he would die “softly, suddenly and alone” and this was granted to him. He was found lifeless in bed on the morning of June 9, 1790 and thus he passed into that scene where he now beholds more fully that “Brightness of the eternal glory” about which he spoke in #179.