History 

Come Thou Fount (Of Every Blessing) was a hymn written by Robert Robinson at the young age of 22 in 1758 (a century before our brother Horatio Spaddford wrote ‘It is Well‘).

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;

Horatio grew up in a broken home, where his father abandoned his family when he was a teenager. His mother then became a seamstress to help pay for his schooling. However, that was short lived and the decision was made to send Robert to learn to be a barber in the city. He moved away from home at the age of 13 and his apprenticeship lasted seven years. It was during those years that he got into drinking and gambling. One night he was drunk and thought it would be a good idea to attend George Whitefield’s Tabernacle in order to mock him. He stumbled into the tabernacle and Whitfield was preaching on Matthew 3:7 and the “wrath to come”. This message stuck with him and after three years he converted to Christianity. After finishing his apprenticeship, he went on to become a pastor and to write many hymns, including Come Thou Fount. 

Prone to Wander

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;

Anyone who is familiar with the song, is likely to be struck by the lines that deal with the idea of doubt. I believe that all true believers of the Christian faith will deal with seasons where they are in the valley or circumstances that make us question who God says he is or our standing with him. I also believe that this song should bring great comfort in those times rather than fear.

In Philippians 1:6 the Apostle Paul says: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” This passage speaks of the glorious reality and hope for those who have put their faith in Christ as Lord and Saviour. Not only does God promise to begin a work in us, but will bring it to completion.

In another letter, the Apostle says in Romans 8:28 that “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Again we see the great assurance and hope for believers that God will work all things for their good.

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

Robert wrote this hymn at a young age and only a few years after he had become a Christian. The fact that Robert writes about having a wandering heart and wandering from the God he loved is something I believe all Christians can relate to and are prone to experience and feel. However, I think there is an important distinction to make between feelings and truth. I am convinced that when we look at the hymn as a whole we see the beauty of both truth and feelings at play.

We can rejoice and take comfort that although we may feel we are wandering (as this hymn reminds us to and Robert acknowledges), we can be reminded that God has sealed us and nothing can snatch us from the fold of God.

The Role of Emotions 

Another aspect of this song is the role of emotions in the wandering that Robert is experiencing. For the last couple years I have had to come to embrace the role of emotions in my own life for a couple reasons. As a young child, I found myself listening to Pop Punk music when I first discovered how much I enjoyed listening to music. When I was sad or lonely, I would listen to these songs that and they gave me a sense of comfort and allowed me to reflect. I think that this was my way of coping with my emotions. For many years I didn’t know I had them, whether to acknowledge them or what to do with them, but I would go to music.

As I matured and moved from genre to genre, I arrived in the world of modern hymns. I could say much about this journey and you might be thinking: how did you go from listening to pop punk music to hymns? Believe it or not, they both seem to help me deal with my emotions. For those of you not familiar with modern hymns, I hope to write more about artists that have helped shape and contribute to this movement, but for now, think about it as old hymns reimagined with musical instruments, new arrangements and a modern spin. I also hope to write more about what affections are, but for now you can think of them as a fancy word for emotions, that the Puritan Jonathon Edwards has written a book on. The rich truth and theological depth of these hymns, brought to our contemporary time has helped me tremendously in finding comfort in God and to have my affections turned towards him. It is hymns like Come Thou Fount that demonstrate more clearly than others, that we can sing about truth and also not be afraid to acknowledge our feelings. The beauty of hymns is that they help us direct our affections towards God, when we are in the valley like Robert and prone to wander from God or when we are on the mountain and prone to forget God.

I have also had to come to see how important my emotions are in my relationship with my fiancé. There is something different about women and the way that they understand emotions. They have a gift and a deep sense of how they feel, which as a man, I find very hard to relate with. But as I have grown to understand this reality, it has helped me see my need to understand how to care for her emotions. It is something I am still learning, but I am encouraged by Robert, who did not shy away from talking about his affections.

Hope in the Face of Death

On that day when freed from sinning
I shall see thy lovely face,
Clothed then in blood-washed linen
How I’ll sing thy boundless grace.

There is some debate on how far Robinson wandered towards the end of his life. In his article: ‘Was He Too Prone to Wander’, Bruce Mindmarsh quotes John Newton who says that: “He worried that Robinson in his later years was more inclined to help people doubt than believe…but hoped his own spiritual history would terminate where Robinsons began.” Mindmarsh has sympathy for Robinson as he faced both mental and physical illness before he died and I believe it is rightly deserved. What I do know for certain is that in the face of doubt, Robert put his trust in the God he loved. I hope that you too will rejoice and know that for those who trust in Christ, one day we will be completely free from the presence of sin. This is a truth worth rejoicing in, no matter how we are feeling or wandering.

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/was-he-too-prone-to-wander

I have wanted to start a blog for a long time. As you can tell I created this on January 15th, with the hope of writing my first blog post soon after. Now, in April, with a few weeks of rest at home, I have decided to begin writing again. So before I begin, I must thank you the reader for your willingness to join me on this journey. Thank you and thanks be to Jesus Christ who is Lord over all.

I wrestle with many topics related to the Christian faith and theology and see blogging as a way to express my thoughts and dialogue with other like-minded people. I am a firm believer in Sola Scriptura, substitutionary atonement, the authority of scripture and many other doctrines of the Christian faith that the Protestant Reformers fought and died for. I do however recognize that even among this group of believers, there is disagreement on topics like the Sacraments (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper), Church polity, Pneumatology and Worship styles, just to name a few. For a more helpful discussion on this distinction, I would recommend learning the theological triage, which I learned here. I hope that in time I can address each of these topics in further detail. 

In addition, this blog will include both my opinions and the opinions of others who have influenced my study of the Christian faith. My goal for this blog is purely to state my opinion and encourage discussion on topics that matter to Christians striving to be faithful to the teachings of the Holy Scriptures. My first couple blog posts will address the topic of worship styles, specifically the hymns.