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God Moves in a Mysterious Way
Author: William Cowper, 1731-1800 Meter: 8.6.8.6 Appears in 1,133 hymnals Scripture: Job 42:1-3 Lyrics: 1 God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform;
he plants his footsteps in the sea,
and rides upon the storm.
2 You fearful saints, fresh courage take;
the clouds you so much dread
are big with mercy and shall break
in blessings on your head.
3 His purposes will ripen fast,
unfolding every hour;
the bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flower.
4 Blind unbelief is sure to err
and scan his work in vain:
God is his own interpreter,
and he will make it plain. Used With Tune: DUNDEE
God Moves in a Mysterious Way
I Say "Yes," Lord
Author: Donna Peña, b. 1955 Appears in 3 hymnals Scripture: Job 42:1-6 First Line: To the God who cannot die Refrain First Line: I say "Yes," my Lord (Digo "Sí," Señor) Topics: Patience Used With Tune: [To the God who cannot die]
I Say "Yes," Lord
Savior, When in Dust to Thee
Author: Robert Grant, 1779-1838, alt. Meter: 7.7.7.7 D Appears in 444 hymnals Scripture: Job 42:6 Lyrics: 1 Savior, when in dust to Thee
Low we bow the adoring knee;
When, repentant, to the skies
Scarce we lift our weeping eyes;
O, by all Thy pains and woe
Suffered once for us below,
Bending from Thy throne on high,
Hear our penitential cry!
2 By Thy helpless infant years,
By Thy life of want and tears,
By Thy days of deep distress
In the savage wilderness,
By the dread, mysterious hour
Of the insulting tempter's pow'r,
Turn, O turn a fav'ring eye;
Hear our penitential cry!
3 By thine hour of dire despair,
By thine agony of prayer,
By the cross, the nail, the thorn,
Piercing spear, and torturing scorn,
By the gloom that veiled the skies
O'er the dreadful sacrifice,
Listen to our humble sigh;
Hear our penitential cry!
4 By Thy deep expiring groan,
By the sad sepulchral stone,
By the vault whose dark abode
Held in vain the rising God,
O, from earth to heav'n restored,
Mighty, re-ascended Lord,
Bending from Thy throne on high,
Hear our penitential cry!
Topics: Ash Wednesday Used With Tune: ABERYSTWYTH
Savior, When in Dust to Thee
[To the God who cannot die]
Appears in 4 hymnals Composer and/or Arranger: Donna Peña, b. 1955; Marty Haugen, b. 1950 Scripture: Job 42:1-6 Tune Key: E Flat Major Used With Text: I Say "Yes," Lord
[To the God who cannot die]
ABERYSTWYTH
Meter: 7.7.7.7 D Appears in 264 hymnals Composer and/or Arranger: Jospeh Parry, 1841-1903 Scripture: Job 42:6 Tune Key: d minor Incipit: 11234 53213 21712 Used With Text: Savior, When in Dust to Thee
ABERYSTWYTH
God Moves in a Mysterious Way
Author: William Cowper Hymnal: Lift Up Your Hearts #25 (2013) Meter: 8.6.8.6 Scripture: Job 42:1-3 Lyrics: 1 God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform.
He plants his footsteps in the sea
and rides upon the storm.
2 Deep in unfathomable mines
of never failing skill,
he treasures up his bright designs
and works his sovereign will.
3 You fearful saints, fresh courage take;
the clouds you so much dread
are big with mercy and shall break
in blessings on your head.
4 His purposes will ripen fast,
unfolding every hour.
The bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flower.
5 Blind unbelief is sure to err
and scan his work in vain.
God is his own interpreter,
and he will make it plain. Topics: Church Year Lent; Church Year Maundy Thursday; Church Year Easter Vigil; Creation; Fear; God's Majesty; God's Providence; God Ways Of; Mercy; War and Revolution Languages: English Tune Title: DUNDEE
God Moves in a Mysterious Way
God Moves in a Mysterious Way (Con maravillas obra Dios)
Author: William Cowper, 1731-1800; Anonymous Hymnal: Santo, Santo, Santo #47 (2019) Meter: 8.6.8.6 Scripture: Job 42:1-3 Lyrics: 1 God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.
He plants his footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.
2 You fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.
3 His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding ev'ry hour.
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow'r.
4 Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan his work in vain.
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.
---
1 Con maravillas obra Dios
en la profundidad;
calma la fiera tempestad
y pasa por la mar.
2 Oh santos, ya valor mostrad;
las nubes no temáis;
llenas están de gran bondad
y bendiciones dan.
3 Sus fines Dios revelará
con todo esplendor;
aunque amargo el botón,
más dulce es la flor.
4 El que carezca de la fe
en vano buscará.
El gran intérprete es Dios;
su plan aclarará. Topics: Covenant; Pacto; Creation; Creación; Providence; Providencia Languages: English; Spanish Tune Title: DUNDEE
God Moves in a Mysterious Way (Con maravillas obra Dios)
God Moves in a Mysterious Way
Author: William Cowper, 1731-1800 Hymnal: Worship and Rejoice #65 (2003) Meter: 8.6.8.6 Scripture: Job 42:1-3 Lyrics: 1 God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform;
he plants his footsteps in the sea,
and rides upon the storm.
2 You fearful saints, fresh courage take;
the clouds you so much dread
are big with mercy and shall break
in blessings on your head.
3 His purposes will ripen fast,
unfolding every hour;
the bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flower.
4 Blind unbelief is sure to err
and scan his work in vain:
God is his own interpreter,
and he will make it plain. Languages: English Tune Title: DUNDEE
God Moves in a Mysterious Way
William Cowper
1731 - 1800 Person Name: William Cowper, 1731-1800 Scripture: Job 42:1-3 Author of "God Moves in a Mysterious Way" in Worship and Rejoice William Cowper (pronounced "Cooper"; b. Berkampstead, Hertfordshire, England, 1731; d. East Dereham, Norfolk, England, 1800) is regarded as one of the best early Romantic poets. To biographers he is also known as "mad Cowper." His literary talents produced some of the finest English hymn texts, but his chronic depression accounts for the somber tone of many of those texts. Educated to become an attorney, Cowper was called to the bar in 1754 but never practiced law. In 1763 he had the opportunity to become a clerk for the House of Lords, but the dread of the required public examination triggered his tendency to depression, and he attempted suicide. His subsequent hospitalization and friendship with Morley and Mary Unwin provided emotional stability, but the periods of severe depression returned. His depression was deepened by a religious bent, which often stressed the wrath of God, and at times Cowper felt that God had predestined him to damnation.
For the last two decades of his life Cowper lived in Olney, where John Newton became his pastor. There he assisted Newton in his pastoral duties, and the two collaborated on the important hymn collection Olney Hymns (1779), to which Cowper contributed sixty-eight hymn texts.
Bert Polman
============
Cowper, William, the poet. The leading events in the life of Cowper are: born in his father's rectory, Berkhampstead, Nov. 26, 1731; educated at Westminster; called to the Bar, 1754; madness, 1763; residence at Huntingdon, 1765; removal to Olney, 1768; to Weston, 1786; to East Dereham, 1795; death there, April 25, 1800.
The simple life of Cowper, marked chiefly by its innocent recreations and tender friendships, was in reality a tragedy. His mother, whom he commemorated in the exquisite "Lines on her picture," a vivid delineation of his childhood, written in his 60th year, died when he was six years old. At his first school he was profoundly wretched, but happier at Westminster; excelling at cricket and football, and numbering Warren Hastings, Colman, and the future model of his versification. Churchill, among his contemporaries or friends. Destined for the Bar, he was articled to a solicitor, along with Thurlow. During this period he fell in love with his cousin, Theodora Cowper, sister to Lady Hesketh, and wrote love poems to her. The marriage was forbidden by her father, but she never forgot him, and in after years secretly aided his necessities. Fits of melancholy, from which he had suffered in school days, began to increase, as he entered on life, much straitened in means after his father's death. But on the whole, it is the playful, humorous side of him that is most prominent in the nine years after his call to the Bar; spent in the society of Colman, Bonnell Thornton, and Lloyd, and in writing satires for The Connoisseur and St. James's Chronicle and halfpenny ballads. Then came the awful calamity, which destroyed all hopes of distinction, and made him a sedentary invalid, dependent on his friends. He had been nominated to the Clerkship of the Journals of the House of Lords, but the dread of appearing before them to show his fitness for the appointment overthrew his reason. He attempted his life with "laudanum, knife and cord,"—-in the third attempt nearly succeeding. The dark delusion of his life now first showed itself—a belief in his reprobation by God. But for the present, under the wise and Christian treatment of Dr. Cotton (q. v.) at St. Albans, it passed away; and the eight years that followed, of which the two first were spent at Huntingdon (where he formed his lifelong friendship with Mrs. Unwin), and the remainder at Olney in active piety among the poor, and enthusiastic devotions under the guidance of John Newton (q. v.), were full of the realisation of God's favour, and the happiest, most lucid period of his life. But the tension of long religious exercises, the nervous excitement of leading at prayer meetings, and the extreme despondence (far more than the Calvinism) of Newton, could scarcely have been a healthy atmosphere for a shy, sensitive spirit, that needed most of all the joyous sunlight of Christianity. A year after his brother's death, madness returned. Under the conviction that it was the command of God, he attempted suicide; and he then settled down into a belief in stark contradiction to his Calvinistic creed, "that the Lord, after having renewed him in holiness, had doomed him to everlasting perdition" (Southey). In its darkest form his affliction lasted sixteen months, during which he chiefly resided in J. Newton's house, patiently tended by him and by his devoted nurse, Mrs. Unwin. Gradually he became interested in carpentering, gardening, glazing, and the tendance of some tame hares and other playmates. At the close of 1780, Mrs. Unwin suggested to him some serious poetical work; and the occupation proved so congenial, that his first volume was published in 1782. To a gay episode in 1783 (his fascination by the wit of Lady Austen) his greatest poem, The Task, and also John Gilpin were owing. His other principal work was his Homer, published in 1791. The dark cloud had greatly lifted from his life when Lady Hesketh's care accomplished his removal to Weston (1786): but the loss of his dear friend William Unwin lowered it again for some months. The five years' illness of Mrs. Unwin, during which his nurse of old became his tenderly-watched patient, deepened the darkness more and more. And her death (1796) brought “fixed despair," of which his last poem, The Castaway, is the terrible memorial. Perhaps no more beautiful sentence has been written of him, than the testimony of one, who saw him after death, that with the "composure and calmness" of the face there “mingled, as it were, a holy surprise."
Cowper's poetry marks the dawn of the return from the conventionality of Pope to natural expression, and the study of quiet nature. His ambition was higher than this, to be the Bard of Christianity. His great poems show no trace of his monomania, and are full of healthy piety. His fame as a poet is less than as a letter-writer: the charm of his letters is unsurpassed. Though the most considerable poet, who has written hymns, he has contributed little to the development of their structure, adopting the traditional modes of his time and Newton's severe canons. The spiritual ideas of the hymns are identical with Newton's: their highest note is peace and thankful contemplation, rather than joy: more than half of them are full of trustful or reassuring faith: ten of them are either submissive (44), self-reproachful (17, 42, 43), full of sad yearning (1, 34), questioning (9), or dark spiritual conflict (38-40). The specialty of Cowper's handling is a greater plaintiveness, tenderness, and refinement. A study of these hymns as they stood originally under the classified heads of the Olney Hymns, 1779, which in some cases probably indicate the aim of Cowper as well as the ultimate arrangement of the book by Newton, shows that one or two hymns were more the history of his conversion, than transcripts of present feelings; and the study of Newton's hymns in the same volume, full of heavy indictment against the sins of his own regenerate life, brings out the peculiar danger of his friendship to the poet: it tends also to modify considerably the conclusions of Southey as to the signs of incipient madness in Cowper's maddest hymns. Cowper's best hymns are given in The Book of Praise by Lord Selborne. Two may be selected from them; the exquisitely tender "Hark! my soul, it is the Lord" (q. v.), and "Oh, for a closer walk with God" (q. v.). Anyone who knows Mrs. Browning's noble lines on Cowper's grave will find even a deeper beauty in the latter, which is a purely English hymn of perfect structure and streamlike cadence, by connecting its sadness and its aspiration not only with the “discord on the music" and the "darkness on the glory," but the rapture of his heavenly waking beneath the "pathetic eyes” of Christ.
Authorities. Lives, by Hayley; Grimshaw; Southey; Professor Goldwin Smith; Mr. Benham (attached to Globe Edition); Life of Newton, by Rev. Josiah Bull; and the Olney Hymns. The numbers of the hymns quoted refer to the Olney Hymns. [Rev. H. Leigh Bennett, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
================
Cowper, W. , p. 265, i. Other hymns are:—
1. Holy Lord God, I love Thy truth. Hatred of Sin.
2. I was a grovelling creature once. Hope and Confidence.
3. No strength of nature can suffice. Obedience through love.
4. The Lord receives His highest praise. Faith.
5. The saints should never be dismayed. Providence. All these hymns appeared in the Olney Hymns, 1779.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)
=====================
Cowper, W., p. 265, i. Prof. John E. B. Mayor, of Cambridge, contributed some letters by Cowper, hitherto unpublished, together with notes thereon, to Notes and Queries, July 2 to Sept. 24, 1904. These letters are dated from Huntingdon, where he spent two years after leaving St. Alban's (see p. 265, i.), and Olney. The first is dated "Huntingdon, June 24, 1765," and the last "From Olney, July 14, 1772." They together with extracts from other letters by J. Newton (dated respectively Aug. 8, 1772, Nov. 4, 1772), two quotations without date, followed by the last in the N. & Q. series, Aug. 1773, are of intense interest to all students of Cowper, and especially to those who have given attention to the religious side of the poet's life, with its faint lights and deep and awful shadows. From the hymnological standpoint the additional information which we gather is not important, except concerning the hymns "0 for a closer walk with God," "God moves in a mysterious way," "Tis my happiness below," and "Hear what God, the Lord, hath spoken." Concerning the last three, their position in the manuscripts, and the date of the last from J. Newton in the above order, "Aug. 1773," is conclusive proof against the common belief that "God moves in a mysterious way" was written as the outpouring of Cowper's soul in gratitude for the frustration of his attempted suicide in October 1773.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)
William Cowper
Donna Peña
b. 1955 Person Name: Donna Peña, b. 1955 Scripture: Job 42:1-6 Author of "I Say "Yes," Lord" in Gather Comprehensive
Donna Peña
Marty Haugen
b. 1950 Person Name: Marty Haugen, b. 1950 Scripture: Job 42:1-6 Arranger of "[To the God who cannot die]" in Gather Comprehensive Marty Haugen (b. 1950), is a prolific liturgical composer with many songs included in hymnals across the liturgical spectrum of North American hymnals and beyond, with many songs translated into different languages. He was raised in the American Lutheran Church, received a BA in psychology from Luther College, yet found his first position as a church musician in a Roman Catholic parish at a time when the Roman Catholic Church was undergoing profound liturgical and musical changes after Vatican II. Finding a vocation in that parish to provide accessible songs for worship, he continued to compose and to study, receiving an MA in pastoral studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul Minnesota. A number of liturgical settings were prepared for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and more than 400 of his compositions are available from several publishers, especially GIA Publications, who also produced some 30 recordings of his songs. He is composer-in-residence at Mayflower Community Congregational Church in Minneapolis and continues to compose and travel to speak and teach at worship events around the world.
Emily Brink
Marty Haugen
