A child of man, a child of God

Author: James Montgomery
Published in 1 hymnal

Representative Text

A child of man, a child of God,
How wide their states must be!
Beneath His sceptre or His rod,
His wrath or clemency.

32
Children of Adam, Adam's fall
From primal innocence,
Brought guilt and judgment on us all,
Entail'd through one offence.

Train'd in His image from our birth,
We sinn'd, ourselves, and fell,
Like him, from heirs of heaven on earth,
To heirs of death and hell.

Transgressors while we thus remain,
In our own blood we lie;
We must be born, be born again,
Or die, for ever die.

A child of man, a child of God,
How can such union be?
A worm created from a clod,
Allied to Deity!

Lo! love divine, for man undone,
Devised the wondrous plan,
The Son of God, God's only Son,
Became the Son of man.

Our path of life and death He trod,
That we like Him might be,
Though sons of men, the sons of God,
Through His humanity.

All glory to the Father's love,
Who spared not His Son,
Aud sent His Spirit from above,
To seal what Christ had done.

Sacred Poems and Hymns

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Author: James Montgomery

James Montgomery (b. Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, 1771; d. Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1854), the son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missio… Go to person page >

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