Vanity of the Creature Sanctified

Representative Text

1 Honey though the bee prepares,
An envenomed sting he wears;
Piercing thorns a guard compose
Round the fragrant blooming rose.

2 When we think we find a sweet,
Oft a painful sting we meet;
When the rose invites our eye,
We forget the thorn is nigh.

3 Why are thus our hopes beguiled,
Why are all our pleasures spoiled?
Why do agony and woe
From our choicest comforts grow?

4 Sin has been the cause of all,
'Twas not thus before the fall:
What but pain, and thorn and sting,
From the root of sin can spring.

5 Now with every good we find
Vanity and grief entwined;
What we see, or what we fear,
All our joys embitter here.

6 Yet through the Redeemer's love,
These afflictions blessings prove,
He the wounding stings and thorns,
Into healing medecines turns.

7 From the earth our hearts they wean,
Teach us on his arm to lean;
Urge us to a throne of grace,
Make us seek a resting place.

8 In the mansions of our King,
Sweets abound without a sting;
Thornless there the roses blow,
All the joys unmingled flow.

Hymns and Spiritual Songs for the use of Christians, 1803

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Author: John Newton

John Newton (b. London, England, 1725; d. London, 1807) was born into a Christian home, but his godly mother died when he was seven, and he joined his father at sea when he was eleven. His licentious and tumultuous sailing life included a flogging for attempted desertion from the Royal Navy and captivity by a slave trader in West Africa. After his escape he himself became the captain of a slave ship. Several factors contributed to Newton's conversion: a near-drowning in 1748, the piety of his friend Mary Catlett, (whom he married in 1750), and his reading of Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ. In 1754 he gave up the slave trade and, in association with William Wilberforce, eventually became an ardent abolitionist. After becoming a tide… Go to person page >

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