My soul is beset With grief and dismay

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My soul is beset With grief and dismay

Author: John Newton
Published in 4 hymnals

Representative Text

1 My soul is beset
With grief and dismay,
I owe a vast debt
And nothing can pay:
I must go to prison,
Unless that dear Lord,
Who died and is risen,
His pity afford.

2 The death that he died,
The blood that he spilt,
To sinners applyed,
Discharge from all guilt:
This great intercessor
Can give if he please,
The vilest transgressor
Immediate release.

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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