Great God Of Wonders
Great God of Wonders
Great God of wonders! all Thy ways
Are matchless, Godlike, and divine;
But the fair glories of Thy grace
More Godlike and unrivaled shine,
More Godlike and unrivaled shine.
Who is a pard’ning God like Thee?
Or who has grace so rich and free?
Or who has grace so rich and free?
In wonder lost, with trembling joy
We take the pardon of our God;
Pardon for crimes of deepest dye,
A pardon bought with Jesus’ blood;
A pardon bought with Jesus’ blood.
O may this strange, this matchless grace,
This Godlike miracle of love,
Fill the whole earth with grateful praise,
And all th’angelic choirs above,
And all th’angelic choirs above.
SAMUEL DAVIES was the first American- born hymnwriter whose hymns had broad acceptance. A Presbyterian evangelist in colonial Virginia, he helped to raise funds for what is now Princeton University. At the age of thirty-four he was named president of Princeton, succeeding Jonathan Edwards.
This hymn was published in a book of poems by Davies with the subtitle “For the religious entertainment of Christians in general,” and soon it was being sung in some unusual places.
England had a penal colony in the South Seas, called Van Diemen’s Land, to which incorrigible prisoners were sent. One writer commented, “With no companions but other convicts like themselves, they grew to be almost fiends.” But some of the men were reached by the mercy of God and were converted. And the favorite hymn on that island was this one.
Where is another God like you, who pardons the guilt of the remnant, overlooking the sins of his special people? You will not stay angry with your people forever, because you delight in showing unfailing love.
Micah 7:18
From the book
