Who was Robert Robinson?
Robert Robinson, born September 27th, 1735, and died June 9th, 1790, was an English Dissident, prominent Baptist, and thinker who made a lifelong examination of the history of Christian Baptism. He was the author of the hymn "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," which he wrote after converting to Methodism at age 22.
Robinson was just a small boy when his dad died. In 18th-century England, there was little in the way of a social welfare system, which meant that he had to go to work while still very young. Without a father to guide and steady him, Robert fell in with bad companions.
One day his gang of rowdies harassed a drunken gypsy. Pouring liquor into her, they demanded she tells their fortunes for free. She pointed her finger at Robert and told him he would live to see his children and grandchildren. This struck a tender spot in his heart. "If I'm going to live to see my children and grandchildren," he thought, "I'll have to change my way of living. I can't keep on like I'm going now."
Biblical Warning
Robert Robinson decided to go hear the Methodist preacher George Whitefield. To cover his "weak" urge, he suggested the boys go with him and heckle the gathering. Whitefield preached on the text: "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Matthew 3:7). Robert left in dread, under a deep sense of sin that lasted for three years.
Preacher and Hymn Writer
Finally, at the age of twenty, Robert made peace with God and immediately became a Methodist preacher. Two years later, in 1757, he wrote a hymn that expressed his joy in his new faith:
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
This was printed the next year. At first people thought that Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, a strong Methodist, had written this. Eventually, it was learned that Robert was the writer.
In the last stanza, Robert wrote:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love
Take my heart, O take and seal it
Seal it for thy courts above.
Prone to Wander
Prone to wander, Robert was. He left the Methodists and became a Baptist. Later on, having become a close friend of Joseph Priestly, he was accused of becoming a Unitarian. Priestly and other Unitarians denied the full divinity of Christ. However, in a sermon he preached after supposedly becoming a Unitarian, Robinson declared that Jesus was God and added, "Christ in Himself is a person infinitely lovely as both God and man."
Robert Robinson died on this day, June 9, 1790. Had he left the God he loved? A widely-told but unverifiable story says that one day as he was riding in a stagecoach, a lady asked him what he thought of the hymn she was humming. He responded, "Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then."
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I'll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I've come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I'll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.
Read more about Robinson's famous hymn on GodTube
Bibliography:
- Burrage, Henry S. Baptist Hymnwriters and their Hymns. Portland, Maine: Brown, Thurston and Co., 1888; p. 69 ff.
- "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." http://www.millgrove.org/Mill%20Grove/ come_thou_fount_of_every_blessin.htm
- "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing." Minneapolis: Quanta Press. http://www.uuce.org/music/fount.htm
- Haeussler, Armin. The Story of Our Hymns; the handbook of the hymnal of the evangelical and reformed church. Saint Louis, Missouri: Eden Publishing, 1952.
- Price, Carl F. One Hundred and One Hymn Stories. New York: Abingdon, 1923.
- Robinson, Robert. Cyberhymnal. http://www.cyberhymnal.org
- Wells, Amos R. A Treasure of Hymns; Brief biographies of 120 leading hymn- writers and Their best hymns. Boston: W. A. Wilde company, 1945.
Last updated July 2022. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain Image/Edwin McKean Long
