1 Though in the outward church below
The wheat and tares together grow;
Jesus ere long will weed the crop,
And pluck the tares, in anger, up.
2 Will it relieve their horrors there,
To recollect their stations here?
How much they heard, how much they knew,
How long amongst the wheat they grew!
3 Oh! this will aggravate their case!
They perished under means of grace;
To them the word of life and faith,
Became an instrument of death.
4 We seem alike when thus we meet,
Strangers might think we all are wheat;
But to the Lord’s all-searching eyes,
Each heart appears without disguise.
5 The tares are spared for various ends,
Some, for the sake of praying friends;
Others, the Lord, against their will,
Employs His counsels to fulfill.
6 But though they grow so tall and strong,
His plan will not require them long;
In harvest, when He saves His own,
The tares shall into hell be thrown.
Source: The Cyber Hymnal #12494
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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