God Is Love

Top Media Text Author Text Info Notes Tune Timeline Arrangements Page Scans Instances

God is Love: His mercy brightens

Author: John Bowring (1825)
Published in 730 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, MusicXML
Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ
	An Advent Suite

Choral
	There's a Wideness in God's Mercy - (Cho…

Instrumental
	JOY TO THE WORLD

Representative Text

1 God is love, His mercy brightens
all the path in which we rove;
bliss He wakes and woe He lightens:
God is wisdom, God is love.

2 Chance and change are busy ever,
man decays, and ages move;
but His mercy waning never:
God is wisdom, God is love.

3 Even the hour that darkest seeming,
will His changeless goodness prove;
from the mist His brightness streaming:
God is wisdom, God is love.

4 He with earthly cares entwining
hope and comfort from above;
everywhere His glory shining:
God is wisdom, God is love.

Source: The Irish Presbyterian Hymnbook #115

All representative texts • Compare texts ^ top

Author: John Bowring

James Bowring was born at Exeter, in 1792. He possessed at an early age a remarkable power of attaining languages, and acquired some reputation by his metrical translations of foreign poems. He became editor of "The Westminster Review" in 1825, and was elected to Parliament in 1835. In 1849, he was appointed Consul at Canton, and in 1854, was made Governor of Hong Kong, and received the honour of knighthood. He is the author of some important works on politics and travel, and is the recipient of several testimonials from foreign governments and societies. His poems and hymns have also added to his reputation. His "Matins and Vespers" have passed through many editions. In religion he is a Unitarian. --Annotations of the Hymnal, Charl… Go to person page >

^ top

First Line:	God is Love: His mercy brightens
Title:	God Is Love
Author:	John Bowring (1825)
Meter:	8.7.8.7
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

English

10 shown out of 471

Welsh

Hymnau a thonau at wasanaeth amrywiol gyfarfodydd y cysegr #112

^ top

Notes

God is love, His mercy brightens. Sir J. Bowring. [The Love of God.] This hymn is sometimes attributed in error to his Matins and Vespers, 1823. It actually appeared in his Hymns in 1825, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, stanza i. being repeated as stanza v. In 1853 it was given without the repetition of the first stanza, in the Leeds Hymn Book, from whence it passed into numerous collections. Its use in English-speaking countries is very extensive, and it has become one of the most popular of the author's hymns. Original text, Turing's Collection, No. 292, with “the mist," altered to "the gloom," and the omission of the repetition of stanza v. This is the generally accepted form of the hymn.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

^ top

Tune

CARTER (Carter)

WILMOT (Weber)

All tunes published with 'God Is Love'^ top

Timeline

^ top

Arrangements

Store

Piano/Organ An Advent Suite FAVORITE HYMNS FOR PIANO Gift of Heaven (Seasonal Meditations for Organ) More Piano/Organ...
Instrumental JOY TO THE WORLD More Instrumental...
Handbells Advent Tidings Advent Tidings In the Shadow of His Cross More Handbells...
PowerPoint GRANT US, LORD, THE GIFT OF GIVING (Praise! Our Songs and Hymns 432) More PowerPoint...