1 I once was a stranger to grace and to God,
I knew not my danger, and felt not my load;
Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree,
Jehovah, my Saviour, seemed nothing to me.
2 When free grace awoke me by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;
No refuge, no safety, in self could I see;
Jehovah, Thou only my Saviour must be.
Source: International Song Service: with Bright Gems from fifty authors, for Sunday-schools, gospel meetings, missionary and young people's societies, prayer-meetings, etc. #243
First Line: | I once was a stranger to grace and to God (M'Cheyne) |
Title: | Pardon for All |
Author: | Robert Murray M'Cheyne |
Language: | English |
Refrain First Line: | Pardon for all, pardon for all |
Copyright: | Public Domain |
I once was a stranger to grace and to God. R. M. McCheyne. [The Lord our Righteousness.] Appeared in the Scottish Christian Herald, March, 1836, in 7 stanzas of 8 lines, and entitled "Jehovah Tsidkenu," "The Lord our Righteousness—The watchword of the Reformation," and signed "Larbert. . . R. McC." In 1844 it was included by A. Bonar in his Memoir & Remains of McCheyne, p. 582, and dated "November, 18, 1834." Its use, especially in America, is extensive.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)