Though in the earthly church below

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Though in the earthly church below

Author: John Newton
Tune: HARVEST HOME (54321)
Published in 86 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Though in the earthly 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 among the wheat they grew?

3 Oh! this will aggravate their case!
They perish 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 were wheat;
But to the Lord's all-searching eyes,
Each heart appears without disguise.

5 But tho' 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: Hymns, Selected and Original: for public and private worship (1st ed.) #581

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Author: John Newton

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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