THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 2IQ
Hymn 329. O Lord, turn not Thy face away.
REGINALD HEBER, D.D. (28).
John Marckant, incumbent of Clacton Magna, 1559, and Shopland, 1553-8, wrote A New Year s Gift, intituled With Speed return to God, and Verses to Divers Good Purposes, about 1580-1. The Lamentation of a Sinner, first found in J. Daye s edition of Sternhold and Hopkins, 1560-1, is perhaps the earliest English hymn in use. It runs
Lord, turn not Thy face away From him that prostrate lyeth,
Lamenting sore his sinful life Before Thy mercy gate :
Which gate Thou openest wide to those
That doe lament their sinne : Shut not that gate against me, Lord,
But let me enter in.
1 need not to confess my life, I am sure thou canst tell :
What I have beene and what I am, I know Thou knowest it well.
Wheretore with teares I come to Thee,
To beg and to intreate ; Even as the child that hath done evill,
And feareth to be beate.
O Lord, I need not to repeate,
What I doe beg or crave; Thou knowest, Lord, before I aske,
The thing that I would have.
Mercy, good Lord, mercie I ask,
This is the totall summe : For mercy, Lord, is all my sute ;
Lord, let Thy mercy come.
Tate and Brady have a rendering of The Lamentation. Heber s version, in his Hymns, 1827, gives the author s name as Sternhold in mistake.
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