Behold the Throne of Grace!

Author: John Newton

Newton, John, who was born in London, July 24, 1725, and died there Dec. 21, 1807, occupied an unique position among the founders of the Evangelical School, due as much to the romance of his young life and the striking history of his conversion, as to his force of character. His mother, a pious Dissenter, stored his childish mind with Scripture, but died when he was seven years old. At the age of eleven, after two years' schooling, during which he learned the rudiments of Latin, he went to sea with his father. His life at sea teems with wonderful escapes, vivid dreams, and sailor recklessness. He grew into an abandoned and godless sailor. The religious fits of his boyhood changed into settled infidelity, through the study of Shaftesbury and… Go to person page >

Behold the throne of grace. J. Newton. [The Throne of Grace.] Appeared in the Olney Hymns, 1779, Book i.. No. 33, in 8 stanzas of 4 lines, and based on 1 Kings iii. 5. Although extensively used both in Great Britain and in America, it is generally in an abridged, and sometimes altered form. In 1781 J. Wesley published the last four stanzas of the original as a hymn in the Arminian Magazine, p. 285, beginning "Since 'tis the Lord's command," but it failed to attract attention, and in that form is unknown to modern hymn-books.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)