Invitation to Follow the Lamb

Top Text Author Text Info Notes Tune Timeline Page Scans Instances

Humble souls, who seek salvation

Author: John Fawcett
Tune: MILWAUKEE (Zundel)
Published in 123 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Humble souls, who seek salvation
Through the Lamb’s redeeming blood,
Hear the voice of revelation;
Tread the path that Jesus trod.
Flee to him, your only Saviour;
In his mighty name confide;
In the whole of your behaviour,
Own him for your Sovereign Guide.

2 Hear the blest Redeemer call you;
Listen to his gracious voice;
Dread no ills that can befall you,
While you make his ways your choice.
Jesus says, “Let each believer
Be baptizèd in my name.”
He himself, in Jordan’s river,
Was immersed beneath the stream.

3 Plainly here his footsteps tracing,
Follow him without delay;
Gladly his command embracing;
Lo! your Captain leads the way.
View the rite with understanding;
Jesus’ grave before you lies;
Be interred at his commanding;
After his example rise.

Source: A Selection of Hymns for Public Worship. In four parts (10th ed.) (Gadsby's Hymns) #428

All representative texts • Compare texts ^ top

Author: John Fawcett

An orphan at the age of twelve, John Fawcett (b. Lidget Green, Yorkshire, England, 1740; d. Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, 1817) became apprenticed to a tailor and was largely self-educated. He was converted by the preaching of George Whitefield at the age of sixteen and began preaching soon thereafter. In 1765 Fawcett was called to a small, poor, Baptist country church in Wainsgate, Yorkshire. Seven years later he received a call from the large and influential Carter's Lane Church in London, England. Fawcett accepted the call and preached his farewell sermon. The day of departure came, and his family's belongings were loaded on carts, but the distraught congregation begged him to stay. In Singers and Songs of the Church (1869), Josiah Miller te… Go to person page >

^ top

First Line:	Humble souls, who seek salvation
Title:	Invitation to Follow the Lamb
Author:	John Fawcett
Meter:	8.7.8.7 D
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

^ top

Notes

Humble souls who seek salvation. J. Fawcett. [Follow the Lamb.] The earliest date to which we have traced this hymn (although probably it previously appeared in a magazine with which we are unacquainted) is in John Fellows's Hymns on Believers’ Baptism, 1773, No. 25, in 3 stanzas of 8 lines. It next appeared in John Fawcett's Hymns, &c, 1782, No. 117, with the heading "Invitation to follow the Lamb, Matt. iii. 15," and the following note:—

"The Author lays claim to this hymn, tho' it has appear'd under another name: he hopes the insertion of it, and the following ["Ye saints, with one accord"] will give no offence to those of his friends who are differently minded, as to the subject to which they refer."

With this note before us, we have no hesita¬tion in ascribing this hymn to John Fawcett. Its use is mainly confined to America.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

^ top