When Adam Fell

Representative Text

1. When Adam fell, he quickly lost
God’s image, which he once possessed:
See all our nature since could boast
In Cain, his first-born son, expressed!

2. The sacrifice the Lord ordained
In type of the Redeemer’s blood,
Self-righteous reasoning Cain disdained,
And thought his own first-fruits as good.

3. Yet rage and envy filled his mind,
When, with a fallen, downcast look,
He saw his brother favor find,
Who God’s appointed method took.

4. By Cain’s own hand, good Abel died,
Because the Lord approved his faith;
And, when his blood for vengeance cried,
He vainly thought to hide his death.

5. Such was the wicked murderer Cain,
And such by nature still are we,
Until by grace we’re born again,
Malicious, blind and proud, as he.

6. Like him the way of grace we slight,
And in our own devices trust;
Call evil good, and darkness light,
And hate and persecute the just.

7. The saints, in every age and place,
Have found this history fulfilled;
The numbers all our thoughts surpass
Of Abels, whom the Cains have killed!

8. Thus Jesus fell—but O! His blood
Far better things than Abel’s cries:
Obtains His murderers peace with God,
And gains them mansions in the skies.

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 >

Text Information

First Line: When Adam fell, he quickly lost
Title: When Adam Fell
Author: John Newton (1779)
Meter: 8.8.8.8
Source: Olney Hymns (London: W. Oliver, 1779)
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Tune

TRURO (Williams)

TRURO is an anonymous tune, first published in Thomas Williams's Psalmodia Evangelica, (second vol., 1789) as a setting for Isaac Watts' "Now to the Lord a noble song." Virtually nothing is known about this eighteenth-century British editor of the two-volume Psalmodia Evangelica, a collection of thr…

Go to tune page >


Media

The Cyber Hymnal #7360
  • Adobe Acrobat image (PDF)
  • Noteworthy Composer score (NWC)
  • XML score (XML)

Instances

Instances (1 - 1 of 1)
TextScoreAudio

The Cyber Hymnal #7360

Suggestions or corrections? Contact us