Rachel and I sang this song together the other night and went over the lines to understand them properly, whilst making a decision about whether to use it in our wedding in just over 2 weeks time. It is a great song and the original author Robert Robinson penned the words at age 22 in the year 1757, I think you’d be hard pressed to find such an rich and mature articulation of Theology from many 22 years olds that have spent their entire childhood’s in the Church (me included, at 23).
David Crowder has also arranged a good version of this song on a couple of his albums.
We are planning on singing the following two verses at our wedding for 2 
reasons, 1) for the sake of accessibility to the songs central theme for non-Christians which can be clouded by the religious imagery which would be foreign to a contemporary listener without a proper understanding of the Christian Story and 2) to guard against the Platonism/gnosticism present in the lines of some of the traditional verses which are an unhelpful influence for modern singers who seemingly accept theology in songs without discernment (again myself included):
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Gray Ewing // Sep 14, 2008 at 1:35 am
Hey,
Funny story: this song was supposed to be sung at my wedding (4 mo. ago). The one bit of planning that we put off until the last minute was the printing of our programs for the ceremony. My wife told me she would do this and she forgot to put the congregational hymn (which was Come thou Fount) on the program…so we didn’t sing it.
Coincidentally, I will also be playing this song tomorrow when I lead worship in a local church here in Lincoln Nebraska…though I will be playing the Platonic verses as well…hahaha. Which parts do you think are platonic/gnostic?
In response to your comment on my blog…no, I do not currently attend covenant seminary. I am actually finishing up my undergrad in history here in Nebraska. The plan is to eventually make it to covenant (though we might take a couple of years in between). I am sort of an amalgamation (sp?) of different traditions but I am generally reformed/presbyterian (PCA) and I attend and lead worship at a PCA church here in Lincoln.
Thanks for your comment and your blogs a good read!
-Gray Ewing
2 Liam Byrnes // Sep 18, 2008 at 9:39 am
@Gray, Thanks for commenting, hopefully Ill manage to keep it included in our wedding service order!
I do realy like the song but the most common verse sung with itstarts:
“Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,”
Now I know you could argue for spirit to be new creation and flesh and sin to be what we are saved out of, but I think it gives the impression that we have spirits which will float off into heaven ‘above’ instead of bodies that will experience resurrection on a new earth.
See versions here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Thou_Fount_of_Every_Blessing
Nice to hear from you,
Liam
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