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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