Praise for Conversion - O may I ne’er forget

As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me. Psalm 55:16

Baptist preacher Samuel Stennett (1727–1795) wrote the hymn below. Samuel was born at Exeter, in 1727, to Joseph Stennett, Jr. His father was pastor of a Baptist Church in Exeter at the time. Later Joseph became pastor of the Baptist Chapel at Little Wild Street in London. In 1758 Samuel followed his father as pastor of that church. Samuel died in 1795 and is buried at Bunhill Fields Burial Ground in London. His grandfather Joseph Stennett, Sr. was also a Baptist preacher and hymn writer. Samuel Stennett wrote well-known hymns such as “As on the cross the Saviour hung,” “How charming is the place,” “Majestic sweetness sits enthroned,” and “On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand.”

This poetry appears as hymn number 437 under the heading “Praise for Conversion” with the text Psalm 55:16 in John Rippon’s 1787 A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors, intended to be an Appendix to Dr. Watts’s Psalms and Hymns. This is likely the first time the hymn was published.

Stennett’s original hymn is seven stanzas composed in short meter and might be used with most good short meter tunes. The Hymn and Tune Book by Durand and Lester provides this hymn under the tune Idumea (177/438), The Primitive Baptist Hymnal by Sears & Ausmus pairs it with St. Thomas (44), and Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Shape Note Edition with Golden Hill (458). It follows the biblical and Baptist doctrine of giving our testimony of salvation – and emphasizes our enduring praise because of God’s work in salvation, because the work is his alone. We have no historical account regarding the composition of this hymn. It seems likely it was written later in life with Stennett alluding to his conversion which occurred earlier in his life.

1. Come, ye that fear the Lord,
And listen while I tell,
How narrowly my feet escap’d
The snares of death and hell.

2. The flatt’ring joys of sense
Assail’d my foolish heart,
While Satan, with malicious skill,
Guided the pois’nous dart.

3. I fell beneath the stroke,
But fell to rise again:
My anguish rous’d me into life,
And pleasure sprung from pain.

4. Darkness, and shame, and grief
Oppress’d my gloomy mind;
I look’d around me for relief,
But no relief could find.

5. At length, to God I cried;
He heard my plaintive sigh,
He heard, and instantly he sent
Salvation from on high.

6. My drooping head he rais’d,
My bleeding wounds he heal’d,
Pardon’d my sins, and with a smile,
The gracious pardon seal’d.

7. O may I ne’er forget
The mercy of my God;
Nor ever want a tongue to spread
His loudest praise abroad.