Law and Grace Contrasted

The following hymn is Hymn 194 in The Cluster hymn book compiled by Jesse Mercer. It strikingly contrasts law and grace, and holds out the grace of God to the “poor sinner.” Where the law thunders with fire and smoke, death and despair, grace “speaks in accents mild” God’s “love to sinners now.” The hymn is not readily available in modern songbooks. It consists of five stanzas in Long Meter, Doubled (that is, eight lines of poetry instead of four). I suggest the old tune Duane Street will provide a good companion for it. Others likely will as well, but that tune immediately came to mind as I read the hymn.

CXCIV. (L. M.) Double.

Law and Grace contrasted.

1. In thunder once Jehovah spoke,
From Sinai’s top in fire and smoke; 
But now from Zion’s fair abode,
He shews himself a pard’ning God.
Hark! how he speaks in accents mild,
Speaks to the sinner as a child,
“Pardon and peace I freely give
Poor sinner look to me and live.”

2. The holy Moses quak’d with fear,
And camp-despair and death were there;
But here the God of gospel-grace,
Invites us now to see his face:
Vengeance no more be-clouds his brow,
He speaks in love to sinners now:
It is the voice of Jesus’ blood,
Calling poor wanderers home to God.

3. The thundering law, (with terrors full!)
Pronounc’d a curse on every soul;
But now from Zion’s milder throne,
The softest strain of love is known.
Hark, how from Calvary it sounds.
From the Redeemer’s bleeding wounds;
Rends temple, veil, and rocks and land,— 
Who can the force of love withstand!

4. What other arguments can move
The heart that slights a Saviour’s love?
 Yet till Almighty power constrain,
This matchless love is preach’d in vain. 
Dear Saviour, let that power be felt,
And cause each stony heart to melt;
Deeply impress upon our youth,
The light and force of gospel truth.

5. O let them in this hour begin, 
To live to thee, and die to sin,
To enter by the narrow way,
Which leads to everlasting day;
How will they else thy presence bear,
When as a judge thou shalt appear,
When slighted love to wrath will turn,
And the whole earth like Sinai burn.

The Cluster of Spiritual Songs, Divine Hymns, and Sacred Poems was first published around 1800 – though the oldest known existing copy was published in 1810. The compiler, Jesse Mercer (1769-1841), was the son of noted Separate Baptist minister Silas Mercer and Dorcas Green. Jesse Mercer was born December 16, 1769, in Halifax County, North Carolina. The Mercer family moved to Georgia in 1774, where Silas would later constitute several pioneer churches after his conversion to Baptist principles. In 1786 Jesse married Sabrina Chivers. He was converted and baptized in 1787, was ordained to the ministry in 1789 – all at the Phillips Mill Church organized by his father. After Sabrina’s death in 1826, he married the widow Nancy Mills Simmons in 1827. Jesse Mercer died September 06, 1841, and is buried at the Penfield Cemetery in Greene County, Georgia.

Jesse Mercer made his mark in the Baptist ministry. He also made enduring contributions to the welfare of his state as a delegate to the 1798 Georgia state constitutional convention. He became a leader in the Georgia Baptist Association, the state’s first Baptist association. He helped organize the Georgia Baptist Convention in 1822 and served as its president from that time until his death in 1841. Mercer purchased The Christian Index, a Washington, D.C.-based newspaper, in 1833. It still survives today as “the nation’s oldest continuously published religious newspaper.” He made gifts to the first two missionaries sent by the American Baptist Home Missionary Society to Texas – James Huckins and William M. Tryon. Mercer may be best remembered in modern times as the namesake of the Georgia Baptist Mercer University.

Online, see Jesse Mercer, The Cluster of Spiritual Songs, Divine Hymns and Sacred Poems; Being Chiefly a Collection. Third Edition, Revised, Philadelphia, PA: William W. Woodward, 1823, pp. 155-156.

George C. Coles wrote the tune Duane Street. He was born in England in 1792 and was converted at age 13 under the ministry of John Wesley. He emigrated to America in 1818, and married Belinda Willson two years later. Already a minister, he began to supply the pulpit and joined the New York Conference. Coles was also a musician and a singer. He died in 1858 and is buried at the Ivandell Cemetery in Somers, Westchester County, New York, along with his wife. The version of Duane Street in The Sacred Harp was arranged by J. T. White, nephew of the compiler B. F. White. The alto was added by Anna Cooper Blackshear.