Behold the amazing gift of love

The following hymn is generally ascribed to Isaac Watts. However, it is a hymn from the 1781 Scottish Translations and Paraphrases, that paraphrased, revised, or reimagined an Isaac Watts hymn from Hymns and Spiritual Songs. In Three Books (1707). The author of the revision is unknown. The first stanza is based on Watts’s first stanza, and the fifth stanza is based on Watts’s fourth stanza. The first and fifth are most similar to Watts; however, other lines and phrases show dependence on Watts as well.

1781.

LXIII. I John iii. 1-4. (Author Unknown)

1. Behold th’amazing gift of love
The Father hath bestowed
On us, the sinful sons of men,
To call us sons of God!

2. Concealed as yet this honuor lies
By this dark world unknown—
A world that knew not when he came,
E’en God’s eternal Son.

3. High is the rank we now possess,
But higher we shall rise,
Though what we shall hereafter be
Is hid from mortal eyes.

4. Our souls, we know, when he appears,
Shall bear his image bright,
For all his glory full disclosed,
Shall open to our sight.

5. A hope so great and so divine
May trials well endure;
And purge the soul from sense and sin
As Christ himself is pure.

This hymn is set with tunes such as Rockingham (by Chapin), and St. Stephen (by William Jones).

The paraphrase is in common meter. The original Watts version was in short meter.

Book I, Hymn LXIV (Isaac Watts)

Adoption. I John iii. 1, etc. Gal. vi. 6.

1. Behold what wond’rous Grace

The Father hath bestow’d

On Sinners of a Mortal Race

To call them Sons of God!

2. ’Tis no surprising thing

That we should be unknown;

The Jewish World knew not their King.

God’s everlasting Son.

3. Nor doth it yet appear

How great we must be made;

But when we see our Saviour here,

We shall be like our Head.

4. A hope so much divine

May Trials well endure,

May purge our Souls from sense and sin,

As Christ the Lord is pure.

5. If in my Father’s love

I share a filial part,

Send down thy Spirit like a dove,

To rest upon my heart.

6. We would no longer lie

Like slaves beneath the throne;

My faith shall Abba, Father, cry

And thou the kindred own.

Every hour, in a sense, is the last hour, for we know not what hour the thief cometh. Every day, in a sense, is the last day, for we know not what shall be on the morrow. Every time, in a sense, is the last time, for we know not the times or the seasons.