Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)

with
HEPHZIBAH
NEW BRITAIN

Fig. 1. Olney Hymns (1779), p. 53. — **Fig. 1.** *Olney Hymns* (1779), p. 53.

I. Text: Origins

The story of “Amazing grace” often includes the story of John Newton’s seafaring life and the brutal storm he survived on 21 March 1748, a story Newton recounted in a series of letters, published as An Authentic Narrative of Some Remarkable and Interesting Particulars in the Life of [Mr. Newton] (1st ed., 1764), especially letters VII and VIII. This near-catastrophe led to a spiritual awakening that he remembered the rest of his life. Nonetheless, his journey from ocean to Olney was much longer than a singular voyage. In spite of his spiritual renewal on that ship, he continued in the slave trade until 1753, when a serious downturn in his health provoked him to give up his seafaring and enter the ministry.

A year before taking the post at Olney, he confided in his diary on 7 January 1763:

I am unworthy of the high honour of speaking in his name, but if ever he permits me, grace, free grace, must be the substance of my discourse—to tell the world from my own experience, that there is mercy for blasphemers, for the most hardened, the most complicated wretches.[1]

Newton was appointed to the church at Olney in 1764. “Amazing grace” seems to have been written in connection with a sermon he delivered on New Years Day, 1773, based on 1 Chronicles 17:16–17. His sermon notes, held at the Lambeth Palace Library (MS 2940), read:

We had not so much a desire of deliverance. Instead of desiring the Lord's help, we breathed a spirit of defiance against him. His mercy came to us not only undeserved but undesired. Yea few [of] us but resisted his calls, and when he knocked at the door of our hearts endeavoured to shut him out till he overcame us by the power of his grace.[2]

A few years later, still before the hymn had been published, Newton referenced this amazing grace in a letter to John Thornton, 12 Sept. 1776:

. . . surely no one could be a greater libertine in principle or practice, more abandoned or more daring than I. But I obtained mercy. I hardly feel any stronger proof of remaining depravity than in my having so faint a sense of the Amazing Grace that snatched me from ruin, that pardoned such enormous sins, preserved my life when I stood upon the brink of eternity and could only be preserved by miracle, and changed a disposition which seemed so incurably obstinate and given up to horrid wickedness.[3]

The hymn was first published in Olney Hymns (1779 | Fig. 1), titled “Faith’s review and expectation,” with the scripture reference of 1 Chronicles 17:16–17, given in six stanzas of four lines, without music.

II. Text: Analysis

The title of the hymn, “Faith’s review and expectation,” comes from Newton’s longstanding personal approach to commemorating the New Year. In his diary for 1 January 1753, in thinking about the mythological figure Janus, who has two faces, Newton remarked, “This emblem affords an instruction not unworthy a Christian’s notice. . . . It seems a proper employment of the first day of the New Year to look both forwards and backwards.”[4] Two years later, 1 January 1755, he reflected:

As merchants begin their books with an inventory of stock, so would I in a brief manner set down my present state for my future government. I trust that the Lord has caused more of his goodness to pass before me this year than I ever before experienced. . . . His grace has taught me to say, it is enough—I mean for the present, and I desire to trust him for the future, for he has said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.[5]

Again on 1 January 1757, we find:

I usually consider the first day of the new year as a point in life from which I may and ought to look both backwards and forwards: to review the path by which the Lord has led me thus far through this waste howling wilderness to prepare and arm myself for such duties and trials as may be yet before me, . . . and to seek strength and direction from him.[6]

On 31 December 1772, the day before his New Year sermon and the apparent premiere of “Amazing grace,” he wrote, “O Lord, accept my praise for all that is past, enable me to trust thee for all that’s to come—and give a blessing to all who may read these records of thy goodness, and my own vileness.”[7] Here Newton seems to have been quoting the final lines of a hymn by Joseph Hart: “We’ll praise him for all that is past / And trust him for all that’s to come,” from “No prophet nor dreamer of dreams” in Hart’s Hymns (1759). Speaking to his congregation the following day, in reference to the words of 1 Chronicles 17, he conveyed the same idea: “They lead us to a consideration of past mercies and future hopes and intimate the frame of mind which becomes us when we contemplate what the Lord has done for us.”[8]

And on 1 January 1773, he wrote in his diary:

My exercise of grace is faint, my consolations small, my heart is full of evil, my chief burdens are . . . a strange, sinful backwardness to reading the Scriptures and to secret prayer. But my eye and my heart is to Jesus. His I am, him I desire to serve, to him I this day would devote and surrender myself anew. O Lord, accept, support, protect, teach, comfort, and bless me.[9]

Accordingly, “Amazing grace” looks backward in review (“through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come”), and forward in expectation (“He will my shield and portion be as long as life endures”). Literary scholar Madeleine Forell Marshall described the overall message of the hymn with this perspective in mind:

As usual, the original title, unavailable in our modern hymnals, provides useful direction to our reading: the hymn will look back in time, tracing the experience of faith (i.e., “review”), and forward, anticipating the future (i.e., “expectation”). The hymn’s voice is very simple: “I,” a sinner, give public testimony to my state. Neither praise nor prayer is offered, but rather a simple, universal confessional formula, the history of any believer, told to anyone who will listen. The “I” is thus “exemplary,” a role for every man and woman to assume and to assimilate.[10]

Newton’s Scripture reference, 1 Chronicles 17:16–17, poses the question from King David, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?” This is reflected in the hymn when the writer speaks of being a “wretch,” “lost,” and “blind.” Newton lived those words in very real ways. Earlier in that passage, verses 8–10, God spoke to David by the prophet Nathan, saying, “I have been with you wherever you have gone, and have cut off all your enemies from before you . . . Also I will subdue all your enemies” (NKJV). These ideas are reflected in the hymn, through phrases like “He will my shield and portion be,” and “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come.” The agency of that deliverance? “’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far.” The prophet also spoke of a permanent home: “I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more; nor shall the sons of wickedness oppress them anymore” (17:9). Similarly, the final two stanzas look forward to the Newton’s ultimate journey to an eternal “life of joy and peace,” to be in the presence of his God. David responded to this message by declaring, “The word which You have spoken concerning Your servant and concerning his house, let it be established forever,” thus Newton wrote, “His word my hope secures,” and “God, who called me here below, will be forever mine.” The word “forever” occurs eight times in 1 Chronicles 17.

Literary scholar Leland Ryken penned this assessment of the hymn:

At the level of imagery, the poem is built around a great contrast that puts two worlds on a collision course. One is a world of sin and fallenness—not just spiritually in a sinner’s personal life, but in the whole earthly order. The vocabulary continually keeps this world of decay and misery alive in our awareness, with words like wretch, lost, blind, dangers, toils, snares, fail, cease, dissolve like snow, and refuse to shine. Set over against this lower world of unideal experience is an upper world of ideal experience, portrayed with words like grace, found, good, hope, shield and portion, joy and peace, shining as the sun. The poem thus roots us in the fallen earthly order but promises us the best that can be imagined. It is a song of hope, comfort, and confidence, with misery functioning as a foil to heighten the vision of bliss.[11]

Newton biographer D. Bruce Hindmarsh wrote, “‘Amazing Grace’ is perhaps the best example of Newton’s use of simple first-person language to represent an experience of undeserved mercy shared by hymn writer and singers alike.”[12]

III. Text: Development

This hymn has come to be known with an altogether different final stanza, beginning “When we’ve been there ten thousand years.” These words were first printed in A Collection of Sacred Ballads (1790 | Fig. 2), edited by Richard and Andrew Broaddus, at the end of hymn no. 3, “Jerusalem, my happy home.” This stanza was not originally part of that hymn either, which is much older. It could have been a poetic addition by one of the compilers, or acquired by them from some other unpublished source. These additional words were printed with an excerpt of “Amazing grace” in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852 | Archive.org) by Harriet Beecher Stowe, but this pairing did not appear in a hymnal until 1909, in World Renowned Hymns (Fig. 3a), edited by R.A. Torrey and assisted by E.O. Excell, then again the following year in Excell’s own Coronation Hymns (Fig. 3b). Both of these printings of the song appear to have been made from the same plates, even though the hymn numbering is different and its preceding hymn is not the same.

Fig. 2. A Collection of Sacred Ballads (1790), no. 3. See stanza 10. — **Fig. 2.** *A Collection of Sacred Ballads* (1790), no. 3. See stanza 10.

**Fig. 3a.** *World Renowned Hymns* (1909).

Another popular variation comes from the work of Chris Tomlin. Tomlin had been asked to write an additional part for “Amazing Grace” for a feature film by the same name, to be released in early 2007. The film Amazing Grace is actually about William Wilberforce, a friend of Newton’s, who was a strong advocate for the abolishment of the slave trade. It was an interesting challenge for Tomlin. “At first I said, ‘No, you don’t mess with that.’ And then God got me thinking about slavery and these words just came out, ‘my chains are gone. . .’ It’s very close to my heart.”[13] His recording, “Amazing grace (my chains are gone),” appeared on his album See the Morning (2006), with this added refrain (co-written with Louie Giglio):

My chains are gone, I’ve been set free;
My God, my Savior, has ransomed me;
And like a flood, His mercy reigns;
Unending love, amazing grace.

**Fig. 4.** “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)” (2006 WorshipTogether), excerpt.

IV. Tunes

1. HEPHZIBAH

Initially, “Amazing grace” was not often printed with music, not sought after for tune books, appearing with music only three times between 1779 and 1820, two of those being collections by the same compiler, William Green. In Green’s collections, A Companion to the Countess of Huntingdon’s Hymns (ca. 1808 | Fig. 5a) and Clerk’s Companion (ca. 1820), this text was set to the tune HEPHZIBAH by J. Husband. The earlier collection, shown here, coordinates with editions of A Select Collection of Hymns Universally Sung in all the Countess of Huntingdon’s Chapels, where “Amazing grace” was given as hymn no. 190, starting with the 1780 edition, and as late as the 1799 edition (Fig. 5b).

Fig. 4a. A Companion to the Countess of Huntingdon’s Hymns (ca. 1808). — **Fig. 5a.** *A Companion to the Countess of Huntingdon’s Hymns* (ca. 1808).

Fig. 4b. A Select Collection of Hymns Universally Sung in all the Countess of Huntingdon’s Chapels (1799). — **Fig. 5b.** *A Select Collection of Hymns Universally Sung in all the Countess of Huntingdon*’s Chapels (1799).

2. NEW BRITAIN

By far, the most commonly associated tune is an American folk tune, known mainly by the name NEW BRITAIN. The earliest surviving appearance of the tune is on the back of a letter written by Cephas Chapin (1804–1828) to his father Lucius Chapin (1760–1842). Cephas had died on 25 July 1828; his father’s transcription of the tune BRAINARD was dated 13 August 1828—this tune is also known as INDIAN’S FAREWELL or PARTING FRIENDS. The other unnamed tune resembling NEW BRITAIN was not dated but appears to have been notated around the same time (Fig. 6). The letter is held by the Cincinnati Museum Center Library and Archives.

Fig. 5. Letter from Cephas Chapin to Lucius Chapin, 1828. Image courtesy of Cincinnati Museum Center, Blinn Family Papers. — **Fig. 6.** Letter from Cephas Chapin to Lucius Chapin, 1828. Image courtesy of Cincinnati Museum Center, Blinn Family Papers.

The handwritten version of the tune appeared in a nearly identical form in Columbian Harmony (1829), named ST. MARY’S (Fig. 7a), set to “Arise, my soul, my joyful pow’rs” by Isaac Watts, in four parts, with the melody in the third part. That same collection included another variant of the tune, named GALLAHER, set to “Come, let us join our friends above” by Charles Wesley, in three parts, with the melody in the second part (Fig. 7b). Both melodic variants are pentatonic.

Fig. 6a. ST. MARY’S. Columbian Harmony (1829). Melody is in the third part. — **Fig. 7a.** ST. MARY’S. *Columbian Harmony* (1829). Melody is in the third part.

Fig. 6b. GALLAHER. Columbian Harmony (1829). Melody is in the middle part. — **Fig. 7b.** GALLAHER. *Columbian Harmony* (1829). Melody is in the middle part.

Cephas Chapin probably knew the editors of Columbian Harmony, Charles Spilman and Benjamin Shaw, or at least they operated in similar circles in central Kentucky. All three had attended Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, around 1826. It’s possible Lucius had submitted the ST. MARY’S version of the tune for Columbian Harmony, or perhaps they all knew it from hearing it at camp meetings. In addition, this tune resembles the shape of PRIMROSE (or TWENTY FOURTH), which is by Lucius’s brother Amzi Chapin (1768–1835). For a detailed study of Chapin’s manuscript and his associations with Spilman and Shaw, see the article by Rachel Wells Hall for The Shenandoah Harmony (12 May 2015).[14]

In 1831, the tune appeared in Virginia Harmony under the name HARMONY GROVE, with the text “There is a land of pure delight” by Isaac Watts (Fig. 8). The arrangement was in three parts, melody in the middle part.

Fig. 7. HARMONY GROVE. Virginia Harmony (1831). Melody is in the middle part. — **Fig. 8.** HARMONY GROVE. *Virginia Harmony* (1831). Melody is in the middle part.

The famed pairing of NEW BRITAIN with Newton’s “Amazing grace” happened in William Walker’s Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (1835 | Fig. 9). This one, like the others, was published in shape notes, and it is an arrangement in three parts, with the melody in the middle part. Walker’s collection included all six stanzas of Newton’s text. The reference to “Baptist Harmony, p. 123” is a cross-reference to Newton’s text in Staunton Burdett’s Baptist Harmony (1834).

Fig. 8. NEW BRITAIN. Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (1835). Melody is in the middle part. — **Fig. 9.** NEW BRITAIN. *Southern Harmony and Musical Companion* (1835). Melody is in the middle part.

by CHRIS FENNER
with MARYLYNN ROUSE
for Hymnology Archive
5 July 2018
rev. 20 July 2023

Footnotes:

The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, MA 731.
Lambeth Palace Library, MS 2940, quoted in “Amazing grace: the sermon notes,” The John Newton Project: http://www.johnnewton.org/Groups/32665/The_John_Newton/Amazing_Grace/The_sermon_notes/The_sermon_notes.aspx
Letter to John Thornton, 12 Sept. 1776, Cambridge University, Thornton Papers, Add 7674/1/B19, transcribed by Marylynn Rouse for The John Newton Project (http://www.johnnewton.org).
Princeton University, CO199 No. 1319 (v1).
Princeton University, CO199 No. 1319 (v1).
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, MA 731.
Princeton University, CO199 No. 1319 (v2).
Lambeth Palace Library, MS 2940.
Princeton University, CO199 No. 1319 (v2).
Madeleine Forell Marshall, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,” Common Hymnsense (1995), pp. 80–84.
Leland Ryken, “Amazing grace,” 40 Favorite Hymns on the Christian Life (2019), pp. 22–23.
D. Bruce Hindmarsh, “Amazing Grace: The history of a hymn and a cultural icon,” Sing Them Over Again to Me: Hymns and Hymnbooks in America (2006), p. 6.
Beau Black, “Morning Glory,” Louisville Now (Dec. 2006), p. 15.
Rachel Wells Hall, “Did Lucius Chapin write the Amazing Grace tune?” The Shenandoah Harmony (12 May 2015): https://www.shenandoahharmony.com/2015/did-lucius-chapin-write-the-amazing-grace-tune/

Related Resources:

Madeleine Forell Marshall, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,” Common Hymnsense (Chicago: GIA, 1995), p. 82.

Steve Turner, Amazing Grace: The Story of America’s Most Beloved Song (NY: HarperCollins, 2002): Amazon

J.R. Watson, “Amazing grace,” An Annotated Anthology of Hymns (Oxford: University Press, 2002), pp. 214-216: Amazon

D. Bruce Hindmarsh, “Amazing Grace: The history of a hymn and a cultural icon,” Sing Them Over Again to Me: Hymns and Hymnbooks in America (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2006), pp. 3–19: Amazon

Leland Ryken, “Amazing grace,” 40 Favorite Hymns on the Christian Life (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2019), pp. 21–24: Amazon

Gillian Warson, “I once was blind but now I see: Responses to blindness in hymnody with specific reference to ‘Amazing Grace,’” HSGBI Bulletin, vol. 23, no. 9 (Winter 2023), pp. 364–370.

E. Wyn James, “Amazing Grace for the pilgrim,” Ninnau: The North American Welsh Newspaper, vol. 48, no. 4 (July–August 2023).