Firstpublished:1805 in Ingalls' The Christian Harmony, pp. 12-13 Description: A folk hymn, derived from an 18th-century folk song tune, Just as the Tide Was A-Flowing (Jackson 1953b, No. 119; Steel and Hulan 2010). The tune was re-harmonized in four parts in Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony, 1820, renamed Clamanda and attributed to "Chapin." This re-harmonization was the basis for Clamanda, page 42 in The Sacred Harp, 1844 to the present, from 1844-1911 reduced to three parts. In 1911 it acquired an Alto part unrelated to the Counter part written by Chapin; Warren Steel (web addenda to The Makers) says "Alto after W. M. Cooper, 1902." Words by an unknown author, before 1794, in twenty-one stanzas. Ingalls used two stanzas per line in his composition.
External websites:
Original text and translations
English text
1. God's power and wisdom is displayed
In every thing his hands have made;
But more his mercy and his grace,
In saving fallen Adam's race.
2. The matchless grace and love of God,
Appears in shedding of his blood,
For poor apostate Adam's seed,
Was condescending love indeed.
3. How could the Lord, the great Creator
Consent to be a feeble creature,
And leave his glorious realms of bliss,
To sojourn in this wilderness?
4. That God who heaven and earth did frame,
Who counts the stars and calls their name,
He for our sakes did stoop so far,
As to become a carpenter.
5. He veiled his Godhead with our flesh,
And underwent a human birth;
Full thirty years both night and day,
He bore our heavy load of clay.
6. O! was not this a heavens wonder,
He suffered weariness and hunger?
In all the works his hands had made,
Could find no where to lay his head.
7. But this was nothing what he felt,
He bore our load of sin and guilt;
By imputation he was then
The greatest sinner of all men.
8. Methinks I heard his Father say
The utmost farthing you shall pay;
My injured justice must have right,
I can't abate one single mite.
9. Since you espouse the sinners cause,
You must fulfil my righteous laws;
Although you are my darling Son,
I will have right and justice done.
10. Hark! how the Savior then replied;
Since justice must be satisfied;
I am your most obedient Son;
My father let thy will be done!
11. I give myself into thy hands,
Let justice have its full demands;
If all my blood will pay the debt,
Man shan't be lost for want of that.
12. If that my life will but atone
For the offense that man has done,
I freely will resign my breath
To save their precious souls from death.
13. Amidst his sorrows for a space,
His Father hid his smiling face,
Which did extort such bitter cries
As filled all nature with surprise.
14. Those piercing words Eli, Eli,
Likewise Lama Sabachthini!
Which our expiring Lord did speak,
They made the universe to shake.
15. Well might the sun its glory veil,
And every thing in nature fail
And blush, had they but eyes to see
Their Maker hanging on a tree.
16. What adamantine hearts of stone
Could hear our Saviors dying groan,
And not lament in any shape,
Except some hardened reprobate?
17. How could the spotless Lamb of God
Consent to spill his precious blood
To save a stubborn guilty wretch?
Twas love indeed without a match!
18. O! what is sin? that spawn of hell,
His dreadful nature who can tell?
No man on earth, nor Gabriel's tongue,
Can e'er express what sin has done.
19. Gods grace and love to fallen man,
Our human reach can never scan!
An angels tongue can say no more,
It is a sea without a shore.
20. Arise ye stupid souls and view
What your dear Lord has done for you;
And spend the remnant of your days
In striving to advance his praise.
21. The Father, Son, and Spirit too,
All praise and honor is their due,
From spotless angels round the throne,
And human creatures every one.
_______________________________
From Joshua Smith and Samuel Sleeper, Divine Hymns or Spiritual Songs,
Philadelphia, 1794