Conclusions

In our concluding remarks we shall make a number of brief observations, some of which need more detailed development.

First, there should always be a discerning study of all biographical information.  That the understanding of Cowper has suffered greatly from prejudiced biographers and editors is evident.  The Christian reader must always seek to cultivate fair-minded judgments after a careful and balanced consideration of all the available information.

Secondly, the criticisms by many of Cowper’s biographers and editors cannot be sustained in the face of the evidence that is now available.  As well, we must treat as invalid the conclusions drawn by those who fail to appreciate Cowper’s Calvinism and the doctrines of grace as expressed in the Five Points of Calvinism.

Thirdly, it was by the medium of verse that William Cowper called men and women back to Christ.  He was the poet of the Evangelical Revival.  His influence then, and ever since ‘has been estimated by historians to be even greater than that of Wesley, Whitefield and other leading Evangelical preachers of his day’.[1] This reinforces the fact that gospel truth written in poetic form and published, remains a powerful instrument in the hand of God.

That verse is more readily learned and remembered needs no proof.  It was this fact which lay behind Newton’s original suggestion concerning the writing of the Olney Hymns.  Cowper himself reminds us in a poem to Lady Austen,

No wonder I, who scribble rhyme,

To catch the trifles of the time,

And tell them truths divine, and clear,

Which couch’d in prose they will not hear.[2]

The Christian Church would do well to lay this to heart in its teaching ministry.  In our own experience, where one person may struggle to quote verbatim the 23^rd or the 100^th Psalm in its prose form, there are ten who can recite it in its metrical form.  Truth in verse (not necessarily sung) is a proven vehicle of memorization.

For those using such poems as vehicles of praise in public worship in preference to the inspired psalms there must be constant and close supervision of the doctrinal content.  The prevailing spirit of our age and the clamour for novelty (from which the church is not immune) will inevitably dilute the truth with the result that the songs of the church will degenerate into superficial and repetitive choruses.  This is highlighted by Routley’s discerning observation.  He is commenting upon one of Cowper’s hymns in particular, There is a Fountain filled with Blood.  Yet in our present day his words are pertinent to all of Cowper’s hymns.

The only criticism that will stand against this hymn is a criticism not of the hymn but of the untheological and uncompassionate age in which we at present live, which makes necessary the careful use of hymns so heavily loaded with theology and so uncompromisingly Scriptural in their language.[3]

The Olney Hymns of Cowper are certainly not out-dated in their theology.

Fourthly, whilst an assured faith is necessary for a Christian’s well being, it must be asserted that it is faith in Christ alone that constitutes a Christian.  Though Cowper for lengthy periods had a sense of forsakenness, it remains that Christ was always the object of his faith and hope.

In an age of subjectivism and experience-centred Christianity, the Church in its proclamation must point men and women to Christ alone as revealed in Scripture.  He must be the sole object of a believer’s confidence.  When this is the case, though contrary feelings, fears and severe afflictions may arise and assault the mind, the believer rests secure in a righteousness not his own, even the righteousness of Christ which the Father has been pleased to accept.

Fifthly, the Christian Church should seek to encourage its people to be as John Newton was to William Cowper; sensitive, compassionate, self-denying, cross-bearing and loving.  Newton was wholly committed to his friend’s welfare.  He fed him, counselled him and shepherded him in the darkest of days.  The presence of such openhearted people in our fellowships who ‘esteem the other better than himself’,[4] is a great blessing from God.

Finally and most importantly, the grace of God in Christ was the predominant theme of Cowper’s Olney Hymns.  This was a reflection of the preaching which was so honoured by the Lord during the 18^th Century Revival.  Even so, the Church today must make the sovereign grace of God in Christ the all-absorbing focus of its proclamation if it desires and expects the gospel, by the power of God’s Spirit, to revive our churches and shake our national life.

As a tribute to William Cowper, the Poet of Olney, the following verses have been penned:

And tho’ his way was ‘tempest toss’d’

His God has wiped away all tears.

The days of darkness now have gone,

And Light shall shine thro’ endless years.

Convinced he was ‘The Castaway’

From Christ, who sits upon the Throne,

His troubled mind was fill’d with fear,

But now he ‘knows as he is known’.

He sings ‘a nobler sweeter song’

Than e’er he penned whilst here below,

‘All glory to the Lamb who died

Salvation’s mine, and this I know!’

‘Worthy is the Lamb once slain’

With heav’nly host he joins his voice,

Redeemed to God, a Priest, a King,

He must, he will, he shall rejoice!

His voice not heard, yet he still speaks

Of Christ who died upon the Tree,

And of ‘A fountain fill’d with blood’,

And of the grace that set him free.   (John Cromarty)