The Lovingkindness of the Lord

Author: Samuel Medley

Medley, Samuel, born June 23, 1738, at Cheshunt, Herts, where his father kept a school. He received a good education; but not liking the business to which he was apprenticed, he entered the Royal Navy. Having been severely wounded in a battle with the French fleet off Port Lagos, in 1759, he was obliged to retire from active service. A sermon by Dr. Watts, read to him about this time, led to his conversion. He joined the Baptist Church in Eagle Street, London, then under the care of Dr. Gifford, and shortly afterwards opened a school, which for several years he conducted with great success. Having begun to preach, he received, in 1767, a call to become pastor of the Baptist church at Watford. Thence, in 1772, he removed to Byrom Street, Liv… Go to person page >

Awake, my soul, in [to] joyful lays. S. Medley. [Love of God.] Appeared in J. H. Meyer's Collection of Hymns for Lady Huntingdon's Chapel, Cumberland Street, Shoreditch, 1782, and again in Medley's Hymns, Bristol and Bradford, 1785, in 8 stanzas of 4 lines. In 1787 it was included, with the omission of one stanza in Rippon's Baptist Selection, 1787, No. 13, and again by the author in his Hymns, &c, 1800, with the addition of stanza 4, and the transposing of stanzas v. and vi. The versions in common use are that of Rippon. 1787, in 7 stanzas, and a selection therefrom, in 5 stanzas. It is also in use in America. Original text in Lyra Britannica, 1867.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)