William Cowper (pronounced “Koo-pur”) was one of the most gifted poets of his day. His life and hymnody provide powerful testimony to God’s mysterious ways and how He uses us despite our spiritual struggles and weaknesses, even when we don’t understand His designs. Born in 1731 into a Christian home, his father was a chaplain to King George II. Cowper’s life was one of repeated disappointment and anguish. His mother died when he was only five years old.
He studied to become a lawyer, but when offered a job, never took the qualifying exam out of paralyzing fear of failing the test. He struggled with severe depression through much of his life. He was institutionalized at one point in a private asylum and became so despondent that he attempted suicide several times. In time, his mental health stabilized, and he was able to return to a more “normal” life.
Having heard of the sermons of John Newton, a former slave-ship captain (author of the hymn Amazing Grace) and then pastor in the village of Olney, Cowper moved there to benefit from Newton’s counsel. He boarded with a widow whose house was on the other side of a garden that separated that house from the rectory where Newton resided. The church was just across the lane. Within a short period of time, Newton and Cowper became close friends. Cowper gained much from the solid preaching as well as friendship and counsel of that pastor.
As Cowper’s melancholy began to re-appear, Newton suggested that they collaborate on texts for a hymnal, using Cowper’s significant poetic skills. Under Newton’s preaching, the church grew considerably, and was forced to add side balconies to accommodate the crowds who came. Newton began a Tuesday night Bible study and prayer service with hymn-singing. It was for that service that he and Cowper wrote hymns, often working together in the bright sun-lit shed in the garden between their homes.
The hymnal they produced eventually included 68 hymns of Cowper, along with 280 by Newton. It was first published in 1779. It helped spread the singing of hymns along with Psalms in English-speaking churches. It quickly became very popular and went through 37 editions by 1836. Cowper’s hymns included There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood; O for a Closer Walk with God; Jesus, Where’er Thy People Meet; and Sometimes a Light Surprises. As a result of this, and Cowper’s renewed poetic publications, he became very well-known and is considered one of the founders of the English Romantic movement. (Their hymns included no music; they were sung to familiar tunes people already knew.)
Tragically as Cowper neared death, his melancholy returned and became so intense that he felt himself accursed by God and hopelessly lost, spiritually. He died in that pitiful condition in 1800. As one hymnologist described it, “Cowper died in the dark of his depression, only to awaken in the light of God’s presence.” By that time, Newton had left Olney to become pastor of the influential St. Mary Woolnoth Church in London where he encouraged a member of his church, William Wilberforce, a member of Parliament, to successfully battle to end the slave trade in the British Isles.
God Moves in a Mysterious Way is one of Cowper’s best-known hymns. It arose from his own struggles with depression, trying to understand the mystery of God’s sometimes dark providences. It is a literary masterpiece as well as a powerful doctrinal aid to help us in our struggles when we are puzzled by the path God sets out for us. How many times do we find ourselves mystified by what God has ordained? How many times are we tempted to say, “Why, God?” only to receive the same answer God gave to Job … “I am God; I am in charge, I know what I’m doing, trust me.” And as God told Habakkuk when that prophet questioned God’s purposes, I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told (Habakkuk 1:5). One day it will be plain, but perhaps not in our lifetime.
Cowper’s hymn is based on one of the most wonderful truths in the Bible: the providence of God. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism defines it: God’s works of providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions. There is nothing that happens to us that is not part of His design. Even those things that to us are most difficult come to us by His sovereign will. As Joseph said to his brothers who had sold him into slavery that led to years of imprisonment before God placed him as prime minister of Egypt to save countless people, What you meant for evil, God meant for good (Genesis 50:20). During the 2020 pandemic, can you sing these words of Cowper’s with careful attention and confident trust? What a great expression of the sovereignty of God that is at the heart of the reformed theology Cowper learned from Newton’s preaching, and which they found so magnificently described in the pages of scripture. Read these stanzas slowly and prayerfully for the full benefit.
In stanza 1, we find that memorable phrase about the mystery of God’s ways as He performs “His wonders.” And what a powerful image of God’s “footsteps in the sea” as He “rides upon the storm.” We can’t help but think of Jesus walking on the water toward the disciples during the storm on the Sea of Galilee in the darkness of the early morning hours. That same Jesus is walking on our storms to care for us today.
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.
In stanza 2, Cowper paints another vivid image of a mine that is so deep, no one can see to the bottom. That was his picture of the design of God’s will. It has “bright designs” which are beautiful, but often beyond our immediate sight in those deep mines of His skillful work on our behalf and for His glory. We must wait to see their full beauty.
Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sov’reign will.
In stanza 3, Cowper encourages us “fearful saints,” calling us to take “fresh courage,” courage that we do not possess within ourselves, but can only find as the fruit of the Holy Spirit as we keep our eyes focused on Christ. The dark, threatening storm clouds of our frightening current situation which are so frightening right now will soon open up with showers of blessings that will prove to be a source of unanticipated joy.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.
In stanza 4, we recognize ourselves as we tremble at the confrontation of challenges to our faith. But by our “feeble sense” we will not be able to find explanations for why God has done this or permitted that. Instead, the Bible calls us to trust Him. What a great expression: “behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.” So patiently trust Him. The smile is there.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.
In stanza 5, we have yet another vivid image. How should we view what is currently troubling us? It might be problems in our job, or with our health, or in our family, or because of political unrest, or with the advance of wickedness in our world. The “bud” does indeed have a very bitter taste. But since God promises to cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him, how sweet will be the “flower” when it opens.
His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow’r.
In stanza 6, we conclude that those who do not know God through Christ will never be able to make sense of His work. Their “blind unbelief” will always “err” and “scan His work in vain.” They will claim that there is no God, or that God is too weak to help. But we will be secure in our Bible-based confidence that God knows exactly what He’s doing, and will one day “make it plain.”
Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.
A number of different metrical Psalm tunes have been used with Cowper’s text. It is best-know with the tune DUNDEE. It comes to us from Thomas Ravenscroft (1592-1635). Little is known about him. It is believed he sang in the choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and graduated from Cambridge University in 1605. This tune was used in the 1615 Scottish Psalter.