1987 Song Book

A charge to keep I have

Published in volume 1 of the author's Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, 1762, under the heading: 'Keep the charge of the Lord, that ye die not' (Leviticus 8:35). Originally there were two eight-line verses. The hymn is a paraphrase of matthew Henry's commentary on Leviticus 8:31-36: 'We have every one of us a charge to keep, an Eternal God to glorify, an immortal soul to provide for, needful duty to by done, our generation to serve; and it must be our daily care to keep this charge, for it is the charge of the Lord our master, who will shortly call us to account about it, and it is our utmost peril if we neglect it. Keep it "that ye die not"; it is death, Eternal death, to betray the trust that we are charged with; by the consideration of this we must by kept in awe.