{
 "id": "john-newton/encouragement",
 "title": "Encouragement",
 "ordinal": "9",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Newton",
 "poet_slug": "john-newton",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Olney Hymns",
 "book_slug": "olney-hymns",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 250,
 "container": "II Seeking, Pleading, and Hoping",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1779,
  "venue": "Olney Hymns (1779)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_olney-hymns-in-three-bo_newton-john_1779",
   "https://cowperandnewtonmuseum.org.uk/bulletin/computerised-index-to-the-olney-hymns/",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-newton_william-cowper_olney-hymns",
  "file": "book-3.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Olney_Hymns_%281840%29",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-15"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 56,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 7,
  "longest_line_chars": 25,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    1,
    2
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    2,
    3
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "IV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    3,
    4
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "V",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    4,
    5
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VI",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    5,
    6
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    6,
    7
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "My soul is beset",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With grief and dismay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I owe a vast debt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And nothing can pay:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I must go to prison",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unless that dear Lord",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who died and is risen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His pity afford.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The death that he died,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The blood that he spilt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To sinners applied,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Discharge from all guilt:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This great Intercessor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can give, if he please,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The vilest transgressor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Immediate release.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When nail’d to the tree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He answer’d the pray’r",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of one who, like me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was nigh to despair;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He did not upbraid him",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With all he had done,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But instantly made him",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A saint and a son.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The jailor, I read,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A pardon received:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And how was he freed?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He only believed:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His case mine resembled⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like me he was foul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like me too he trembled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But faith made him whole.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Though Saul in his youth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To madness enraged,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Against the Lord’s truth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And people engaged;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet Jesus, the Saviour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom long he reviled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Received him to favour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And made him a child.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A foe to all good,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In wickedness skill’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Manasseh with blood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Jerusalem fill’d;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In evil long harden’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Lord he defied;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet he too was pardon’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When mercy he cried.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Of sinners the chief,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And viler than all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The jailor or thief,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Manasseh or Saul:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since they were forgiven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why should I despair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While Christ is in heaven",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And still answers prayer?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}