Begone, unbelief, my Savior is near,
And for my relief will surely appear;
By prayer let me wrestle, and He will perform,
With Christ in the vessel, I smile at the storm.
Though dark be my way, since He is my Guide,
‘Tis mine to obey, ’tis His to provide;
Though cisterns be broken, and creatures all fail,
The word He hath spoken shall surely prevail.
Public domain hymn text (1779). Words by John Newton.
The Story Behind the Hymn
John Newton wrote this hymn's text for the 1779 'Olney Hymns' collection, the same joint hymnal project with William Cowper already discussed extensively elsewhere in this collection, and its central image of Christ present 'in the vessel' during a storm draws directly on Mark 4:35-41, the Gospel account of Jesus calming a violent storm on the Sea of Galilee while His disciples, terrified, wake Him from sleep in the boat.
Given Newton's own extensive personal history as a sailor and later a ship's captain, discussed at length elsewhere in this collection in connection with 'Amazing Grace' (hymn 1), including his own vivid firsthand memory of the violent 1748 Atlantic storm that marked the beginning of his conversion, this hymn's nautical imagery of storms and vessels carries a considerably more literal, lived weight coming from Newton than it would from a hymn writer without his own extensive seafaring background.
The hymn's second verse image of 'cisterns broken' draws on Jeremiah 2:13, in which God rebukes Israel for abandoning Him, 'the fountain of living waters,' in favor of man-made cisterns 'that can hold no water' — Newton applying the prophet's ancient warning about misplaced trust in unreliable human resources to the ordinary spiritual temptation of trusting anything other than God's own unfailing provision.
The hymn's confident, almost defiant opening command — addressed not to God but directly to 'unbelief' itself, ordered to 'begone' — reflects a hymn genre Newton used more than once, treating doubt and unbelief as an intruding presence to be actively, verbally commanded away rather than passively endured, a spiritual discipline Newton, who had spent years of his own earlier life in genuine unbelief before his conversion, apparently found it necessary to practice as an active verbal exercise rather than simply hope would resolve itself.
