All hail the power of Jesus' name

Here begins the substantial section: ‘The Son; his name and praise’. If the word ‘blockbuster’ may be reverently applied to a hymn, this would surely qualify whichever tune and whatever text is adopted. More than most hymns, its place in any service needs to be carefully chosen. The key to its structure and history is simply the climax to every stz being ‘… crown him Lord of all’, and the consequent need of several rhymes to match its final word. Christ is declared to be ‘Lord of all’ almost incidentally at Acts 10:36 and Romans 10:12, but that position is everywhere assumed, or else asserted in various ways. Edward Perronet’s original text appeared anonymously in The Gospel Magazine, one stz in Nov 1779 and a full 8 in April 1780. It was headed ‘On the Resurrection; the Lord is King’; the suggestion that it may have been prompted by the crowning of George III seems unlikely in view of the time-lag. A different kind of time-lag does not prevent its ‘twinning’ with 480.

Perronet’s rhymes comprised fall and call (each x3), this floating ball, and gall; stz 2 read ‘Let high-born seraphs tune the lyre,/ and as they tune it, fall/ before his face who tunes their choir,/ and crown him Lord of all’—a text giving problems where ‘lining out’ was still the custom, in which a cantor sang every line before the congregation repeated it. (‘High-born seraphs?’ Wesley had used ‘firstborn seraph’ in And can it be.) Such was the original author’s hymn, a ‘coronation song’ (Frank Colquhoun), ‘heraldic in its boldness’ (Routley), and the present text represents at least his stzs 1, 4, 5, 7, and 8. But since then, a host of editors have decided to improve on his version, starting with John Rippon within a mere 7 years.

In a paper at the Hymn Society Conference at Leeds in 2001, Major John Matthews of the Salvation Army quoted many variants, including a 1982 Jubilate version, some from America, some frankly comic, and one added stz from Spurgeon in Our Own Hymn Book. Songs of Praise offered ‘Ye prophets who our freedom won,/ ye searchers, great and small,/ by whom the work of truth is done,/ now crown him Lord of all’, and a further addition addressed to ‘each poor, oppressèd race’. Hymns and Spiritual Songs for the Little Flock (Darbyite Brethren) typically included 4 much-altered stzs. Rippon’s main contributions, published in his celebrated Selection of 1786, consist of a revised penultimate stz and a new final one; readings for each stz to indicate its theme; and the text of Song of Songs 3:11, with the title ‘The Spiritual Coronation’. Except for Rejoice and Sing which in 1991 omitted the hymn altogether, other hymnals seem torn between making the text more intelligible (congregation-friendly), and expecting some of the biblical allusions to be useful as teaching aids. Praise! has opted to retain the martyrs (though not the altar) from Revelation 6, the fall of Adam from Genesis 3, and the gall (without the AV’s ‘wormwood’) from Lamenations 3 and Matthew 27. That said, there is no more crucial line than one unchanged from Perronet, ‘Hail him who saves you by his grace’ (Acts 15:11; Ephesians 2:5,8).

Both tunes printed here require their own pattern of repetitions. The first, MILES LANE by William Shrubsole, originally bore its composer’s name (and has been given at least 4 others). It was composed, apparently at the author’s request, before the text was printed, and appeared with it in 1779— a good year for hymns with the classic Wesley and Newton collections also issued around that time. Shrubsole wrote it at the age of 19 in the organ loft of Canterbury Cathedral where he had been a chorister. The present name was provided by Stephen Addington, minister of Miles Lane (formerly St Michael’s Lane) Meeting House in London, in a collection of Psalm tunes issued almost immediately, in 1780. The chapel had been rebuilt in 1689 after its predecessor was destroyed in the great fire of London. There seems to be tacit permission for the melody to end line two on A. Elgar and Vaughan Williams have been among the tune’s warmest admirers, and no-one yet seems to have dared to use it for other words than these.

James Ellor’s DIADEM, newly arranged for Praise!, has been dubbed boisterous, rumbustious—and popular. It dates from 1838 and appeared soon afterwards on a Sunday School Anniversary leaflet at Droylsden near Manchester, home of its composer. ‘The tune has led a fugitive life in evangelical song-books’ says Wesley Milgate; curiously, this too is the work of a 19-year-old. A third option is LADYWELL (90 etc) called by Routley ‘the only serious competitor with MILES LANE.’ ‘Sankey’ is one book to print three tunes for this hymn, one being Oliver Holden’s CORONATION from 1783. The majority of current books have two (as here); by omitting the words, RS thereby also deprives its users of three grand tunes.

b Sundridge, nr Westerham Kent 1726, d Canterbury, Kent 1792. The grandson of David Perronet, the first of a French Huguenot family to settle in England in 1680, and son of Vincent, the long-serving vicar of Shoreham, Kent, and a doughty supporter of Whitefield and the Wesleys during the 18th-c evangelical revival. Edward was educated at home and possibly at Oxford Univ; by 1746 he and his brother Charles were also preaching in the same gospel cause. But after the publication of his 1757 satirical poem The Mitre, which attacked both abuses and leaders in church and state, he separated from the Wesleys, from the Countess of Huntingdon and from the CofE. A note added to his published verses read, ‘I was born, and am like to die, in the tottering communion of the Church of England; but I despise her nonsense…’ This was too much for John Wesley who demanded the poem’s suppression. Though (like other fellow-workers) he appears with both praise and blame in JW’s published Journals, he also differed from him at that time over who should be recognised as proper ministers of the sacraments. He then pastored an independent congregation at Canterbury until his death, and published 3 anonymous vols of sacred verse which included his hymns, beginning with A Small Collection of Hymns in 1782. His volatile personality may have contributed to the personal differences, but he was buried, ironically, within the cloisters of Canterbury Cathedral. Alexander Grosart in Julian says ‘He always sings as well as prays’. Since his father Vincent lived to 1785, Shoreham vicarage remained ‘home’ for most of Edward’s life; it was also the nearest place to a family home that the mature John Wesley knew, and where he was always welcome. Edward’s sister Damaris (c1730–82) spent her whole life there, becoming a tireless Bible teacher and evangelist among local women, children and families and a Maidstone prison visitor, greatly valued by Wesley; like her father but unlike her brothers, she remained within the CofE and its parish structures. No.281*.

b Tiverton, Devon 1751, d Surrey (SE London) 1836. He trained for the ministry at the ‘moderate Calvinist’ Baptist Coll in Bristol, and in 1773 became the youthful pastor of the Baptist congregation in Carter La, Tooley St, Southwark. There he succeeded the ‘high Calvinist’ John Gill (1697–1771), the two men ministering for a combined total of 117 years. 1000 members joined in Rippon’s time (see also under J Swain); the congregation later moved to New Park St to allow for the building of the new London Bridge. Rippon remained there for more than 60 years until his death. In 1792 he was awarded an hon DD by the Baptist Coll at Providence, Rhode Island, USA. From 1790 to 1802 he edited the Baptist Annual Register, covering events in the UK and N America and now an invaluable reference work; among his other historical and biographical writings was a Brief Memoir of the Life and Writings of Rev Jn Gill. Some 40,000 [sic] burials in Bunhill Fields were recorded in the list he compiled. He took the American side in the War of Independence, campaigned for full civil liberties for Dissenters, publicised the work of Wm Carey and the work of the BMS, conducted a vast correspondence in Britain, Europe and N America, and found time for village evangelism at home. In 1812 he was a leading figure in the founding of the Baptist Union and became its first chairman; calling himself ‘the willing servant of all the churches’, he not only was London’s leading Baptist minister, but gave a new sense of cohesion and identity to Baptists throughout England.

The year 1787 saw the appearance of the 1st edn of what became his most famous production, A selection of Hymns from the best authors, intended as an Appendix to Dr Watts’s Psalms and Hymns. This became known as Rippon’s Selection; a tune book was published in 1791, and subsequent edns of the hymn-book pioneered the practice of noting the tune names for each text. By 1800 the Selection had reached its 10th edn, with a further 60 hymns; another enlarged edn came in 1827, and after his death came The Comprehensive Edition of 1844 (the 44th), now grown to 1174 hymns in 100 different metres. As he did not attach his name to any of the hymns, it is now uncertain how many, and which ones, are definitely his. Though lacking the hymnwriting genius of Watts or the Wesleys, by these compilations he became a key figure in the story of English hymns, and certainly did for the Baptists what other pioneers had done for Independency and Methodism—and like them for all the English-speaking churches. His editing is acknowledged to have improved many of the hymns. Kenneth R Manley has written extensively about his life and work. No.281*.