God of majesty and splendour

Alan Clifford’s hymn of praise to God for his character and work was written in 1981, triggered by a blasphemous public outburst by a tennis player at that year’s Wimbledon championships. It appeared in Grace magazine as a competition winner, and was printed as the 6th (and last, to date) of his published hymns, in his own collection Reformed Praise which first appeared in 2000, the same year as Praise! It is there headed ‘The Living, Loving God’ with a Scripture text, ‘The whole Bible’, since its frame of reference and wide sweep of construction takes us from Genesis/Exodus to the Gospels, Epistles and Revelation. The text is remarkable in its insistent use of the word ‘God’ to begin the first 4 lines of each stz; in a ‘double’ chorus, lines 5 and 6 begin with a wondering ‘Who’ in stzs 1–3 and an answering ‘We’ in 4–6. This is the first hymnal to include it.

The author names RHUDDLAN (419) as his preferred tune, with two other options including VICKERS by Maxwell Betts of Norwich. Linda Mawson’s AVONWICK, chosen here, was specially composed for this hymn, while she was on holiday during the preparation of Praise! She says, ‘I felt that the text needed a strong melody, while not ignoring the change in attitude of the last two lines of each stanza. As we drove around the country lanes near Dartmoor I managed to produce a melodic outline, and on my return home completed the harmonisation’. The tune is named after a Devonshire village near the A38, midway between Torquay and Plymouth. ST HELEN (900) is another possibility.

b Aldershot, Hants 1941. Fernhill County Secondary Sch, Farnborough. He served an Engineering apprenticeship in aircraft manufacturing before studying philosophy and theology at Univ Coll of N Wales, Bangor, and the Univ of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (BA, M Litt, PhD). Ordained in 1969, he served pastorates in Northampton, Gateshead, Great Ellingham (Norfolk) and Norwich, where he founded and currently ministers at the Norwich Reformed Church. He is the author of Atonement and Justification: English Evangelical Theology 1640–1790 (1990) and other historical and Reformed books, booklets and articles including work on Calvin and Cromwell and a tercentenary biography of Philip Doddridge (The Good Doctor, 2002). In 2006 his booklet on Christianity, Islam and British Politics sets some current religious debate in historical perspective; concerning Islam he is ‘utterly persuaded that radical authentic Christianity alone provides the best basis for scrutinising and assessing it.’ His first published hymn texts featured in Grace Hymns (1975) and Christian Hymns (1977), as well as a small collection Reformed Praise (2000, revised and enlarged 2004). 2 hymns are included in the 2004 CH, one of which was in its 1st edn. Nos.155, 245.