Now may the God of peace

Nick Needham’s two-stz hymn, published here for the first time, is built closely around the concluding prayer and doxology in the Letter to the Hebrews (13:20–21). It is thus suitable for the closing of a meeting or service, but not only there; the themes of glory, covenant and resurrection could have placed it in, for example, sections 1b, 2d, or 3e.

The tune LEONI is also doxological by origin and association; see notes on 199 for Thomas Olivers’ part in its discovery and preservation.

b London 1959. Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar Sch; he was converted in 1976, and a year later read Augustine’s Confessions, which proved a life-changing experience. Edinburgh Univ 1978–87 (BD, PhD) including time at New College as student and as a teacher on Zwingli; he became the first Librarian of Edinburgh’s Rutherford House theological research centre. He taught Systematic Theology at the Scottish Baptist Coll in Glasgow for some years before moving back to N London as an Asst Baptist Pastor. From there he returned to Scotland to lecture at the Highland Theological College, Dingwall nr Inverness, and was called to pastor the Inverness Reformed Baptist Ch. He has also taught more briefly in Africa and served as an occasional consultant for Praise! His first two books were on Scottish church history; others include Thomas Erskine of Linlathen (his PhD subject, 1989), The Doctrine of the Holy Scripture in the Free Church Fathers (1990) and books on general church history, Christian experience and prayer. His major 5-volume historical work, 2000 Years of Christ’s Power, was published between 1998 and 2006. The texts in Praise! were written in London from 1995 onwards; 2 of them appear also in the 2004 edn of CH. (An earlier hymn-writing Needham was the 18th-c Baptist minister John N who also adapted the hymns of others, with a brief biography and 14 texts noted in Julian.) Nos.185, 293, 638, 802, 900.