Rick Lee James explains the history of "Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow," written by 17th-century Anglican priest Thomas Ken. Ken composed it as a three-stanza doxology for students and was briefly imprisoned for his hymn-writing. All three verses will be sung at First Church of the Nazarene's service on August 25.
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Hello, I'm Rick Lee James. I'm the music pastor here at First Church of the Nazarene, and I'm talking to you from our platform today. This coming week, which is the, the 25th of August, I do believe, on Sunday morning, we're gonna be singing a song that is very well known to many of us. It was written by a man named Thomas Ken who lived from 1637 to 1711. This song, of course, is the Doxology. Now it's called the New Doxology because there's some new music that's been put to it, but it's the original lyrics that have been around since the 1600s, actually. He was an Englishman, Thomas Ken, the writer of this song. He was an ordained Anglican priest. He served as a rector for several parishes and was even briefly chaplain chaplain to Princess Mary during his lifetime, and later to the British fleet. He published a whole lot of poems. He published manuals on prayer and was a chaplain at Winchester College. And it was while he was there that he wrote the doxology that we have come to know. And he did it in order to motivate students in their devotional life, which is very interesting to me. He wrote a 3-stanza hymn, one verse to be sung upon waking, one verse to be sung before bed at night, and the third verse was to be sung sung at midnight if one of the boys who he was chaplain to found it difficult to sleep. So this "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow" that we usually sing, which we think is just one verse, actually had 3 verses, which we're gonna be singing them all this week in church. So the writing of a hymn to motivate teens may not seem like a very innovative thing to do, but you have to remember that at this time you weren't allowed to sing hymns in the church. I know that we think that that was something that's always been, but only monks sang hymns in church. And it wasn't until several years later before England would actually officially sanction the use of singing hymns in the Anglican Church. So for this reason, Thomas Ken has been called England's first hymnist, I guess you could call him. Even, you know, because this was so revolutionary and because of his involvement in writing hymns, using them in church, things like that. He was even imprisoned by King James. Yes, that King James, the one that the Bible is named after, who was a pretty rotten dude through and through. But anyway, partially because he was a Protestant, but partially because he did hymns in church, he was put in jail. And upon his release, he quietly retired from the priesthood and he went to live with some friends until his death on March 11th, 1711. He was buried at sunrise and the doxology was sung at his funeral. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I hope you can join us this week at First Church of the Nazarene, 901 East Home Road. Our service starts at 11 o'clock, but we do have Sunday school and small groups at 10 o'clock AM. So come and join us, and we're gonna be singing the new doxology together this week, which is really the old doxology. So I hope you enjoy this hymn story and hope it'll help you to kind of prepare your heart as we come together to worship this Sunday.
