Bishop Ken’s Doxology
A sermon of the late Rev. Dr. T. De Witt Talmage has this glowing passage:
“When Cromwell’s army went into battle, he stood at the head of them one day, and gave out the long-metre Doxology to the tune of the “Old Hundred,” and that great host, company by company, regiment by regiment, battalion by battalion, joined in the Doxology:
“‘Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.’
“And while they sang they marched, and while they marched they fought, and while they fought they got the victory.”
It seems a pity to destroy a good story, but chronology is very despotic. Oliver Cromwell died in 1658. Bishop Ken, who has always been credited with this grand doxology, was born in 1637, and was then, therefore, only about twenty-one years old. Hymnologists give 1697 as the year in which Bishop Ken wrote the Doxology as the last verse of his morning and evening hymns. This would place the composition about half a century after Cromwell’s last battle in the civil war, and some forty years after his death.