"Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow"
Words by Thomas Ken
- If you wish to stop the music while you are reading,
click on the square stop button -
PRAISE GOD, FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW
Words by THOMAS KEN, 1674
___________________________________________________
"Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." -- Ephesians 1:3
Before Charles Wesley or Isaac Watts, there was Thomas Ken who has been called “England’s first hymnist.” He was born in 1637 in Little Berkhampstead on the fringes of greater London. When his parents died, he was raised by his half-sister and her husband who enrolled him in Winchester College, a historic boys’ school. Thomas was later ordained to the ministry and returned to Winchester as a chaplain.
To encourage the devotional habits of the boys, Thomas wrote three hymns in 1674. This was revolutionary because English hymns had not yet appeared. Only the Psalms were sung in public worship. Ken suggested the boys use the hymns privately in their rooms.
One hymn was to be sung upon waking, another at bedtime, and a third at midnight if sleep didn’t come. His morning hymn had thirteen stanzas, beginning with:
Awake, my soul, and with the sun thy daily stage of duty run;
Shake off dull sloth and joyful rise, to pay the morning sacrifice.
His evening hymn, equally meaningful, included this verse;
All praise to Thee, my God, this night,
for all the blessings of the light!
Keep me, O keep me, King of kings,
beneath Thine own almighty wings.
All three hymns ended with a common stanza, which has
since become the most widely-sung verse in the world.
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.
In 1680, Thomas was appointed chaplain to England’s King Charles II. It was a thankless job, as Charles kept a variety of mistresses. Once the king asked to lodge a mistress in the chaplain’s residence. Thomas rebuked him, saying, “Not for the king’s Kingdom!” Afterward the king referred to him as “that little man who refused lodging to poor Nellie.”
During the reign of the next king, James II, Thomas, by now a bishop, was sent to the Tower of London for his Protestant convictions. After his release, Thomas retired to the home of a wealthy friend where he died on March 11, 1711. He was buried at sunrise, and the Doxology was sung at his funeral.
_____________________________________
