Psalm 100
Words by Thomas Ken, 1637-1711
Music by Louis Bourgeois, c. 1510-c. 1561
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I will praise Thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: And
I will glorify Thy name forevermore. Psalm 86:12
The four lines of the Doxology have been the most
frequently sung words of any known song for more than
three hundred years. Even today nearly every
English-speaking Protestant congregation still unites at
least once each Sunday in this noble ascription of praise.
It has been said that the doxology has done more to teach
the doctrine of the Trinity than all the theological books
ever written. It has often been called "the Protestant Te
Deum Laudamus."
The author of this text was a bold, outspoken seventeenth
century Anglican Bishop named Thomas Ken. He was born at
Little Berkhampstead, England, in 1637. Left an orphan in
early childhood, Ken was educated at Winchester School
where he was raised under the care of his older sister and
her famous husband, Izaak Walton, distinguished in history
as the most eminent angler of his time. Later Ken attended
Oxford University and was ordained in 1662 to the ministry
of the Church of England. His illustrious career in the
ministry was stormy and colorful. Following ordination, he
served as chaplain to the Bishop of Winchester. In 1679 he
was sent to Holland, where he was the English chaplain at
the royal court at the Hague. Ken, however, was so
outspoken in denouncing the corrupt lives of those in
authority in the Dutch capital that he was compelled to
leave the following year. Upon his return to England
Charles II appointed Ken as one of his own chaplains. Ken
continued to reveal the same spirit of boldness in
rebuking the moral sins of his dissolute English monarch.
Despite these rebukes Charles always admired the
courageous chaplain. He referred to him as "the good
little man" and, when it was chapel time, he would usually
say, "I must go in and hear Ken tell me my faults."
Eventually, the King rewarded Thomas Ken by appointing him
to the Bishopric of the Bath and Wells area.
Just twelve days after Ken was consecrated as a Bishop,
his friend Charles II died. Soon Ken incurred the wrath of
the new monarch, papist James II, by refusing to read the
Royal Declaration of Indulgence, and with six other
Anglican Church leaders he was imprisoned in the Tower of
London. Although Ken was eventually acquitted, he was
later removed from his bishopric in 1691 by the next
ruler, William III. The remaining years of Ken's life were
spent in quiet obscurity with a devoted friend, Lord
Weymouth, at his home in Longleat, Wiltshire, where Ken
died in 1711 at the age of seventy-four. The historian
Macaulay gave a tribute to Bishop Ken when he stated that
he came as near to the ideal of Christian perfection "as
human weakness permits."
Bishop Ken wrote a number of hymns, and it was always his
desire that Christians be allowed to express their praise
to God without being limited only to Psalmody and the
Bible canticles. He was one of the first English writers
to produce hymns that were not merely versifications of
the Psalms.
In 1673 Thomas Ken wrote a book entitled A Manual of
Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College.
In one of the editions of this manual, Ken included three
of his hymns that he wanted the students to sing each day
as part of their devotions. These hymns were called
"Morning Hymn," "Evening Hymn," and "Midnight Hymn." Each
of these hymns closed with the familiar four lines we now
know as the Doxology. The text of his "Morning Hymn"
became especially popular. Two of the verses from this
hymn are as follows:
Awake, my soul, and with the sun Thy daily course of duty
run, Shake off dull sloth, and early rise, To pay thy
morning sacrifice.
Direct, control, suggest, this day, All I design, or do,
or say; That all my powers, with all their might, In Thy
sole glory may unite. It is said that after Bishop Ken had
written this hymn, he sang it to his own accompaniment on
the lute every morning as part of his private devotions.
The tune for Bishop Ken's text, "Old Hundredth," is said
to be the most famous of all Christian hymn tunes. It was
composed or adapted by Louis Bourgeois, born in Paris,
France, c. 1510. In 1541 Bourgeois moved to Geneva,
Switzerland, where he became an ardent follower of John
Calvin and the Reformed Reformation Movement. Here he was
given the responsibility to provide the tunes for the new
metrical psalms which were being prepared at that time.
Bourgeois was largely responsible for the Genevan Psalter,
a monumental musical publication, completed and published
in 1562. The tune was prepared originally for the French
version of Psalm 134 and was included in the Anglo-Genevan
Psalter of 1551. The first English words to which it was
wedded were William Kethe's version of Psalm 100, "All
People That on Earth Do Dwell;" accordingly, the tune
became known as "The Hundredth." In 1696, when Tate and
Brady published their New Version, the word "Old" was used
to show that the tune was the one in use in the previous
Psalter, edited by Sternhold and Hopkins.
Quoted from "101 Hymn Stories" by Kenneth Osbeck. Kregel Publishers, P.O. Box 2607, Grand Rapids, MI 49501, 1982.
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