Dictionary of Hymnology

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All hail, Incarnate God

Overview of Elizabeth Scott's eighteenth-century hymn "All hail, Incarnate God," written on the glory and perpetuity of Christ's kingdom.

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"All hail, Incarnate God" is an eighteenth-century hymn by Elizabeth Scott focusing on the increasing glory and perpetuity of Christ's kingdom. Composed in four six-line stanzas, the text was first published under the initial "E." in Caleb Evans and John Ash's Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship (1769, No. 358).

When reprinted in John Rippon's Selection of Hymns in 1787 (No. 430), an explanatory note was attached to the second stanza, which begins with the lines: "To Thee the hoary head / Its silver honors pays." The note recorded that the verse was composed upon witnessing an elderly believer and a young person being received into church communion during the same service.

The text was introduced to congregations in the United States through William Staughton's 1813 American edition of Rippon's selection. In subsequent hymnological collections, its adoption was primarily centered within Baptist and Congregationalist traditions, retaining its original wording in collections such as Psalms and Hymns (1858, No. 199).

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