Congregational Hymn Singing

April 07, 1773 – John Rippon became the fourth pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, following John Gill, and for the next 63 years he labored as a faithful shepherd to his flock. Rippon had been born in Devonshire in 1751, and at the age of 16 he was saved and baptized by his preacher father; and the following year entered Bristol Baptist College. His preaching at the Tabernacle was “lively, affectionate, and impressive,” and it was soon necessary to expand the facility. Dr. Rippon was a great friend to the missions cause both home and foreign. He was also a friend to America during the Revolutionary War, as most Baptist pastors were. Congregational singing had been introduced by Benjamin Keach, one of the first pastors of the Tabernacle right after the conventicle when they could have no singing for fear of the authorities. An innovation had become popular with “precentors” (song leaders) to direct the congregation audibly in hymn singing. Dr. Rippon was an ardent admirer of the hymns of Isaac Watts but he also liked to introduce new ones. One of the great hymns that has continued to resound in Baptist churches to this day was written by Rippon’s “precentor,” Robert Keene, “How Firm a Foundation.” On Christmas Eve of 1898 – on a beautiful tropical night in Havana, Cuba a sentinel from the 49th Iowa began singing: “The Soul that on Jesus hath lean’d for Repose,” Then the 6th Missouri, “I will not, I will not desert to His Foes; then the 4th Virginia, “That Soul, tho’ all Hell Should endeavor to Shake,”, and then the whole American Army Corp – “ I’ll never-no never-no never forsake.”

Condensed by Greg J. Dixon from: This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: pp. 190-92. [C.F: Amos R. Wells, A Treasury of Hymns (Boston: W.A. Wilde Company, 1945). P. 38.]