Hymn #318: Almighty God, Your Word Is Cast | First Congregational Church

John Cawood (1775-1852) wrote this text in 1815 in the second year of his ministry as perpetual curate at St. Ann’s Chapel of Ease, Bewdley, in Worcestershire, England. He remained at this post until his death on November 7, 1852, at age seventy-seven.

John Cawood was the son of poor farmers and received limited education as a child. However, he was hired by a Nottinghamshire, England, clergyman and was tutored by the Reverend Edward Spencer before attending St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University. He was ordained to the Anglican ministry in 1801.

This tune from John Day’s The Whole Booke of Psalms is called ST. FLAVIAN. In that tunebook, it was part of a longer melody set to Psalm 132. Revised by Richard Redhead in Church Hymn Tunes (1853), it was given the name ST. FLAVIAN in the 1875 revised edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern.

John Day (1522-1584) published The Whole Booke of Psalms (or English Psalter) in 1562. He was responsible for the first church-music book in English, Certain Notes Set Forth in Four and Three Parts to Be Sung, printed in 1560. Day’s printed works were often illustrated with woodcuts.