Praise We To The Father Give

The third verse should read, "Praises to (not for) the Holy Ghost"
He is God and equally worth of worship as the Father and the Son.

James Montgomery is quite correct in what he wrote. The concept of directing worship, thanksgiving, and praise to the Holy Ghost is not found in the Bible, despite what has been made of "singing to the well" in Numbers 21 verse 17.

It is based on the translation of the Hebrew word 'anah' as "to sing," but which has the basic meaning of "to answer" or "to respond," a common enough word in the Hebrew Bible.

I suggest this is the proper lesson of any typical teaching that might be drawn from it.

There are no examples of worship being directed to the Spirit in the New Testament, but, to quote another, that the Holy Spirit is the "source, the power, and inspirer of all true Christian worship" (J N Darby).

Thank you for this response, Tom. I had tried to find the original wording by James Montgomery on the Internet, but unsuccessfully, having had doubts regarding my opening sentence after posting it.

In the various editions of "The Little Flock Hymnbook" his hymn therefore seems to have been "brethrenised" with the intention of bringing it more into line with Scripture, but it is to be wondered whether this would have been acceptable to Mr Montgomery, the original author, as with others whose hymns have had their wording changed.

At least the 1973 edition indicates that his hymn has been "adapted."

According to Dr. Julian’s Hymnology, “Montgomery wrote 400 hymns (including his version of the Psalms) and more than 100 are still in common use. In common with most poets and hymn writers, Montgomery strongly objected to any correction or rearrangement of his compositions. At the same time he did not hesitate to alter, rearrange, and amend the production of others.” But it’s true that many words, lines and stanzas of Montgomery’s hymns were altered, to “align" them with Scripture.

But I agree with Mark, that direct praise, worship or adoration to the Holy Spirit is not found in Scripture; but then, some disagree. Nevertheless, we should agree that the Holy Spirit was sent to testify of the things (and Person) of Christ.

This hymn first appeared in the 'Little Flock' series in Wigram's 'Hymns for the Poor of the Flock' (1838) as #212, retaining Montgomery's original "Glory" as the first word of the first 3 stanzas. However, he changed "to" to "in" in the third verse. Further changes were made in the first "Little Flock" book of 1856, where it was #131, including "Praise" instead of "Glory". These changes were largely retained in 1881, 1894, 1903, 1928, and 1932. It's interesting that Montgomery originally intended it as a children's hymn. The words "children's" being dropped only in 1951 as well as "Trinity" changed to "blessèd God". It is a pity that the quotation marks around "God is love." in the last verse (no doubt a quotation from 1 John 4), have been dropped in the 1978 edition.