Come, Let Us Join Our Cheerful Songs

Representative Text

1 Come, let us join our cheerful songs
with angels round the throne;
ten thousand thousand are their tongues,
but all their joys are one.

2 'Worthy the Lamb that died,' they cry,
'to be exalted thus';
'Worthy the Lamb,' our lips reply,
'for he was slain for us.'

3 Jesus is worthy to receive
honour and power divine;
and blessings, more than we can give,
be, Lord, for ever thine.

4 Let all that dwell above the sky,
and air, and earth, and seas,
conspire to lift thy glories high,
and speak thine endless praise.

5 The whole creation joins in one
to bless the sacred name
of him that sits upon the throne,
and to adore the Lamb.

Source: Ancient and Modern: hymns and songs for refreshing worship #362

Author: Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts was the son of a schoolmaster, and was born in Southampton, July 17, 1674. He is said to have shown remarkable precocity in childhood, beginning the study of Latin, in his fourth year, and writing respectable verses at the age of seven. At the age of sixteen, he went to London to study in the Academy of the Rev. Thomas Rowe, an Independent minister. In 1698, he became assistant minister of the Independent Church, Berry St., London. In 1702, he became pastor. In 1712, he accepted an invitation to visit Sir Thomas Abney, at his residence of Abney Park, and at Sir Thomas' pressing request, made it his home for the remainder of his life. It was a residence most favourable for his health, and for the prosecution of his literary… Go to person page >

Notes

Come, let us join our cheerful songs. I. Watts. [Praise.] This is one of the most widely known and highly esteemed of Watts's compositions. It has no special history beyond the fact that it appeared in his Hymns & Sacred Songs, 1707, and the enlarged edition, 1709, Bk. i., No. 62, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and was headed “Christ Jesus the Lamb of God, worshipped by all the Creation, Rev. v. 11-13." The most popular form of the hymn is in 4 stanzas, the stanza "Let all that dwell above the sky (iv.) being omitted. This text was adopted by Whitefield, 1753: Madan, 1760; De Courcy, 1775; Toplady, 1776, and many others amongst the older compilers, and is retained by far the greater number of modern editors, both in Great Britain and America. The hymn, in whole, or in part, has been rendered into many languages, including one in Latin, "Venite, Sancti, nostra laeta carmina," in Bingham's Hymnologia Christiana Latina, 1871.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Tune

AZMON

Lowell Mason (PHH 96) adapted AZMON from a melody composed by Carl G. Gläser in 1828. Mason published a duple-meter version in his Modern Psalmist (1839) but changed it to triple meter in his later publications. Mason used (often obscure) biblical names for his tune titles; Azmon, a city south of C…

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NATIVITY (Lahee)

Henry Lahee (b. Chelsea, London, England, 1826; d. Croydon, London, 1912) composed NATIVITY, which was first published in 1855 and set to a nativity hymn (thus the tune's title), "High let us swell our tuneful notes," by Philip Doddridge (PsH 335). Because NATIVITY was published with Isaac Watts' (P…

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Timeline

Media

The Cyber Hymnal #999
  • Adobe Acrobat image (PDF)
  • Noteworthy Composer score (NWC)
  • XML score (XML)
Harmonia Americana: containing a concise introduction to the grounds of music; with a variety of airs, suitable fore divine worship and the use of musical societies; consisting of three and four parts #102b
  • PDF (PDF)
  • MusicXML (made by MuseScore) (XML)

Instances

Instances (1 - 45 of 45)

A Selection of Plain Tunes, Set Pieces, and Anthems from Indian Melodies #21

Church Family Worship #555

Church Hymnal, Fifth Edition #332

Hymns Ancient and Modern, New Standard Edition #144

Hymns Old and New #94

Living Hymns #80

Praises We Sing (2nd ed.) #10

Sing Glory #33

The Book of Hymns (A fresh anthology of favourite hymns) #35

The Sacred Harp #30t

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Worship Together #45

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Hymns for Today's Church (2nd ed.) #206

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Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #66

Anglican Hymns Old and New (Rev. and Enl.) #127

Church Hymnal, Mennonite #62

Great Songs of the Church (Revised) #5

Hymns and Psalms #810

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Moravian Book of Worship #477

Praise for the Lord (Expanded Edition) #105

TextPage Scan

Rejoice in the Lord #571

Songs of Fellowship #70

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The A.M.E. Zion Hymnal #18

The Baptist Hymnal #166

TextScoreAudio

The Cyber Hymnal #999

Text

The Hymnal 1982 #374

Text

Ancient and Modern #362

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Common Praise (1998) #319

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The Song Book of the Salvation Army #57

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African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal #14

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Christian Worship (1993) #227

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Common Praise #401

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Complete Anglican Hymns Old and New #120

Complete Mission Praise #93

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CPWI Hymnal #382

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Evangelical Lutheran Worship #847

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Lutheran Service Book #812

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Lutheran Worship #204

Praise y Adoración #129a

Singing the Faith #743

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The A.M.E. Zion Hymnal #19

Text

The Book of Praise #413

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The Irish Presbyterian Hymbook #665

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The New English Hymnal #349

Text

Together in Song #204

The Greenwood Harmony (2nd ed.) #16

Include 944 pre-1979 instances
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