O Thou, before Whose gracious throne. [During the dangerous illness of a Minister.] The earliest date to which we have traced this hymn is the 4th edition of the Bristol Baptist Collection of Ash & Evans, 1781, where it is given in 9 stanzas of 4 lines, and is unsigned. In the 8th edition, 1801, it is signed "J— K— .” It was included in full in Rippon's Baptist Selection 1787, No. 413, but without signature. In Dobell's Selection, 1806, No. 592, it is signed "K. —Evans’s Collection" In later editions it is "K." only. This uncertainty of authorship was increased by D. Sedgwick's guesses at the meaning of “K." In one of his books annotated in manuscript we find him giving it to "John Kentish," in another to "George Keith" and so on, but in each case confessing that it was a guess only. In the Primitive Methodist Hymnal 1887, it is given to "F. Kirkham," a signature which is evidently wrong. We must subscribe it "J. K. in Ash & Evans, 1781." In modern collections the text is usually in an abbreviated form.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)