Jesus, exalted far on high

Author: Thomas Cotterill

Thomas Cotterill (b. Cannock, Staffordshire, England, 1779; d. Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1823) studied at St. John's College, Cambridge, England, and became an Anglican clergyman. A central figure in the dispute about the propriety of singing hymns, Cotterill published a popular collection of hymns (including many of his own as well as alterations of other hymns), Selection of Psalms and Hymns in 1810. But when he tried to introduce a later edition of this book in Sheffield in 1819, his congregation protested. Many believed strongly that the Church of England should maintain its tradition of exclusive psalm singing. In a church court the Archbishop of York and Cotterill reached a compromise: the later edition of Selection was withdrawn… Go to person page >

Jesus, exalted far on high. T. Cotterill. [Circumcision. The Holy Name, Jesus.] Published in the Uttoxeter Selection, 1805, and again in Cotterill's Selection of Psalms & Hymns, 1st edition, 1810, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines. It has attained to extensive use, and is usually given in an unaltered form, as in the Oxford edition of Mercer's Church Psalter & Hymn Book. In Kennedy, 1863, No. 605, “O Thou Who in the form of God," is an altered form of a part of this hymn, and begins with stanza iii.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)