The first stanza of this hymn, written by Edward Perronet, appeared in the November 1779 issue of the Gospel Magazine. The following April 1780, seven more stanzas were printed with the title “On the Resurrection, the Lord is King.” Of these eight original stanzas SDAH has numbers 1 and 5 as the first two. Rippon (1751-1836; see SDAH 509) revised the whole hymn and published it in his Selection of Hymns, 1787. His last two stanzas are SDAH 3 and 4.

CORONATION, so named because it was found to fit the meter of these words, which emphasize a crowning, was written in 1792 by Oliver Holden and appeared in his The Union Harmony or Universal Collection of Sacred Music, 179. It was composed to celebrate the birth of his daughter, with no particular words in mind. Perronet was the son of a vicar of the Church England and born in the village of Sundridge, near Sevenoaks, Kent, in 1726. He studied to be a Church of England clergyman but was disturbed by the corruption in the church, which he attacked in a poem, “The Miter,” in 1757. He withdrew from the Anglican Church and joined the Wesley brothers, undergoing persecution with them. He is mentioned in Wesley’s journal as being rolled in the mud after preaching in Bolton, Lancashire. Volatile, ebullient, and independent, he dissociated with the Wesleys and joined Lady Huntingdon’s Connexion. Then he left her services and became an independent preacher to a small congregation in Canterbury. He wrote three anonymous publication containing his hymns, published in 1756, 1782, and 1785, respectively. He died in Canterbury on January 2, 1792, and was buried in the cathedral there.

Oliver Holden was born in Shirley, Massachusetts, in September 18, 1765. He moved with his family to Charlestown at the age of 21. He was a carpenter and helped to rebuild the town, which had been destroyed in the War of Independence. He was a self-taught musician, and he conducted a sinning school and edited several collections of sacred songs and hymns. He was a member of State House Representatives for 15 years, and also a prominent Freemason. He died at Charlestown, Massachusetts, on September 4, 1844.

📖 Reference: Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White. Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988.