Edward Mote, born in London on January 21, 1797, was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker. During this period, at the age of 16, he was converted after listening to a sermon by the Reverend John Hyatt. He joined the Baptist Church two years later and lived in Southwark, south of the river Thames, and used to make a daily journey to the northern part of London to engage in his business. One day in 1834 as he went to work an idea came into his mind that he should write a hymn on the gracious experience of being a Christian. Walking up Holborn Hill, he formed the words of the refrain, evidently taking them from the last part of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, which describes two men, one who “built his house upon a rock,” and the other, “a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand.” Later the same day Mote completed four stanzas. The following Sunday he was requested by a friend to visit his dying wife. His friend’s custom for evening worship was to read the Bible and sing a hymn, but he could not find his hymnbook. Motes brought out his four stanzas and refrain and offered to sing them instead. They were greatly appreciated, which stimulated him to write two write two more stanzas. He decided to have the hymn printed and sent a copy to the Spiritual Magazine, where it was published. It was taken into hymnbooks in 1836 and 1837. Mote included it with 99 others of his compositions in his Hymns of Praise, a New Selection of Gospel Hymns, 1836, under the title “The Immutable Basis of a Sinner’s Hope.”

Late in life Mote became a Baptist minister. He was appointed to Horsham in Sussex and remained in this pastorate for 21 years until just before his death on November 13, 1874. He was buried in the churchyard. 

The tune, THE SOLID ROCK, was composed in 1863 by William Batchelder Bradbury (1816-1868; see Biographies), and appeared in his Devotional Hymn and Tune Book, 1864. The music consists of two identical halves, and the harmony is almost entirely composed of the three major chords. See SDAH 200, “The Lord Is Coming,” for Melvin West’s (1903-   ; see Biographies) harmonization of this tune.