O Word Incarnate, full of grace

O Word Incarnate, full of grace.  Thomas Rawson Birks* (1810-1883). This hymn originally began ‘O covenant Angel, full of grace’. It was published in the revised edition (1841) of Edward Bickersteth*’s Christian Psalmody (1833), headed ‘For the circumcising, &c. Luke ii. 21’. It is less concerned with the circumcision of Christ than with his being given a name. In the edition produced by Bickersteth’s son entitled Psalms and Hymns. Based on the Christian Psalmody of the late Rev. Edw. Henry Bickersteth, rector of Watton, Herts. Compiled anew by his son, the Rev. Edw. Henry Bickersteth, M.A., Incumbent of Christ Church, Hampstead (n.d., ca. 1858) it had four stanzas only, prefaced by...