A good High Priest is come

"A good High Priest is come" is an influential eighteenth-century hymn by the prominent evangelist and hymnwriter John Cennick. Focusing on the theological theme of the priesthood of Christ, the hymn was first published in 1744 in London. It appeared as entry number 121 in Part III of his collection Sacred Hymns for the Use of Religious Societies, structured in nine stanzas of six lines across pages 196 to 198.

The hymn underwent significant editing that helped secure its place in congregational worship. In 1753, the famous revivalist George Whitefield selected stanzas one, four, five, six, and nine for inclusion as number 44 in his widely used Collection of Hymns for Social Worship, an arrangement retained in all subsequent editions.

This specific five-stanza version was republished with minor text changes in John Rippon's highly popular Selection of Hymns in 1787 as entry number 190. Through Rippon's book, this version became the standard text that passed into numerous other denominational collections across both Great Britain and America, though some later hymnals shortened the text even further. The complete, original nine-stanza text was eventually reprinted for historical preservation in the 1867 volume of Lyra Britannica on page 134.