Robert,
A Collection of Sacred Ballads was compiled by Richard and Andrew Broaddus (not Fuller). When working on the attributions for the 2025 ed., Robert Kelley was able to obtain a scan of this collection and uploaded it to
archive.org. The text in question is Song III on pp. 4-5:
https://archive.org/details/broaddus-sacred-ballads/page/n1/mode/2upAs mentioned in
The Makers, you can see that verses 1 & 2 of #235 in the 1991 edition match verses 1 & 2 in
A Collection of Sacred Ballads and verse 3 of #235 in the 1991 ed. matches verse 7 in that collection. The chorus is not found in the Broaddus and Broaddus collection; as stated in
The Makers, it first appeared in 1847 ed. of
Southern Harmony. The same is true of 235 in the 2025 edition and 343 in the 2012 Cooper book. According to
The Makers and the 2025 ed., only verses 1 & 2 appear in the early manuscript with the initials "F.B.P."
The Makers gives a date for this manuscript of "ca. 1600" while Robert Kelley has refined that to "ca. 1593" in the attributions for the 2025 ed. We're talking about nearly 200 years between the earliest known appearance of verse 1 and 2 of this text and their appearance in
A Collection of Sacred Ballads. One would need to contact Robert Kelley to learn his evidence for the "ca. 1593" date. I don't know if Robert Kelley still monitors the Fasola discussions list, so if you or David want to contact him about this, here is his webpage at Lander University which includes his email address:
https://www.lander.edu/directory/profiles/robert-kelley.htmlRobert mentioned this text in the presentation he made at the symposium in Atlanta in conjunction with the release of the 2025 edition, but I can't remember if he mentioned any details about the ca. 1592 manuscript.
Wade