Hymn Writers of the Church

Doddridge, Philip, one of the most distinguished Dissenting ministers of the eighteenth century, was the youngest of twenty children. He was born June 26, 1702. He entered the ministry when only nineteen years old. In 1729 he moved to Northampton, where he became pastor of the Dissenting Church and also, by the urgent advice of Isaac Watts and others, organized and conducted a theological school for young preachers; and as many as a hundred and fifty studied theology with him during the twenty years he was there. His Family Expositor and Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul have been translated into many languages, and are still widely read, while his Sermons attest his vigor and piety as a preacher. He died of consumption at Lisbon, Portugal, October 16, 1751, in the fiftieth year of his age. It was Dr. Doddridge's custom immediately after finishing a sermon, while his mind was yet aglow with the warmth and unction of earnest, prayerful study and the thought and plan of the sermon were fresh in his mind, to write a hymn embodying the doctrinal and devotional sentiment of the discourse, and have it sung immediately after the conclusion of his sermon. This gives to his hymns a doctrinal unity not found in many hymns. Hence his hymns, as a rule, are suitable for one subject, not for any subject or occasion. They are the hymns of a pastor and preacher, written to meet his own needs. Dr. Doddridge's hymns were circulated only in manuscript during his lifetime. It was not until four years after his death that they (three hundred and seventy in all) were collected and published under the title: Hymns Founded on Various Texts in the Holy Scriptures, 1755. A later edition (1766) contained five additional hymns; and in 1839 a great-grandson of Dr. Doddridge published a "new and corrected edition," which contained twenty-two additional hymns. Dr. Julian states in his Dictionary that over one-third of Dr. Doddridge's hymns are in common use at the present time. Twenty-two only are found in this collection: