Philip Doddridge
1702-1751

Born: June 26, 1702, London, England.

Died: October 26, 1751, Lisbon, Portugal. Doddridge had gone to Lisbon to recuperate from exhaustion. He died there of tuberculosis.

Buried: English Protestant Cemetery (attached to the British Factory), Lisbon, Portugal.

Youngest of 20 children, Doddridge attended Kingston Grammar School, at St. Albans, and a nonconformist academy in Kibworth, Leicestershire, England. He went on to become one of the "dissenting" clergy. He was pastor of an independent congregation and tutor of a seminary for dissenting ministers at Northampton from 1739 until his death. His works include:

• The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, 1745
• The Family Expositor, 1739-56
• Hymns Founded on Various Texts in the Holy Scriptures. By the Late Reverend Philip Doddridge, D. D., published posthumously by Job Orton (J. Eddowes and J. Cotton, 1755)
• Scriptural Hymns by the Rev Philip Doddridge, compiled by his great-grandson John Doddridge Humphreys, 1839

Hymns:

• And Will the Judge Descend?
• Awake, My Soul, Stretch Every Nerve
• Blest Jesus While in Mortal Flesh
• Do I Not Love Thee, O My Lord?
• Grace, ’Tis a Charming Sound
• Great God, We Sing Your Mighty Hand
• Hark, the Glad Sound!
• How Gentle God’s Commands
• Jesus, I Love Thy Charming Name
• Let the High Heav’ns Your Songs Invite
• Lord of the Sabbath, Hear Us Pray
• My God, and Is Thy Table Spread
• Not Many Years Their Rounds Shall Roll
• O God of Bethel, by Whose Hand
• O Lord! And Is Thy Table Spread?
• O Ye Immortal Throng
• O Happy Day, That Fixed My Choice
• Sing, Oh Ye Ransomed of the Lord
• Tomorrow, Lord, Is Thine
• Triumphant Zion, Lift Thy Head
• Ye Golden Lamps of Heav’n Farewell
• Ye Servants of the Lord
• Yes, the Redeemer Rose

From The Cyberhymnal

PHILIP DODDRIDGE (1702-1751)

Doddridge, the son of Daniel Doddridge, a London oil merchant, was born on London, on June 26, 1702. He was the youngest of twenty children. All of the children except Philip and a sister died in infancy. He was a sickly child and orphaned at thirteen, when both parents died in the same year. His maternal grandfather, Rev. John Bauman, was a Lutheran minister who fled from Bohemia to England to escape persecution. His paternal grandfather was one of the clergymen ejected in 1662 under the Commonwealth because he refused to comply with the Act of Uniformity.

After attending Kingston Grammar School, the Duchess of Bedford offered to educate him for ministry in the Church of England, but he declined the offer, preferring instead to attend the Nonconformist Academy at Kibworth in 1719. He became an independent minister in 1723. In 1727, he was appointed to Castle Hill meeting in Northampton, where he stayed for 22 years. This parish was made up of poor hardworking people. He opened a school for students preparing for the Nonconformist ministry. Most of the teaching was done by Doddridge. He taught Hebrew, Greek, philosophy, logic, algebra, trigonometry and theology. Students came from all over England, Scotland and the Netherlands to attend the academy.

Doddridge was a friend and admirer of Isaac Watts. He also supported the work of John Wesley and George Whitefield. He wrote over four hundred hymns, all patterned after Watt's style. He usually wrote hymns to be used with his sermons. None of them were published until after his death. Job Orton first published them in 1755, in Hymns, Founded on Various Texts in the Holy Scriptures. This volume arranged the hymns as they related to and expressed Scripture texts from Genesis to Revelation.

He received a D.D. degree from the University of Aberdeen in 1736. After developing tuberculosis, he went to Lisbon to regain his health, but died there on October 26, 1751.

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