Living to Serve the Cause of Christ

Author: Philip Doddridge

Philip Doddridge (b. London, England, 1702; d. Lisbon, Portugal, 1751) belonged to the Non-conformist Church (not associated with the Church of England). Its members were frequently the focus of discrimination. Offered an education by a rich patron to prepare him for ordination in the Church of England, Doddridge chose instead to remain in the Non-conformist Church. For twenty years he pastored a poor parish in Northampton, where he opened an academy for training Non-conformist ministers and taught most of the subjects himself. Doddridge suffered from tuberculosis, and when Lady Huntington, one of his patrons, offered to finance a trip to Lisbon for his health, he is reputed to have said, "I can as well go to heaven from Lisbon as from Nort… Go to person page >

My gracious Lord, I own Thy right. P. Doddridge. [The Service of Christ a delight.] Published by Job Orton in his posthumous edition of Doddridge's Hymns, 1755, No. 294, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed "Christ's Service the fruit of our Labours on earth:" also given in J. D. Humphreys’s edition of the same, 1839, No. 320. Its use, especially in America, is extensive. Sometimes it is given as “All-gracious Lord, I own Thy right," as in the Unitarian Hymns of The Spirit, Boston, U.S.A., 1864.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)