Living to Serve the Cause of Christ

Representative Text

1 My gracious Lord, I own Thy right
To every service I can pay,
And call it my supreme delight
To hear Thy dictates, and obey.

2 What is my being but for Thee,
Its sure support, its noblest end?
Thy ever smiling ace to see,
And serve the cause of such a Friend.

3 I would not breathe for worldly joy,
Or to increase my worldly good;
Nor future days nor powers employ
To spread a sounding name abroad.

4 ’Tis to my Saviour I would live,
To Him who for my ransom died;
Nor could untainted Eden give
Such bliss as blossoms at His side.

5 His work my hoary age shall bless,
When youthful vigour is no more;
And my last hour of life confess
His love hath animating power.

Amen.


Source: Worship and Service Hymnal: For Church, School, and Home #313

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 >

Notes

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)

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Church Hymnal, Mennonite #429

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Complete Anglican Hymns Old and New #459

Hymns and Psalms #741

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The A.M.E. Zion Hymnal #489

The Baptist Hymnal #439

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The Cyber Hymnal #4228

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Worship and Service Hymnal #313

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