The Excellency of Public Worship

Author: Daniel Turner

Turner, Daniel, M.A., was born at Blackwater Park, near St. Albans, March 1, 1710. Having received a good classical education, he for some years kept a boarding-school at Hemel Hempstead, but in 1741 he became pastor of the Baptist church, Reading. Thence he removed, in 1748, to Abingdon, and continued pastor of the Baptist church there until his death on Sept. 5, 1798. He was much respected throughout his denomination, and was the friend and correspondent of Robert Robinson, Dr. Rippon, and other eminent men of that day. He probably received the honorary degree of M.A. from the Baptist College, Providence, Rhode Island. Turner was the author of works on Open Communion and Social Religion; also of Short Meditations on Select Portions of Scr… Go to person page >

Lord of hosts, how lovely fair [how bright, how fair] . D. Turner. [Public Worship.] First published in Rippon's Baptist Selection, 1st ed., 1787, No. 342, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines and entitled, "The Excellency of Public Worship." From Rippon's Selection it has passed into several Non¬conformist collections, sometimes in its original form, and also as, "Lord of hosts, how bright, how fair,” as in the Baptist Psalms & Hymns, 1858 and 1880.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)