1 With ecstasy of joy
Extol his glorious name,
Who rear'd the spacious earth,
And rais'd our mortal frame.
He built the church,
Who spread the sky:
Shout and exalt
His honours high.
2 See the foundation laid
By pow'r and love divine;
Jesus, his first-born Son,
How bright his glories shine!
Low he descends,
In dust he lies,
That from his tomb
A church might rise.
3 But he for ever lives,
Nor for himself alone;
Each saint new life derives
From him, the living stone.
His influence spreads
Through ev'ry soul,
And in one house
Unites the whole.
4 To him with joy we move;
In him cemented stand;
The living temple grows,
And owns the founder's hand.
That structure, Lord,
Still higher raise,
Louder to sound
Its builder's praise.
Source: Hymns, Selected and Original: for public and private worship (1st ed.) #128
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 >
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