And will the majesty of heaven

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 >

And will the majesty of heaven? P. Doddridge. [Condescension.] This hymn on Ezek. xxxiv. 31, is in the "D. MSS." but undated. It was published by J. Orton in his edition of Doddridge's Hymns, &c, 1755, No. 144, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, with slight differences from the manuscript and with the manuscript title of “God, the Shepherd of Men," expanded to "God's Condescension in becoming the Shepherd of Men." It was also republished in J. D. Humphreys's edition of Doddridge, 1839.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)