Grace, 'tis a charming sound. P. Doddridge. [Salvation by Grace.] First published in his (posthumous) Hymns, &c, by J. Orton, in 1755, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines, as follows:—
"cclxxxvi. Salvation by Grace. Eph. ii. 5.
1. Grace! 'tis a charming Sound,
Harmonious to my Ear!
Heav'n with the Echo shall resound,
And all the earth shall hear.
2. Grace first contriv'd a Way
To save rebellious Man,
And all the Steps that Grace display,
Which drew the wond'rous Plan.
3. Grace taught my wand'ring Feet
To tread the heav'nly Road,
And new Supplies each Hour I meet,
While pressing on to God.
4. Grace all the Work shall crown
Thro' everlasting Days;
It lays in Heav'n the topmost Stone,
And well deserves the Praise."
This text was repeated in J. D. Humphreys's edition of the Hymns, &c., 1839, with the change in stanza i., line 2, of "my ear," to "mine ear."
In his Psalms & Hymns, 1776, A. M. Toplady gave a cento as No. 134 which was thus composed:—
i. Doddridge, stanza i., with line2, "the ear" for "my ear."
ii. Doddridge, stanza ii.
iii. Toplady:—
" Twas grace that wrote my name
In Thy eternal book;
'Twas grace that gave me to the Lamb,
Who all my sorrows took."
iv. Doddridge, stanza iii., with, in line 1, "forc'd" for “taught."
v. Toplady:—
"Grace taught my soul to pray,
And made my eyes o'erflow.
'Twas grace which kept me to this day,
And will not let me go."
vi. Doddridge, stanza iv.
vii. Toplady:—
"O let Thy grace inspire
My soul with strength divine!
May all my powers to Thee aspire,
And all my days be Thine."
From the original, or from this cento, all modern versions of the hymn are derived, and their construction can be determined by collation with the texts as given above. The use of the hymn in various forms is very extensive in all English-speaking countries. It is sometimes given as "Grace! 'tis a joyful sound," as in Harland's Church Psalter & Hymnal, No. 282. Doddridge's text, slightly altered, is rendered into Latin as “Gratia, quain dulcis vox nostris auribus ilia!" in R. Bingham's Hymnologia Christiana Latina, 1871.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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 Starred Hymns
My FlexScores
My Hymnals
My Purchased Files
