On Opening a Place of Worship

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Great God, thy watchful care we bless

Author: Philip Doddridge
Tune: VENITE (Garrett)
Published in 38 hymnals

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Representative Text

1 Great God, thy watchful care we bless,
Which guards our synagogues in peace;
Nor dare tumultuous foes invade,
To fill the worshippers with dread.

2 These walls we to thy honor raise,
Long may they echo to thy praise:
And thou, descending, fill the place
With choicest tokens of thy grace.

3 Here let the great Redeemer reign
With all the graces of his train;
While power divine his word attends,
To conquer foes, and cheer his friends.

4 And in the great decisive day,
Then God the nations shall survey;
May it before the world appear
That crowds were born to glory here.

Source: A Selection of Hymns: from the best authors, intended to be an appendix to Dr. Watt's psalms and hymns. (1st Am. ed.) #CCCXXXIX

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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 >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	Great God, thy watchful care we bless
Title:	On Opening a Place of Worship
Author:	Philip Doddridge
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain