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How Gentle God's Commands

Representative Text

1 How gentle God’s commands!
How kind His precepts are!
Come, cast your burdens on the Lord,
And trust His constant care.

2 While Providence supports,
Let saints securely dwell;
That hand which bears all nature up
Shall guard His children well.

3 Why should this anxious load
Press down your weary mind?
Haste to your heavenly Father’s throne,
And sweet refreshment find.

4 His goodness stands approved,
Down to the present day:
I’ll drop my burden at His feet,
And bear a song away.

Source: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal #81

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 >

Text Information

First Line: How gentle God's commands!
Title: How Gentle God's Commands
Author: Philip Doddridge (1755)
Meter: 6.6.8.6
Language: English
Notes: Spanish translation: See "Qué tierno padre de Dios" by Vernon L. Peterson
Copyright: Public Domain

Tune

DENNIS (Nägeli)

Lowell Mason (PHH 96) arranged DENNIS and first published it in The Psaltery (1845), a hymnal he compiled with George. Webb (PHH 559). Mason attributed the tune to Johann G. Nageli (b. Wetzikon, near Zurich, Switzerland, 1773; d. Wetzikon, 1836) but included no source reference. Nageli presumably pu…

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Timeline

Media

The Cyber Hymnal #2368
  • Adobe Acrobat image (PDF)
  • Noteworthy Composer score (NWC)
  • XML score (XML)

Instances

Instances (1 - 11 of 11)
TextPage Scan

African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal #81

Church Hymnal, Mennonite #391

Text

Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints #125

Page Scan

Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints #314

Hymns of the Saints #130

Text

Rejoice in the Lord #66

TextPage Scan

The A.M.E. Zion Hymnal #71

The Baptist Hymnal #494

TextScoreAudio

The Cyber Hymnal #2368

Text

Trinity Hymnal (Rev. ed.) #681

TextPage Scan

Worship and Service Hymnal #17

Include 650 pre-1979 instances
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