And will the great Eternal God? P. Doddridge. [Opening of a Place of Worship.] Written for the opening of a new place of worship at Oakham. In the "D. MSS." it is undated. In 1755 it was included by J. Orton in his edition of Doddridge's Hymns, &c, No. 49, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines, and repeated in J. D. Humphreys's edition of the same, 1839. In 1826 it was embodied in an altered form in the American Prayer Book Collection as, "And wilt Thou, O Eternal God." This arrangement, in common with the original, is in extensive use in America. A cento from the original is also given in the Wesleyan Hymn Book, 1875, No. 994, as “Great God, Thy watchful care we bless." It is composed of stanzas iii., iv., and vi., slightly altered.
-- 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 >
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