The Struggle Between Faith and Unbelief

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Jesus, our souls' delightful choice

Author: Philip Doddridge
Published in 39 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Jesus, our soul's delightful choice,
In thee believing we rejoice;
Yet still our joy is mix'd with grief,
While faith contends with unbelief.

2 Thy promises our hearts revive,
And keep our fainting hopes alive;
But guilt, and fears, and sorrows rise,
And hide the promise from our eyes.

3 O let not sin and satan boast,
While saints lie mourning in the dust;
Nor see that faith to ruin brought,
Which thy own gracious hand hath wrought.

4 Do thou the dying spark inflame;
Reveal the glories of thy name;
And put all anxious doubts to flight,
As shades dispers'd by opening light.

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

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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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First Line:	Jesus, our souls' delightful choice
Title:	The Struggle Between Faith and Unbelief
Author:	Philip Doddridge
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

Mark 9:24
(hymns)

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Notes

Jesus, our souls' delightful choice. P. Doddridge. [Spiritual Conflict.] This hymn is No. 1 of the D. MSS., is in 4 stanzas of 4 lines, is headed "On the Struggle between Faith and Unbelief," and is dated "Sep. 7, 1735." J. Orton included it in his edition of Doddridge's (posthumous) Hymns, &c, 1755, No. 197; and J. D. Humphreys in his edition of the same, 1839, No. 220. It is in a few modern collections, including Spurgeon's 0ur Own Hymn Book, 1866.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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