Loud to the Prince of Heaven

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 >

Loud to the Prince of heaven. P. Doddridge. [Christ Triumphant.] First published in J. Orton's edition of Doddridge's (posthumous) Hymns, &c, 1755, No. 41, in 5 stanzas of 8 lines, and headed "The Triumph of Christ in the cause of Truth, Meekness, and Kighteousness." It was also repeated in J. D. Humphreys's edition of the same, 1839, No. 52. In its original form it is found in a few collections, but its most popular form, and that which is in extensive use in Great Britain and America, begins with stanza ii., "Gird on Thy conquering sword."

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)