Peter's Admonition to Simon Magus, Turned into Prayer

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Searcher of hearts, before thy face

Author: Philip Doddridge
Tune: ST. ETHELDREDA
Published in 38 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Searcher of hearts, before Thy face
I all my soul display,
And, conscious of its innate arts,
Entreat Thy strict survey.

2 If, lurking in its inmost folds,
I any sin conceal,
O let a ray of light divine
The secret guile reveal!

3 If in these fatal fetters bound
A wretched slave I lie:
Smite off my chains, and wake my soul
To light and liberty!

4 To humble penitence and prayer
Be gentle pity given;
Speak ample pardon to my heart,
And seal its claim to heaven.

Source: Church Book: for the use of Evangelical Lutheran congregations #470

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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:	Searcher of hearts, before thy face
Title:	Peter's Admonition to Simon Magus, Turned into Prayer
Author:	Philip Doddridge
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

Acts 8:21-24
(hymns)

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Notes

Searcher of hearts, before Thy face. P. Doddridge. [Lent]. Published by Job Orton, in his posthumous edition of Doddridge’s Hymns, &c., 1755, No. 250, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed, “Peter’s Admonition to Simon Magus, Acts viii. 21-24.” It was repeated in J. D. Humphrey’s edition of the same, 1839.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Tune

ST. ETHELDREDA

Thomas Turton (b. Hatfield, Yorkshire, England, 1780; d. Westminster, Middlesex, England, 1864) composed ST. ETHELDREDA in 1860; it was published in James Turle's Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship (1863). Educated at Catharine Hall, Cambridge, England, Turton became a professor of mathematics at C…

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