16/11/2024
WHY CHRIST WAS BORN - DODDRIDGE'S HYMN ON JOHN 3:16
Dear friends,
You will doubtless recall Dr Philip Doddridge's hymn 'Hark, the glad sound, the Saviour comes'. Those familiar with the church calendar know it as an Advent hymn. However, he actually wrote it to be sung after a sermon on Luke 4:18-19.
Following a summary of his sermon on John 3:16, here is his grand-scale hymn on the text, set to the glorious Welsh tune Bro Aber. The words of the Welsh hymn in the video are different. Yet reference is made to the Salvation we have in Christ.
Gospel greetings to one and all,
Dr Alan C. Clifford
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bro+aber+hymn&sca_esv=27dc6454a5630b7b&sxsrf=ADLYWIInjFLoKJSU2tG5aHhEVfmpD0HvwQ%3A1731519843299&source=hp&ei=Y-U0Z636D5_ZhbIPosuP4Ac&iflsig=AL9hbdgAAAAAZzTzczef9zVdwrN-KsFs_n0_PJNTVedh&oq=&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6GgIYASIAKgIIATINECMYJxj4BRjqAhiLAzIKECMYJxjqAhiLAzIHECMYJxjqAjIHECMYJxjqAjIHECMYJxjqAjIHECMYJxjqAjIHECMYJxjqAjIKECMYJxjqAhiLAzIKECMYJxjqAhiLAzIKECMYJxjqAhiLA0i-D1AAWABwAXgAkAEAmAEAoAEAqgEAuAEByAEAmAIBoAIHqAIKmAMHkgcBMaAHAA&sclient=gws-wiz =ive&vld=cid:d7c62751,vid:M_lVsgPOguY,st:0
DR DODDRIDGE'S SERMON SUMMARY ON JOHN 3:16
“It presents to our view Christ, and him crucified. It opens the treasures of Divine beneficence and compassion, and shows us the Father of mercies so loving a world, which he might justly have abhorred and destroyed, as to give his only-begotten Son to be a ransom for it. Let us behold him lifted up on the cross as the great attractive to whom all were to be drawn! In him we shall find the Divine cure for our souls, infected as they are with the poison of sin, if we behold him not merely with a curious but a believing eye. Whatever our wounds be, if in the exercise of faith we look to him, we shall not die of them; but it is owing to our own obstinacy and impenitence if we yet perish.”
PHILIP DODDRIDGE’S GOSPEL
(John 3:16)
SING to the Lord a new melodious song:
Assist the choir, ye tribes of every tongue:
Wide as the world his sovereign mercy reigns;
Wide as the world resound the rapturous strain.
Ye angels, join the joyful hymn of praise,
And sing the love that brings to us such grace.
2. His gracious eye beheld in full survey
Where Adam’s race in mingled ruin lay:
No human aid the danger could avert:
No angel’s hand could soothe the raging smart:
In his own breast divine compassion springs,
For this grand scheme the court of heaven sings.
3. God’s only Son with peerless glories bright,
His Father’s fairest image and delight,
Justice and grace the victim have decreed,
To wear our flesh, and in that flesh to bleed.
Prostrate in dust, ye sinners praise his name,
And tremble, while your hearts rejoice in him.
4. The wondrous work is done; the covenant stood,
And Jesus expiates human guilt with blood;
Nail’d to the tree he bows his sacred head;
A mangled co**se he sojourns with the dead;
Rising, the gospel cries to all our race;
Sinners believe, rejoicing in God’s grace.
5. Father of Grace, accept our humble praise;
O let it run through everlasting days!
And thou, blest Saviour, spotless Lamb of God,
Accept the souls dear-ransom’d with thy blood;
With joyful songs our voices join to sing;
In which the choir adores our gracious King!
Philip Doddridge (1702-51); alt. Alan C. Clifford (1941- )
Tune: Bro Aber, John Haydn Phillips (1917-85)
