Please do join us for our Advent course - all welcome. Course material for the four Studies can be accessed below.
Click here for the Zoom link.:
The course will be led by Mark Venn. Contact him if you would like help setting up your equipment.
Our Advent course is based on a series put together by John Birch (www.faithandworship.com). He writes:
The author of our hymn was Philip Doddridge, born on 26th June 1702, the last of the twenty children of Daniel and Elizabeth Doddridge. Before Philip could read, his mother introduced him to the Scriptures using the decorated Dutch chimney-tiles in their sitting room. Philip’s mother died when he was eight, and his father died just four years later. It was a Presbyterian minister Samuel Clarke, of St Albans, who eventually took the young boy on, becoming not only his carer but an enormous influence and a lifelong friend.
In 1719, Doddridge entered the Dissenting academy at Knebworth, and in 1729 accepted an invitation to be pastor to an independent congregation at Northampton. He married Mercy Maris in 1730 and they had nine children, of which four survived into adulthood. He also held an academic position in the Northampton Academy and developed friendships with influential thinkers of the day, including famous theologian and hymn writer Isaac Watts.
Doddridge was a prolific writer, with his book ‘The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul’ being translated into seven languages (Charles Spurgeon referred to it as ‘that holy book’). Besides a New Testament commentary and other theological works, he also wrote over 400 hymns, most as summaries of his sermons to help a congregation express their response to the truths they were being taught.