The Treasure in Earthen Vessels

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How rich thy bounty, King of kings

Author: Philip Doddridge (1736)
Tune: ST. GABRIEL (Greatorex)
Published in 38 hymnals

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Representative Text

1. How rich Thy bounty, King of kings!
Thy favors, how divine!
The blessings which Thy Gospel brings,
How splendidly they shine!

2. Gold is but dross, and gems but toys,
Should gold and gems compare;
How mean, when sent against those joys
Thy poorest servants share!

3. Yet all these treasures of Thy grace
Are lodged in urns of clay;
And the weak sons of mortal race
The immortal gifts convey.

4. Feebly they lisp Thy glories forth,
Yet grace the victory gives;
Quickly they molder back to earth,
Yet still Thy Gospel lives.

5. Such wonders power divine effects;
Such trophies God can raise;
His hand, from crumbling dust, erects
His monuments of praise.

Source: The Cyber Hymnal #2603

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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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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	How rich thy bounty, King of kings
Title:	The Treasure in Earthen Vessels
Author:	Philip Doddridge (1736)
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

How rich Thy bounty, King of kings. P. Doddridge. [Divine Treasure in Earthen Vessels.] Written Sept. 23, 1739 (D.MSS.), and published in his (posthumous) Hymns, &c, 1755, No. 175, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and based upon 2 Cor. iv. 7. In 1839 it was repeated in J. D. Humphreys's edition of the same, No. 300.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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