Philip Doddridge, an English Independent minister who wrote several hundred hymns to close his own sermons, wrote this text for a sermon on December 28, 1735, preached on Luke 4:18–19, where Jesus stands in the Nazareth synagogue and declares Himself sent “to proclaim liberty to the captives.” Doddridge’s manuscripts survive in his own hand, one dated to that December Sunday and another once owned by Lady Frances Gardiner, wife of the Scottish colonel James Gardiner. Though written for the Sunday after Christmas, the hymn found a lasting home in Advent instead, since its picture of a herald’s voice announcing the coming Savior suits John the Baptist’s preaching as readily as Christ’s own. It first reached print in 1745 in Scotland, in a collection assembled by a committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; of Doddridge’s original seven stanzas, Lutheran Service Book keeps four, unaltered from his own hand. Its tune, Chesterfield, was composed around 1791 by Thomas Haweis and named for Lord Chesterfield, a visitor to the household Haweis served as chaplain. As the Opening hymn on Rorate Coeli, it sends the whole congregation forth to listen for the very voice the day’s readings announce.
Sung at Our Saviour
2025