Ye servants of the Lord

Ye servants of the Lord. Philip Doddridge* (1702-1751). First published as no. 210 in Hymns founded on Various Texts in the Holy Scriptures (Salop, 1755), edited by Doddridge’s friend Job Orton, where it was entitled ‘The active Christian, Luke xii. 35-38’. It is a crisp and economical hymn on the story of the servants who are watching for their Lord’s return, ‘that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately’. The spreading of the banquet is a reference to verse 37, which describes the master rewarding his servants: ‘he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.’ In the original text, the final stanza makes this even...