Introduction

Biography

Rippon at­tend­ed the Bap­tist College in Bris­tol, Eng­land.

In 1775, he be­came pas­tor of the Cart­er’s Lane Bap­tist Church in Lon­don, where he served ov­er six de­cades. He al­so ed­it­ed the Bap­tist An­nu­al Re­gis­ter for 12 years.

In 1787, he pub­lished his fa­mous Se­lect­ion of Hymns from the Best Auth­ors, In­tend­ed to Be an Ap­pen­dix to Dr. Watts’ Psalms and Hymns, which was re­print­ed 27 times, in ov­er 200,000 co­pies. He was con­sid­ered the fore­most au­tho­ri­ty on the hymns of Is­aac Watts.

At age 20, af­ter the death of John Gill, Rip­pon as­sumed Gill’s pas­tor­ate, the Bap­tist meet­ing house in Car­ter Lane, Too­ley Street, a post he held 63 years. The con­gre­ga­tion moved in 1833 to the New Park Street Cha­pel in Lon­don.

Rippon’s church was lat­er pas­tored by Charles Spur­geon be­fore Spur­geon moved to the Me­tro­po­li­tan Tab­er­na­cle at Ele­phant and Cas­tle in South­wark. Rip­pon’s Se­lect­ion was used by the con­gre­gation un­til 1866, when Spur­geon pro­duced an up­date called Our Own Hymn Book, which bor­rowed much from Rip­pon and Watts.

Works

At the time of his death, Rip­pon was work­ing on a book com­me­mo­rat­ing those bur­ied in Lon­don’s Dis­sent­er ce­me­te­ry, Bun­hill Fields, where he him­self was bur­ied.

His oth­er works in­clude:

• Selection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes from the Best Auth­ors, 1791