FESTIVAL HYMNS.

I will sing with the Spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.

HYMNS

CELEBRATING THE MYSTERIES AND CHIEF FESTIVALS OF

THE YEAR, ACCORDING TO THE MANNER OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH; FITTED TO THE FANCY AND DEVOTION OF THE YOUNGER AND PIOUS PERSONS : APT FOR MEMORY, AND TO BE JOINED TO THEIR OTHER PRAYERS.

Hymns for Advent, or the Weeks immediately before the Birth

of our Blessed Saviour.

I.

WHEN, Lord, O when, shall we
Our dear salvation see?

Arise, arise;

Our fainting eyes
Have long'd all night: and 'twas a long one too.
Man never yet

could

say
He saw more than one day,

One day of Eden's seven:
The guilty hours, there blasted with the breath

Of sin and death,
Have, ever since, worn a nocturnal hue.
But thou hast given us hopes, that we,
At length, another day shall see,

Wherein each vile neglected place,

Gilt with the aspect of thy face,
Shall be, like that, the porch and gate of heaven.

How long, dear God, how long !
See how the nations throng:
All human kind,

Knit and combin'd
Into one body, look for thee their head.

Pity our multitude ;

Lord, we are vile and rude,
Headless, and senseless, without thee,
Of all things but the want of thy blest face :

O haste apace,

And thy bright self to this our body wed;
That, through the influx of thy power,
Each part, that erst confusion wore,
May put on order,-and appear

Spruce, as the childhood of the year,
When thou to it shall so united be. Amen.

The second Hymn for Advent ; or, Christ's coming to

Jerusalem in triumph.

LORD, come away ;

Why dost thou stay?
Thy road is ready; and thy paths, made straight,

With longing expectation wait
The consecration of thy beauteous feet.
Ride on triumphantly: behold, we lay
Our lusts and proud wills in thy way.
Hosannah! welcome to our hearts : Lord, here
Thou hast a temple, too, and full as dear
As that of Sion; and as full of sin ;-
Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein.
Enter, and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor;
Crucify them, that they may never more

Profane that holy place,

Where thou hast chose to set thy face.
And then if our stiff tongues shall be
Mute in the praises of thy deity,

The stones out of the temple-wall

Shall cry aloud and call Hosannah! and thy glorious footsteps greet.-Amen. Hymns for Christmas Day.

I.
MYSTERIOUS truth! that the self-same should be
A Lamb, a Shepherd, and a Lion too!

Yet such was he
Whom first the shepherds knew,
When they themselves became

Sheep to the Shepherd-Lamb.
Shepherd of men and angels,-Lamb of God -
Lion of Judah,—by these titles keep
The wolf from thy endangered sheep.

Bring all the world into thy fold;

Let Jews and Gentiles hither come
In numbers great, that can't be told;

And call thy lambs, that wander, home.

Glory be to God on high ;
All glories be to the glorious Deity.

The second Hymn ; being a Dialogue between three Shepherds. 1. WHERE is this blessed Babe,

That hath made
All the world so full of joy

And expectation ?
That glorious boy,

That crowns each nation
With a triumphant wreath of blessedness?

2. Where should he be but in the throng,

And among

His angel-ministers, that sing

And take wing
Just as may echo to his voice,

And rejoice,
When wing and tongue and all
May so procure their happiness.

3. But he hath other waiters now;

A poor cow,

An ox, and mule, stand and behold,

And wonder,
That a stable should enfold

Him that can thunder.

Chorus. O what a gracious God have we !

How good, how great !-ev'n as our misery.

The third Hymn: of Christ's Birth in an Inn. The blessed Virgin travail'd without pain,

And lodged in an inn;

A glorious star the sign,
But of a greater guest than ever came that way;

For there He lay,
That is the God of night and day,
And over all the pow’rs of heaven doth reign.
It was the time of great Augustus' tax,

And then he comes,

That pays
Ev'n the whole price of lost humanity,

And sets us free

From the ungodly empery
Of sin, and Satan, and of death,
O make our hearts, blest God, thy lodging place;

And in our breast

Be pleas’d to rest,
For thou lov'st temples better than an inn;

And cause, that sin
May not profane the Deity within,
And sully o'er the ornaments of grace.Amen.

all sums,

A Hymn upon St. John's Day.

This day

We sing
The friend of our eternal King,

Who in his bosom lay,

And kept the keys
Of his profound and glorious mysteries ;

Which, to the world dispensed by his hand,

Made it stand
Fix'd in amazement to behold that light,

Which came
From the throne of the Lamb,

To invite
Our wretched eyes (which nothing else could see
But fire, and sword, hunger, and misery)

To anticipate, by their ravish'd sight,

The beauty of celestial delight.
Mysterious God, regard me when I pray;
And, when this load of clay

Shall fall away,
O let thy gracious hand conduct me up,
Where on the Lamb's rich viands I may sup:

And, in this last supper, I
May, with thy friend, in thy sweet bosom lie,

For ever in eternity. Hallelujah.

Upon the Day of the Holy Innocents.
MOURNFUL Judah shrieks and cries

At the obsequies

Of their babes, that cry
More that they lose their paps, than that they die.

He, that came with life to all,
Brings the babes a funeral,
To redeem from slaughter him
Who did redeem us all from sin.
They, like himself, went spotless hence,
A sacrifice to innocence;

Which now does ride

Trampling upon Herod's pride; Passing, from their fontinels of clay, To heaven a milky and a bloody way.

All their tears and groans are dead,

And they to rest and glory fled; Lord, who wert pleas'd so many babes should fall, Whilst each sword hop'd that ev'ry of the all Was the desired King: make us to be In innocence like them,-in glory, Thee.--Amen.