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 shalt 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 th' 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;

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 all sums,

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;

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.