What more befits the tongues
Soon to join the angels' songs?
Whilst heaven the note prolongs,
Praise, brethren, praise.
59 Take ye heed; watch and pray.—Mark xiii. 33. [D.S.M.
1 THOU judge of quick and dead,
With holy joy or guilty dread,
We all shall soon appear;
Our waken'd souls prepare
For that tremendous day,
And fill us now with watchful care,
And stir us up to pray.
To pray, and wait the hour,
That awful hour unknown,
When, robed in majesty and power,
Thou shalt from heaven come down,
The immortal Son of Man,
To judge the human race,
With all thy Father's dazzling train,
With all thy glorious grace.
To chasten earthly joys,
To quicken holy fears,
For ever let the archangel's voice
Be sounding in our ears;
The solemn midnight cry,-
Ye dead, the Judge is come:
Arise, and meet him in the sky,
And hear your instant doom.
may we thus be found
Obedient to his word,
Attentive to the trumpet's sound,
And looking for our Lord:
O may we thus ensure
Our lot among the blest,
And watch a moment to secure
An everlasting rest.
60 In thy light shall we see light.-Ps. xxxvi. 9.
1 0 QUICKLY Come, dread Judge of all;
For, awful though thine Advent be,
All shadows from the truth will fall,
And falsehood die, in sight of thee.
O quickly come; for doubt and fear
Like clouds dissolve when thou art near.
2 O quickly come, great King of all;
Reign all around us, and within
Let sin no more our souls enthrall,
Let pain and sorrow die with sin.
O quickly come; for thou alone
Canst make thy scatter'd people one.
3 O quickly come, true Life of all;
For death is mighty all around;
On every home his shadows fall,
On every heart his mark is found.
O quickly come; for grief and pain
Can never cloud thy glorious reign.
4 O quickly come, sure Light of all;
For gloomy night broods o'er our way;
And weakly souls begin to fall
With weary watching for the day.
O quickly come; for round thy throne
No eye is blind, no night is known."
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
THE Church has waited long
Her absent Lord to see;
[D. S refrain.
D.S.M. with
And still in loneliness she waits,
A friendless stranger she.
Age after age has gone,
Sun after sun has set,
And still in weeds of widowhood,
She weeps a mourner yet.
Come, then, Lord Jesu, come.
2 Saint after saint on earth
Has lived, and loved, and died;
And as they left us one by one,
We laid them side by side.
We laid them down to sleep,
But not in hope forlorn;
We laid them but to slumber there
Till the last glorious morn.
Come, then, Lord Jesu, come.
The serpent's brood increase; The powers of hell grow bold: The conflict thickens, faith is low, And love is waxing cold.
How long, O Lord our God,
Holy, and true, and good,
Wilt thou not judge thy suffering church,
Her sighs, and tears, and blood?
Come, then, Lord Jesu, come.
We long to hear thy voice,
To see thee face to face,
To share thy crown and glory then,
As now we share thy grace.
Come, Lord, and wipe away
The curse, the sin, the stain;
And make this blighted world of ours
Thine own fair world again.
Come, then, Lord Jesu, come.
He cometh to judge the earth.-Ps. xcvi. 13. [L.M. 1 THE Lord will come: the earth shall quake, The hills their fixed seat forsake;
And, withering from the vault of night,
The stars withdraw their feeble light.
2 The Lord will come: but not the same
As once in lowly form he came,
A silent Lamb to slaughter led,
The bruised, the suffering, and the dead.
3 The Lord will come: a dreadful form,
With wreath of flame, and robe of storm,
On cherub wings, and wings of wind,
Anointed Judge of human-kind.
4 Can this be he who wont to stray
A pilgrim on the world's highway:
By power oppress'd, and mock'd by pride?
O God! is this the Crucified?
5 Go, tyrants, to the rocks complain;
Go, seek the mountain's cleft in vain ;
But faith, victorious o'er the tomb,
Shall sing for joy, the Lord is come."
63 They shall perish, but thou shalt endure.
Ps. cii. 26.
1 THAT day of wrath, that dreadful day,
When heaven and earth shall pass away,
What power shall be the sinner's stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day?
2 When, shrivelling like a parched scroll,
The flaming heavens together roll,
When louder yet, and yet more dread,
Swells the high trump that wakes the dead.
3 O! on that day, that wrathful day,
When man to judgment wakes from clay,
Be thou, O Christ, the sinner's stay,
Though heaven and earth shall pass away."
64 Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye [8s. 7s. 4. shall see him.-Rev. i. 7.
1 Lo, he comes, with clouds descending,
Once for favour'd sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending
Swell the triumph of his train:
Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign.
2 Every eye shall now behold him, Robed in dreadful majesty;
Those who set at nought and sold him,
Pierced, and nail'd him to the tree,
Deeply wailing,
Shall the true Messiah see.
3 Those dear tokens of his passion
Still his dazzling body bears;
Cause of endless exultation
To his ransom'd worshippers:
With what rapture
Gaze we on those glorious scars.
4 Now redemption, long expected,
See in solemn pomp appear:
All his saints, by men rejected,
Now shall meet him in the air:
Hallelujah!
See the day of God appear.
5 Yea, Amen; let all adore thee,
High on thine eternal throne:
Saviour, take the power and glory;
Claim the kingdom for thine own.
O come quickly,
Everlasting God, come down."
65 All that are in the graves shall hear his voice, [8s. 7s. 4. and shall come forth.-John v. 28.
1 DAY of judgment, day of wonders,
Hark! the trumpet's awful sound,
Louder than a thousand thunders,
Shakes the vast creation round:
How the summons
Will the sinner's heart confound!
2 See the Judge, our nature wearing,
Clothed in majesty divine!
Ye who long for his appearing
Then shall say, This God is mine:
Gracious Saviour,
Own me in that day for thine.
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