Nativity

His whole ancestry is as thoroughly human as ours can be. Every link of the chain is human … It is a long chain, sometimes almost broken or worn through; but thus all the more thoroughly human. He is the seed of the woman; the man Christ Jesus. He is very man, out of the loins of Abraham, and of the substance of the Virgin; son of Mary and son of Adam.

Verse 1

Angels rejoiced and sweetly sung
At our Redeemer’s birth;
Mortals! awake: let every tongue
Proclaim his matchless worth.

Verse 2

Glory to God, who dwells on high,
And sent his only Son
To take a servant’s form, and die,
For evils we had done!

Verse 3

Good-will to men; ye fallen race!
Arise, and shout for joy;
He comes, with rich abounding grace
To save and not destroy.

Verse 4

Lord! send the gracious tidings forth,
And fill the world with light,
That Jew and Gentile, through the earth,
May know thy saving might.

Verse 5

William Hurn, 1813.

Verse 6

1O3 Salvation Morning, 7s & 6s.

Verse 7

God’s Salvation Morning.

Verse 8

What means this glorious radiance
Across Judea’s plain?
Those white-winged angels singing
In such exultant strain?

Refrain

The King of glory cometh,
Earth’s broken hearts to bind,
And God’s salvation morning
Hath dawned for all mankind.

Verse 9

What means this wondrous story
The holy angels tell?
Of one who reigned in heaven,
And now on earth would dwell?

Verse 10

Why bend these Eastern sages
To one of lowly birth?
What means this heav’nly message
Of love and peace on earth?

Verse 11

Ye wand’rers in earth’s darkness,
On ocean deep and land,
Hail! hail! the joyful tidings,
The morning is at hand.

Verse 1

Calm on the listening ear of night
Come heaven’s melodious strains,
Where wild Judea stretches far
Her silver-mantled plains.

Verse 2

Celestial choirs, from courts above,
Shed sacred glories there,
And angels, with their sparkling lyres,
Make music on the air.

Verse 3

The answering hills of Palestine
Send back the glad reply,
And greet, from all their holy heights,
The day-spring from on high.

Verse 4

“Glory to God!” the sounding skies
Loud with their anthems ring--
“Peace to the earth, good-will to men,
From heaven’s eternal King.”

Verse 1

Hark the glad sound! the Savior comes--
The Savior promised long;
Let every heart prepare a throne,
And every voice a song.

Verse 2

He comes, the prisoners to release,
In Satan’s bondage held;
The gates of brass before him burst,
The iron fetters yield.

Verse 3

He comes, the broken heart to bind,
The bleeding soul to cure;
And, with the treasures of his grace,
T’ enrich the humble poor.

Verse 4

Our glad hosannas, Prince of Peace,
Thy welcome shall proclaim;
And heaven’s eternal arches ring
With thy beloved name.

Verse 1

Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the new-born King!
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled.”
Joyful all ye nations, rise;
Join the triumph of the skies!
With the angelic host proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.

Verse 2

See, he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the incarnate Deity.
Pleased as man with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Immanuel.

Verse 3

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness;
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.
Let us, then, with angels sing,
“Glory to the new-born King!
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled.”

Verse 1

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold;
“Peace to the earth, good-will to men,
From heaven’s all gracious King:”
The earth in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.

Verse 2

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still celestial music floats
O’er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on heavenly wing,
And ever o’er its Babel sounds,
The blessed angels sing.

Verse 3

O ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way,
With painful steps and slow;--
Look up! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh, rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!

Verse 4

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet-bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the age of gold!
When peace shall over all the earth
Its final splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing!

Verse 1

Jesus is God! the glorious bands
Of holy angels sing
Songs of adoring praise to him,
Their Maker and their King.

Verse 2

He was true God in Bethlehem’s crib,
On Calvary’s cross, true God;
He who, in heaven, eternal reigned,
In time, on earth abode.

Verse 3

Jesus is God! there never was
A time when he was not;
Boundless, eternal, merciful,
The Word the Sire begot.

Verse 4

Backward our thoughts through ages stretch,
Onward through endless bliss;
For there are two eternities,
And both alike are his.

Verse 5

Jesus is God! oh, could I now,
But compass land and sea,
To teach and tell this single truth,
How happy should I be!

Verse 6

Oh, had I but an angel’s voice,
I would proclaim so loud,
Jesus, the Good, the Beautiful,
Is everlasting God.

Verse 1

Joy to the world! the Lord is come:
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing.

Verse 2

Joy to the earth! the Savior reigns:
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains,
Repeat the sounding joy.

Verse 3

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow,
Far as the curse is found.

Verse 4

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness,
And wonders of his love.

Verse 1

The race that long in darkness pine
Have seen a glorious light;
The people dwell in day who dwelt
In death’s surrounding night.
To hail thy rise, thou better Sun,
The gathering nations come,
With joy, as when the reapers bear
The harvest treasures home.

Verse 2

To us a child of hope is born;
To us a Son is given;
And him shall all the earth obey,
And all the hosts of heaven.
His name shall be the Prince of Peace,
Forevermore adored,
The Wonderful, the Counselor,
The great and mighty Lord.

Verse 1

While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.

Verse 2

“Fear not,” said he,--for mighty dread
Had seized their troubled mind,--
“Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind.

Verse 3

“To you, in David’s town, this day,
Is born of David’s line,
The Savior, who is Christ, the Lord;
And this shall be the sign:

Verse 4

“The heavenly babe you there shall find
To human view displayed,
All meanly wrapped in swathing bands,
And in a manger laid.”

Verse 5

Thus spake the seraph; and forthwith
Appeared a shining throng
Of angels, praising God, and thus
Addressed their joyful song:

Verse 6

“All glory be to God on high,
And to the earth be peace:
Good-will henceforth from heaven to men
Begin and never cease!”