Classic Poem

HYMN XLVI.

Y E happy guests, who meet around
This table, your oblations bring:
Here every one's a priest, who has
A heart to love, and tongue to sing.

Our Saviour's bleeding sacrifice
His boundless love and grace displays:
As a just homage, he demands
Our sacrifice of love and praise.

'Twas love expos'd him to reproach,
To unexampled grief and pain:
Less power than that of love divine,
Nor would nor could his cross sustain.

See him abandon'd by his friends;
By a perfidious kiss betray'd;
Sold as a despiscable slave;
With swords and staves a pris'ner made.

See him to the tribunal led;
There charg'd with crimes by men suborn'd;
By princes and by priests condemn'd,
And by the vilest wretches scorn'd.

That awful face, which low respect
From prostrate angels did command,
Spat on by men of servile state,
And struck by each rude soldier's hand.

Bearing his cross to Golgotha,
With labouring steps behold him go;
And from his wounds, when open'd there,
O see what crimson rivers flow!

Plung'd in these streams, our guilty souls
Purg'd from their numerous sins shall be:
Justice and mercy, tho provok'd
By us, O Lord, are pleas'd with thee.

O lamb of God! who bor'st our guilt,
To thee immortal praise belongs:
While we thy love and suffering sing,
Angels shall hear, and join their songs.