1 How are thy glories here display'd, Great God, how bright they shine, While at thy word we break the bread, And pour the flowing wine!
2 Here thy revenging justice stands And pleads its dreadful cause; Here saving mercy spreads her hands Like Jesus on the cross.
3 Thy saints attend with every grace On this great sacrifice; And love appears with cheerful face, And faith with fixed eyes.
4 Our hope in waiting posture sits, To heaven directs her sight; Here every warmer passion meets, And warmer powers unite.
5 Zeal and revenge perform their part, And rising sin destroy; Repentance comes with aching heart, Yet not forbids the joy.
6 Dear Saviour, change our faith to sight, Let sin for ever die; Then shall our souls be all delight, And every tear be dry.
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I cannot persuade myself to put a full period to these Divine Hymns, till I have addressed a special song of glory to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Though the Latin name of it, Gloria Patri, be retained in our nation from the Romish church; and thought there may be some excesses of superstitious honour paid to the words of it, which may have wrought some unhappy prejudices in weaker Christians, yet I believe it still to be one of the noblest parts of Christian worship. The subject of it is the doctrine of the Trinity, which is that peculiar glory of the Divine Nature, that our Lord Jesus Christ has so clearly revealed unto men, and is so necessary to true Christianity. The action is praise, which is one of the most complete and exalted parts of heavenly worship. I have cast the song into a variety of forms, and have fitted it to a plain version, or a larger paraphrase, to be sung either alone, or at the conclusion of another Hymn. I have added also a few hosannas, or ascriptions of salvation to Christ, in the same manner, and for the same end.
Doxologies.