Ye Holy Angels Bright

I couldn't resist posting this.  We sang no. 625, "Ye Holy Angels Bright", by the seventeenth century Puritan Richard Baxter, as our dismissal hymn in church today.  I was familiar with the tune (it's a great one, Darwall's 148th; I posted a video below), but it was the words that struck me.  I'm not sure I'd ever really listened to them before (or at least they had never so impressed me).  Such a beautiful hymn, and a stirring image of the communion of saints, both those "blessed souls at rest" and we "who toil below".  It is a communion that is not bound by space or time, and that includes also all the angelic host of heaven (as we were reminded yesterday, the feast of Saint Michael and All Angels).
Peace to you, and grace to "bear thou thy part" in the coming week.


Ye Holy Angels Bright
by Richard Baxter, revised by John Hampden Gurney

Ye holy angels bright,
Who wait at God's right hand,
Or through the realms of light
Fly at your Lord's command,
Assist our song, for else the theme
Too high doth seem for mortal tongue.

Ye blessed souls at rest,
Who ran this earthly race
And now, from sin released,
Behold the Savior's face,
God's praises sound, as in his sight
With sweet delight ye do abound.

Ye saints, who toil below,
Adore your heavenly King,
And onward as ye go
Some joyful anthem sing;
Take what he gives and praise him still
Through good or ill, who ever lives!

My soul, bear thou thy part,
Triumph in God above:
And with a well tuned heart
Sing thou the songs of love!
Let all thy days till life shall end
Whate'er he send, be filled with praise.