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Orlando Gibbons: Thus Angels Sung
Thus angels sung, and thus sing we;
To God on high all glory be:
Let Him on Earth His Peace bestowe,
And unto men His favour show.
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A hymn looking to the coming of Christ in judgement, sung at the Wesleys’ New Year’s Eve watch-nights.
In his Journal, John Wesley tells us that this was the hymn that he generally chose to conclude his Watch-Night services. John borrowed the idea of these midnight vigils from the Moravians, and they quickly became a popular feature of Wesleyan ministry throughout the year. New Year’s Eve was a favourite for watch-nights, a propitious time for sober reflection and good resolutions.
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Picture: By James Tissot (1836-1902), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain..
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A short prayer and poem from the Sarum Missal, for the night before Christmas.
This prayer was appointed in the Sarum Missal, the service book of the English Church in the Middle Ages, for Christmas Eve. It is followed here by the Sequence for the day, a poem dating back to the tenth century. This translation into Church English was made by Frederick E. Warren, Canon of Ely, in 1911.
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Picture: © Michael Boulton, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 2.0 generic..
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A profound Christmas hymn by Charles Wesley, welcoming the rising of the Sun of Righteousness.
There are few Christmas hymns to match this one, by Charles Wesley; yet it is rarely sung today. It deserves better. The central theme is the Sun of Righteousness from the prophecy of Malachi, who would dawn upon the faithful of Israel ‘with healing in his wings’.
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Picture: © Shaunconway, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0..
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A hymn addressed to the Holy Spirit as God’s royal seal upon the heart.
Hymns and indeed prayers to the Holy Spirit are not particularly common, but Charles Wesley composed several hymns to or about the Spirit. This hymn focuses on the idea (taken from St Paul’s letters) of the Holy Spirit as God’s royal seal on the Christian’s soul, a stamped image marking the believer out as redeemed by and for God.
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Picture: © Auckland Museum, CC BY 4.0..
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A hymn for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, from the Sarum Missal.
A ‘sequence’, in the pre-Reformation liturgy of the English Church, was a hymn sung at the service of holy communion. It was designed to fill the period between the Gradual or Alleluia and the chanting of the Gospel; sadly, both the Reformers and the Popes cut them from the liturgy in the sixteenth century. This particular example, attributed to prolific composer Adam of St Victor (?-1146), of Paris, was sung at the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on September 14th each year.
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Picture: © J. Hannan-Briggs, Geograph. CC BY-SA 2.0..
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