Our God Approaches From The Skies

For Advent: At Midnight

Words: Instantis adventum Dei, Charles Coffin, Paris Breviary, 1736
with links to translations

Source: Isaac Williams, Hymns Translated from the Parisian Breviary (London: J.G.F. & J. Rivington, 1839), pp. 43-44.

Watch ye, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to stand before the Son of Man—Luke xxi.

Our God approaches from the skies;
    Let us for Him prepare, 
With dread prelusive symphonies, 
    And deep heart-glowing prayer.

Nor doth the everlasting Son
    Abhor the Virgin's womb: 
That we from bondage may be won, 
    He bears a servant's doom.

Gentle and meek He comes; arise,
    Sion, behold thy King, 
And haste to meet Him, nor despise
    The peace He deigns to bring.

He shall return the Judge e'en now 
    On clouds with light'ning riven, 
And His own body left below 
    In triumph bear to Heaven. 

Let crimes, the brood of night, depart 
    From the approaching morn; 
And the old Adam of the heart 
    Before the newly-born. 

All praise, while endless ages run,
    To Father ever blest, 
To Spirit, and eternal Son, 
    In flesh made manifest.

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