Ye Legal Elements, Your Clouds of Fear Remove

On the Circumcision: At the First Vespers.

What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.—Rom. viii.

Latin Text: Debilis cessent elementa legis

Source: Isaac Williams, Hymns Translated from the Parisian Breviary (London: J.G.F. & J. Rivington, 1839), pp. 75-76.

    Ye legal elements, 
    Your clouds of fear remove, 
That Christ may come forth to dispense 
    The eternal law of love.

    True sun without a cloud, 
    O'er heav'nly heights He trod; 
Now veil'd beneath a mortal shroud, 
    The image of our God. 

    Already stain'd with blood, 
    The signs of sin He feels, 
That precious drop which now hath flow'd 
    For death the victim seals. 

    This day hath given the Name 
    To which the world shall bow, 
And Thou beginnest with that claim 
    A Saviour's part to show. 

    All praise to God all good, 
    The Father thron'd on high, 
The Son who bought us with His blood, 
    The Spirit ever nigh.

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