The Advent of Our God at Hand

For Advent

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

Translation:  L C. Earle, 1883.

Source: Orby Shipley, Annus Sanctus: Hymns of the Church for the Ecclesiastical Year. Vol. 1. (London and New York: Burns and Oates, 1884), p. 20.

The advent of our God at hand, 
Let us with ardent prayer demand, 
And grasp the gifts of grace sublime, 
With psalms and hymns of festal rhyme. 

	The eternal offspring doth not scorn 
Of Maiden-mother to be born ; 
Is made a servant, that our yoke 
Of sin and slavery may be broke. 

	He comes, he comes, the clement Child ; 
Haste, Sion, meet thy Saviour mild, 
Nor spurn the gracious terms of peace 
He offers for thy soul's release. 

	Soon folded in a cloud of light 
He will return the world to right, 
And through the heaven's triumphal arch 
His feet will speed their radiant march. 

	Let darkness and her demon spawn 
Recede before the hastening dawn ; 
Let the old Adam yield to grace, 
The Second Adam hold his place. 

	O thou who com/st to set us free, 
O Son, be highest praise to thee — 
The Father and the Spirit, Three 
In undivided Unity. 

Note from Shipley:

Instantis adventum Dei. Matins Hymn from the Paris Breviary, by Charles Coffin, Rector of the University of Paris.

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