Ye priests of God, whose happy days

Are spent in your Creator’s praise,

Still more and more His fame express!

Ye pious worshippers, proclaim

With shouts of joy His holy name;

Not satisfied with praising, bless.

Let God’s high praises still resound

Beyond old Time’s too scanty bound,

And through eternal ages pierce,

From where the sun first gilds the streams

To where he sets with purpled beams,

Through all the wide-stretch’d universe.

The various tribes of earth obey

Thy awful and imperial sway;

Nor earth Thy sovereign power confines;

Above the sun’s all-cheering light,

Above the stars, and far more bright,

Thy pure essential glory shines.

What mortal form’d of fading clay,

What native of eternal day

Can with the God of heaven compare?

Yet angels round Thy glorious throne

Thou stoop’st to view: nor they alone;

Even earth-born men Thy goodness share.

The poor Thou liftest from the dust;

The sinner, if in Thee he trust,

From depths of guilt and shame Thou’lt raise;

That he, in peace and safety placed,

With power and love and wisdom graced,

May sing aloud his Saviour’s praise.