Come then, and added to Thy many crowns Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth, Thou who alone art worthy! it was Thine By ancient covenant, ere nature’s birth, And Thou hast made it Thine by purchase since, And overpaid its value with Thy blood. Thy saints proclaim Thee King; and in their hearts Thy title is engraven with a pen Dipt in the fountain of eternal love. Thy saints proclaim Thee King; and Thy delay Gives courage to their foes, who, could they see The dawn of Thy last advent, long-desired, Would creep into the bowels of the hills, And flee for safety to the falling rocks. The very spirit of the world is tired Of its own taunting question, asked so long, “Where is the promise of your Lord’s approach?” The infidel has shot his bolts away, Till, his exhausted quiver yielding none, He gleans the blunted shafts that have recoiled, And aims them at the shield of truth again. The veil is rent, rent too by priestly hands, That hides divinity from mortal eyes; And all the mysteries to faith proposed, Insulted and traduced, are cast aside, As useless, to the moles and to the bats. They now are deemed the faithful and are praised, Who, constant only in rejecting Thee, Deny Thy Godhead with a martyr’s zeal, And quit their office for their error’s sake. Blind and in love with darkness! yet even these Worthy, compared with sycophants, who kneel, Thy Name adoring, and then preach Thee man! So fares Thy Church. But how Thy Church may fare, The world takes little thought; who will may preach, And what they will. All pastors are alike To wandering sheep resolved to follow none. Two gods divide them all, Pleasure and Gain; For these they live, they sacrifice to these, And in their service wage perpetual war With conscience and with Thee. Lust in their hearts, And mischief in their hands, they roam the earth To prey upon each other; stubborn, fierce, High-minded, foaming out their own disgrace. Thy prophets speak of such; and noting down The features of the last degenerate times, Exhibit every lineament of these. Come then, and added to Thy many crowns Receive yet one as radiant as the rest, Due to Thy last and most effectual work, Thy Word fulfilled, the conquest of a world.