On the Passion

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Come, all ye chosen saints of God

Author: J. Hart (1759)
Published in 26 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Come, all ye chosen saints of God,
That long to feel the cleansing blood,
In pensive pleasure join with me,
To sing of sad Gethsemane.

2 [Gethsemane, the olive press!
(And why so called, let Christians guess;)
Fit name! fit place! where vengeance strove,
And griped and grappled hard with love.]

3 ’Twas here the Lord of life appeared,
And sighed, and groaned, and prayed, and feared;
Bore all incarnate God could bear,
With strength enough, and none to spare.

4 The powers of hell united pressed,
And squeezed his heart and bruised his breast;
What dreadful conflicts raged within,
When sweat and blood forced through the skin!

5 [Dispatched from heaven an angel stood,
Amazed to find him bathed in blood;
Adored by angels, and obeyed,
But lower now than angels made.

6 He stood to strengthen, not to fight;
Justice exacts its utmost mite,
This Victim vengeance will pursue;
He undertook, and must go through.]

7 [Three favoured servants, left not far,
Were bid to wait and watch the war;
But Christ withdrawn, what watch we keep!
To shun the sight, they sank in sleep.]

8 Backwards and forwards thrice he ran,
As if he sought some help from man;
Or wished, at least, they would condole
(’Twas all they could) his tortured soul.

9 [Whate’er he sought for, there was none;
Our Captain fought the field alone;
Soon as the Chief to battle led,
That moment every soldier fled.]

10 Mysterious conflict! dark disguise!
Hid from all creatures’ peering eyes;
Angels, astonished, viewed the scene;
And wonder yet what all could mean.

11 O Mount of Olives, sacred grove!
O Garden, scene of tragic love!
What bitter herbs thy beds produce!
How rank their scent, how harsh their juice!

12 [Rare virtues now these herbs contain;
The Saviour sucked out all their bane;
My mouth with these if conscience cram,
I’ll eat them with the paschal Lamb.]

13 O Kedron, gloomy brook, how foul
Thy black, polluted waters roll!
No tongue can tell, but some can taste,
The filth that into thee was cast.

14 In Eden’s garden there was food
Of every kind for man while good;
But banished thence we fly to thee,
O garden of Gethsemane.

Source: A Selection of Hymns for Public Worship. In four parts (10th ed.) (Gadsby's Hymns) #153a

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Author: J. Hart

Hart, Joseph, was born in London in 1712. His early life is involved in obscurity. His education was fairly good; and from the testimony of his brother-in-law, and successor in the ministry in Jewin Street, the Rev. John Hughes, "his civil calling was" for some time "that of a teacher of the learned languages." His early life, according to his own Experience which he prefaced to his Hymns, was a curious mixture of loose conduct, serious conviction of sin, and endeavours after amendment of life, and not until Whitsuntide, 1757, did he realize a permanent change, which was brought about mainly through his attending divine service at the Moravian Chapel, in Fetter Lane, London, and hearing a sermon on Rev. iii. 10. During the next two years ma… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	Come, all ye chosen saints of God
Title:	On the Passion
Author:	J. Hart (1759)
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

Come, all ye chosen saints of God. J. Hart. [Passion Week.] The following account of the origin of this hymn is given in the author's "Experience," which accompanies his Hymns:—

"The week before Easter, 1757,1 had such an amazing view of the agony of Christ in the garden, as I know not well how to describe. I was lost in wonder and adoration, and the impression it made was too deep, I believe, ever to be obliterated. I shall say no more of this, but only remark that notwithstanding all that is talked about the sufferings of Jesus, none can know anything of them but by the Holy Ghost; and, I believe, he that knows most knows but very little. It was upon this I made the first part of hymn 1, ‘On the Passion,' which, however, I afterwards mutilated and altered."

The hymn was published in his Hymns composed on Various Subjects, 1759, in 2 parts of 24 stanzas in all. As given in modern collections, as in Spurgeon's Our Own Hymn Book, it is a cento from the original with variations in the text.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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