Laud, O Zion

Laud O Zion, your salvation,         

Laud with hymns of exultation,      

        Christ, your king and shepherd true:

Bring him all the praise you know,

He is more than you bestow.           

Never can you reach his due.

    Special theme for glad thanksgiving   

  Is the quick'ning and the living        

Bread today before you set:

From his hands of old partaken,    

As we know, by faith unshaken,     

         Where the Twelve at Supper met.

         Full and clear ring out your chanting.    

 Joy nor sweetest grace be wanting,

           From your heart let praises burst:

 For today the feast is holden,         

When the institution olden             

      Of that supper was rehearsed.

 Here the new law's new oblation,    

By the new king's revelation,         

     Ends the form of ancient rite:

 Now the new the old effaces,          

    Truth away the shadow chases,         

          Light dispels the gloom of night.

What he did at supper seated,    

Christ ordained to be repeated,

     His memorial ne'er to cease:

   And his rule for guidance taking,    

    Bread and wine we hallow, making  

      Thus our sacrifice of peace.    

       This the truth each Christian learns,

Bread into his flesh he turns,     

         To his precious blood the wine:

          Sight has fail'd, nor thought conceives,  

But a dauntless faith believes,     

Resting on a pow'r divine.

        Here beneath these signs are hidden  

      Priceless things to sense forbidden;  

         Signs, not things are all we see:

       Blood is poured and flesh is broken,

       Yet in either wondrous token            

    Christ entire we know to be.

Whoso of this food partakes,     

        Does not rend the Lord nor breaks;  

           Christ is whole to all that tastes:

     Thousands are, as one, receivers,  

 One, as thousands of believers,  

        Eats of him who cannot waste.

          Bad and good the feast are sharing,   

      Of what divers dooms preparing,   

       Endless death, or endless life.

      Life to these, to those damnation,  

See how like participation        

Is with unlike issues rife.

     When the sacrament is broken,    

         Doubt not, but believe 'tis spoken,   

              That each sever'd outward token

       doth the very whole contain.

       Nought the precious gift divides,   

  Breaking but the sign betides   

     Jesus still the same abides,

               Still unbroken does remain.