Arise and hail the happy [sacred] day. [Christmas.] Published anonymously in the Liverpool Liturgy, 1763, p. 155, in 5 stanzas of 6 lines. In 1769 it was given in the Bristol Baptist Collection of Ash & Evans, No. 96, and subsequently in several of the older hymn-books. In modern collections it is sometimes found as, "Arise and hail the sacred day," as in Hall and Lasar's Evangelical Hymnal, N. Y., 1880. The chorus, "O then let heaven and earth rejoice," is not in the original. It appeared in some collections early in the present century. [See Scott, Elizabeth.]
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)