Behold the King of Kings

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Come, join with angel hosts to cry

Author: James Relly
Published in 2 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Come, join with angel hosts to cry,
Glory to God, to God on high;
Peace on rebellious earth:
To man good will abounds from heav'n;
The proof of all is richly giv'n
In Christ's mysterious birth!

2 What things are these which angels say?
A Saviour born! yea, born to day,
In David's native town:
A Saviour, who is Christ the Lord;
For so declares the heavn'ly word;
Hear, wonder, and bow down!

3 The wonderful, the holy child,
The everlasting Father stil'd,
The mighty God art thou;
The Counsellor, the Prince of Peace,
Whose glorious kingdom ne'er shall cease,
Nor wars, nor tumults know.

4 The cloud on our nativity
Dispels in this thy mystery,
Thou holy, undefil'd:
Our sinful nature's born again
In this thy birth, without a stain,
And can no more be spoil'd.

Source: Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs: selected and original, designed for the use of the Church Universal in public and private devotion #CXIII

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Author: James Relly

James Relly was born about 1722 at Jeffreston, Pembrokeshire, Wales, and died in 1778. He was converted to Christianity during the Great Awakening ushered in by George Whitefield. He worked under George Whitefield as a Calvinistic Methodist preacher and missionary. However, Whitefield and Relly separated ways over Relly's seemingly universalist teaching that all humanity was elect (i.e. saved) when Christ took the punishment for all sin when he died. He also departed from both the Calvinists and Methodists by taking the doctrine of Justification further, in teaching that believers no longer sin and the Law's sole purpose is to condemn humanity and point them to Christ. He was the mentor of John Murray, the founder of the Universalist Ch… Go to person page >

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