Jesus, Thou Soul of All Our Joys

Jesus

Thou soul of all our joys

For whom we now lift up our voice

And all our strength ex­ert;

Vouchsafe the grace we hum­bly claim

Compose in­to a thank­ful frame

And tune Thy peo­ple’s heart.

While in the heav­en­ly work we join

Thy glo­ry be our whole de­sign

Thy glo­ry

not our own:

Still let us keep our end in view

And still the pleas­ing task pur­sue

To please our God alone.

The sec­ret pride

the sub­tle sin

O let it nev­er more steal in

To of­fend Thy glo­ri­ous eyes

To de­se­crate our hal­lowed strain

And make our so­lemn serv­ice vain

And mar our sac­ri­fice!

To mag­ni­fy Thy aw­ful name

To spread the hon­ors of the Lamb

Let us our voic­es raise;

Our souls’ and bo­dies’ pow­ers unite

Regardless of our own de­light

And dead to hu­man praise.

Still let us on our guard be found

And watch against the pow­er of sound

With sac­red jea­lou­sy;

Lest hap­ly sense should damp our zeal

And mu­sic’s charms be­witch and steal

Our hearts away from Thee.

That hur­ry­ing strife far oft re­move

That noi­sy burst of self­ish love

Which swells the for­mal song;

The joy from out our hearts arise

And speak and spar­kle in our eyes

And vi­brate on our tongue.

Thee let us praise

our com­mon Lord

And sweet­ly join with one ac­cord

Thy good­ness to pro­claim:

Jesus

Thy­self in us re­veal

And all our fa­cul­ties shall feel

Thy har­mo­niz­ing name.

With calm­ly rev­er­ent­ial joy

O let us all our lives em­ploy

In set­ting forth Thy love;

And raise in death our tri­umph high­er

And sing with all the heav­en­ly choir

That end­less song ab­ove!