I beheld Satan as lightning fall from Heaven.
Luke 10:18
Words: Philip Doddridge (1702–1751). Published posthumously in Hymns Founded on Various Texts in the Holy Scriptures, by Job Orton (Shropshire, England: Joshua Eddowes & John Cotton, 1755), number 180: The relapsing demoniac.
Music: Alida D. B. Thompson, in Joyful Wing, edited by John R. Sweney & William J. Kirkpatrick (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: John J. Hood, 1889), page 173 (🔊 pdf nwc).
Sov’reign of Heaven, Thine empire spreads,
O’er all the worlds on high:
And at Thy frowns th’infernal powers
In wild confusion fly.
Like lightning from his glittering throne
The great arch-traitor fell,
Driv’n with enormous ruin down
To infamy and hell.
Permitted now to range at large,
And traverse earth and air,
O’er captive human souls he reigns,
And boasts his kingdom there.
Yet thence Thy grace can drive him out,
With one almighty word;
O send Thy potent scepter forth,
And reign victorious, Lord.
Let wretched prisoners be released,
The smiling light to view;
Nor let the vanquished foe return
Their bondage to renew.
May grace complete that wondrous work,
Which Thine own power begun;
And fill, from Satan’s gloomy realms,
The kingdom of Thy Son.