Scripture Verse

One body, and one Spirit…one Lord, one faith. Ephesians 4:4–5

Introduction

portrait
Edward H. Plumptre (1821–1891)

Words: Ed­ward H. Plump­tre, 1864, and pub­lished in his La­za­rus and Oth­er Po­ems, 1865.

Music: Thorn­bu­ry Ba­sil Har­wood, 1898 (🔊 pdf nwc). This tune was first used at an an­nu­al fes­ti­val of the Lon­don Church Choir As­so­cia­tion.

portrait
Basil Harwood
1859–1949

Lyrics

Thy hand, O God, has guid­ed
Thy flock from age to age;
The won­drous tale is writ­ten,
Full clear, on ev­ery page;
Our fa­thers owned Thy good­ness,
And we their deeds re­cord;
And both of this bear wit­ness,
One church, one faith, one Lord.

Thy her­alds brought glad tid­ings,
To great­est, as to least;
They bade men rise, and hast­en
To share the great King’s feast;
And this was all their teach­ing,
In ev­ery deed and word,
To all alike pro­claim­ing,
One church, one faith, one Lord.

When sha­dows thick were fall­ing,
And all seemed sunk in night,
Thou, Lord, didst send Thy ser­vants,
Thy chos­en sons of light.
On them and on Thy peo­ple
Thy plen­te­ous grace was poured,
And this was still their mes­sage:
One church, one faith, one Lord.

Through ma­ny a day of dark­ness,
Through ma­ny a scene of strife,
The faith­ful few fought brave­ly,
To guard the na­tion’s life,
Their Gos­pel of re­demp­tion,
Sin par­doned, man re­stored,
Was all in this en­fold­ed,
One church, one faith, one Lord.

And we, shall we be faith­less?
Shall hearts fail, hands hang down?
Shall we evade the con­flict,
And cast away our crown?
Not so: in God’s deep coun­sels
Some bet­ter thing is stored:
We will main­tain, un­flinch­ing,
One church, one faith, one Lord.

Thy mer­cy will not fail us,
Nor leave Thy work un­done;
With Thy right hand to help us,
The vic­to­ry shall be won;
And then, by men and an­gels,
Thy name shall be adored,
And this shall be their an­them,
One church, one faith, one Lord.