O Lord, Look Down from Heaven

O Lord

look down from Heav­en

be­hold

And let Thy pi­ty wak­en:

How few are we with­in Thy fold

Thy saints by men for­sak­en!

True faith seems quenched on ev­ery hand

Men suf­fer not Thy Word to stand;

Dark times have us o’er­tak­en.

With fraud which they them­selves in­vent

Thy truth they have con­found­ed;

Their hearts are not with one con­sent

On Thy pure doc­trine ground­ed.

While they pa­rade with out­ward show

They lead the peo­ple to and fro

In er­ror’s maze as­tound­ed.

May God root out all he­re­sy

And of false teach­ers rid us

Who proud­ly say: Now

where is he

That shall our speech for­bid us?

By right or might we shall pre­vail;

What we de­ter­mine can­not fail;

We own no lord and mas­ter.

Therefore saith God

I must arise

The poor My help are need­ing;

To Me as­cend My peo­ple’s cries

And I have heard their plead­ing.

For them My sav­ing Word shall fight

And fearless­ly and sharp­ly smite

The poor with might de­fend­ing.

As sil­ver tried by fire is pure

From all adul­ter­ation

So through God’s Word shall men en­dure

Each trial and temp­ta­tion.

Its light beams bright­er through the cross

And

pu­ri­fied from hu­man dross

It shines through ev­ery na­tion.

Thy truth de­fend

O God

and stay

This ev­il ge­ne­ra­tion;

And from the er­ror of their way

Keep Thine own con­gre­ga­tion.

The wick­ed ev­ery­where ab­ound

And would Thy lit­tle flock con­found;

But Thou art our sal­va­tion.