Sunday Ponderings ~ One Foundation

The Church's One Foundation

The Church’s one foundation

Is Jesus Christ her Lord,

She is His new creation

By water and the Word.

From heaven He came and sought her

To be His holy bride;

With His own blood He bought her

And for her life He died.

She is from every nation,

Yet one o’er all the earth;

Her charter of salvation,

One Lord, one faith, one birth;

One holy Name she blesses,

Partakes one Holy Food,

And to one Hope she presses,

With every grace endued.

’Mid toil and tribulation,

And tumult of her war,

She waits the consummation

Of peace forevermore;

Till, with the vision glorious,

Her longing eyes are blest,

And the great Church victorious

Shall be the Church at rest.

~Samuel John Stone, 1866
 

Painting ~ Church at Olde Lyme 1905, Childe Hassam 1839-1935