Analysis of Hymn 124

The first and second Adam.

Deep in the dust before thy throne
Our guilt and our disgrace we own;
Great God! we own th' unhappy name
Whence sprang our nature and our shame;

Adam the sinner: at his fall,
Death like a conqueror seized us
A thousand new-born babes are dead
By fatal union to their head.

But whilst our spirits, filled with awe,
Behold the terrors of thy law,
We sing the honors of thy grace,
That sent to save our ruined race.

We sing thine everlasting Son,
Who joined our nature to his own:
Adam the second from the dust
Raises the ruins of the first.

[By the rebellion of one man
Through all his seed the mischief ran;
And by one man's obedience now
Are all his seed made righteous too.]

Where sin did reign, and death abound,
There have the sons of Adam found
Abounding life; there glorious grace
Reigns through the Lord our righteousness.