Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Collect for the day from the Episcopal Lectionary

Yesterday, when I was trying to find a hymn for today based upon today's Psalm, the 66th, part of which is quoted below my blog title, I found this one which I'd never seen before:

And truly it is a most glorious thing
Thus to hear men pray and God’s praises sing,
O how great comfort is it now to see—
The churches to enjoy full liberty.
And to have the Gospel preachèd here with power,
And such wolves repelled as all would else devour.

But God will still for His people provide
Such as be able them to help and guide,
If they cleave to Him and do not forsake—
His laws and truth and their own ways do take.
If thou hast viewed the camp of Israel,
How God in the wilderness with them did dwell.

His great and marvelous works they here saw,
And He them taught in His most holy law,
A small emblem hereof thou mayest see,
How God hath dealt with them in some degree,
For much of Himself they now there have seen,
And marvelous to them His works have been.

Words: William Bradford, 1623
Music: “Song 24 (Gibbons),” Orlando Gibbons, 1623

It is the only hymn written by William Bradford, and I thought it particularly fitting for this weekend on which we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence.