Wesley Corpus

We dare the evil day to come, "The plots and powers of feeble Rome Can never here prevail: Secur'd by rocks our island stands, By counsels wise, and valiant bands, And fleets invincible." "Confiding in our fleshly arm, Shall Gallic armaments alarm, Or break our firm repose?" Thy judgments soar beyond our sight And therefore with presumptuous slight We puff at all our foes. Supinely negligent and proud, The noble and ignoble crowd In deadly slumber sleep: The nation sleeps, of conquest sure, Stands on a precipice secure, Nor dreads the yawning deep. Tremendous God, to whom alone Thy strange destructive works are known, Thy properest works of grace, If prayers and tears may yet prevail, Let mercy turn the hovering scale For our devoted race. Page 9 Urg'd to the last extremity, So save us, Lord, that all may see The work is wholly thine, That knowing him, thro' whom we live, Our lives we may to Jesus give, A sacrifice divine. Hymn VI. Is this the guilty nation, Lord, (Permit us to inquire) Now to be visited by sword, And purify'd by fire? No longer can thy wrath delay An harden'd people's doom, And must we see the evil day, And must the spoiler come! Thou wilt not hide the thing decreed, From those thou call'st thine own, From Abraham's faithful praying seed, Who trust in thee alone. Ev'n now thine angry rod we hear, Thy Spirit's warning cry, And feel the visitation near, And to the mountain fly. Thou hast to us thy secret shewn, Who tremble at thy name, And sigh, and pray, and wrestle on For our Jerusalem; To deprecate the fatal hour, We on our faces fall: Ah! Let not, Lord, thy wrath devour, Thy curse o'erwhelm us all. If now, on such a land as this, Thou must avenged be, Page 10 Yet snatch us from the dark abyss Of endless misery: Whome'er thy will appoints to die, To them repentance give, And let them with their closing eye Behold thy cross, and live. If now the alien hosts break in, To spoil our wasted shore, Let mercy interpose between, And circumscribe their power; While arm'd with heaven's avenging word, The ready murtherers stand, Revoke their charge, nor let the sword Go thro' our sinful land.