Hymns for the Thanksgiving-Day, 1759, 10

Be still, ye isles, and wait your doom
Jehovah from His place is come;
He whets His glittering sword;
His hand doth hold of judgment take
Let all the guilty nations quake
Before our angry Lord.

He calls His own to see Him rise.
To mark the vengeance of the skies
Dispread through earth abroad;
Countries laid waste, and conquer'd powers,
Cities o'erturn'd, and falling towers.
And fields and seas of blood.

Where shall this dreadful havoc end?
What doth the righteous God intend?
Beneath His hand we bow,
And, trembling in the balance, cry,
Will justice pass our nation by,
Or must He visit now?

Cover'd and blind is every seer.
Nor doth the purposed thing appear
To one of Abraham s race:
We hear the thunder of Thy power;
But who shall all Thy mind explore,
But who shall see Thy face?

Darkness and clouds surround Thy throne.
And wrap the hidden God unknown
In awful majesty;
Unless Thou dost the secret tell,
Nor man nor angel can reveal.
Or fathom Thy decree.

Yet if Thou hast not fix'd our doom.
Before the swift destruction come,
And sweep Thy foes away
That mercy may inchne the scale,
And wresthng faith at last prevail.
Vouchsafe us power to pray.

Stir up the praying seed to stand
Protectors of a guilty land.
And arm'd in its defence.
With Jesus' name, and mind, and blood.
Which stays the outstretch'd arm of God,
And binds Omnipotence.

The spirit that in Moses pray'd,
O might it flow from Christ our Head,
And in the members cry,
"Father, we all Thy will receive;
But let us to Thy glory live
Or to Thy glory die!"