Tremendous Lord of earth, and skies,
Most holy, high, and just,
We fall before Thy glo­ri­ous eyes,
And hide us in the dust:
Thine anger’s long suspended stroke
With deepest awe we feel,
And tremble on, so lately shook
Over the mouth of hell.

Appalled, o’erwhelmed with conscious fear,
Beneath Thy frown we mourn,
And shudder at the judg­ment near,
And dread its swift return.
So oft, and terribly reproved,
Our land is warned in vain,
For oh! the cause is unremoved,
The sin doth still remain.

The crowd, the poor unthinking crowd,
Refuse Thy hand to see,
They will not hear Thy loudest rod,
They will not turn to Thee.
As with judicial blindness struck,
They all Thy signs despise,
Harden their hearts yet more, and mock
The anger of the skies.

But blinder still, the rich and great
In wickedness excel,
And revel on the brink of fate,
And sport, and dance to hell.
Regardless of Thy smile or frown,
Their pleasures they require,
And sink with gay indifference down
To ev­er­last­ing fire.

But O! Thou dreadful righteous Lord,
The praying remnant spare,
The men that tremble at Thy word,
And see the coming snare:
Our land if yet again Thou shake,
Or utterly break down,
A merciful distinction make,
And strongly save Thine own.

If earth its mouth must open wide,
To swallow up its prey,
Jesu, Thy faithful people hide
In that vindictive day:
Firm in the universal shock
We shall not then remove,
Safe in the clefts of Israel’s Rock,
Our Lord’s expiring love.