Confession and Prayer for Church and Nation
A. Steele C.M.
1
See, gracious God, before thy throne
Thy mourning people bend;
’Tis on thy sovereign grace alone
Our humble hopes depend.
2
Tremendous judgments from thy hand
Thy dreadful power display;
Yet mercy spares this guilty land,
And still we live to pray.
3
Great God! and why is Britain spared?
Ungrateful as we are;
O make thy awful warnings heard,
While mercy cries, Forbear!
4
What numerous crimes increasing rise
Through this apostate isle!
What land as favoured of the skies,
And yet what land so vile!
5
How changed, alas, are truths divine,
For error, guilt and shame!
What impious numbers, bold in sin,
Disgrace the Christian name!
6
Regardless of thy smile or frown,
Their pleasures they require;
And sink with gay indifference down
To everlasting fire.
7
O turn us, turn us, mighty Lord,
By thy resistless grace;
Then shall our hearts obey thy word,
And humbly seek thy face;
8
Then, should insulting foes invade,
We shall not sink in fear;
Secure of never-failing aid,
If God, our God, is near.
