1 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.
2 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.
3 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.
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
Source: The Cyber Hymnal #11502
Charles Wesley, M.A. was the great hymn-writer of the Wesley family, perhaps, taking quantity and quality into consideration, the great hymn-writer of all ages. Charles Wesley was the youngest son and 18th child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, and was born at Epworth Rectory, Dec. 18, 1707. In 1716 he went to Westminster School, being provided with a home and board by his elder brother Samuel, then usher at the school, until 1721, when he was elected King's Scholar, and as such received his board and education free. In 1726 Charles Wesley was elected to a Westminster studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1729, and became a college tutor. In the early part of the same year his religious impressions were much deepene… Go to person page >
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