Verse 1
Being benign, whose name is love,
Whose nature, always to forgive,
Thine anger with our sins remove,
And bid thy humbled rebels live.

Verse 2
Thy lifted hand, restrain’d by prayer,
Hath often wav’d the threatned blow:
Still thy unnat’ral act forbear,
And all thy ancient mercies shew.

Verse 3
When most displeas’d thou shak’st the rod,
And absolute thy threat’nings sound,
A kind reserve is understood,
A secret clause for mercy found.

Verse 4
Yet forty days, thy justice cries,
And Nineveh shall be o’erthrown,
Except (thy whispering grace replies)
They turn, before the wrath comes down.

Verse 5
How often hath thy goodness tried
A people hardened from thy fear,
And turn’d th’ impending plague aside,
And spar’d our land from year to year?

Verse 6
Ev’n now thou dost the stroke suspend,
Thy pitiful reluctance shew,
And watchmen thro’ our Israel send,
To warn us of the falling blow.

Verse 7
What canst thou more for sinners do?
And if we farther still rebel,
If still our sinful lusts pursue,
We court the hottest flames of hell.

Verse 8
The men of Nineveh shall rise
Our judges in that vengeful day,
Unless we quit the paths of vice,
And cast our loathsome sins away.

Verse 9
Less dreadful will the punishment
Of Sodom and Gomorrah prove,
Than ours, if scorning to repent,
We still despise thy bleeding love.