Verse 1
A State for judgment ripe as this,
And swiftly plunging in th’ Abyss,
A nation by our God forsook,
To whom shall we for succour look?
No succour is in feeble man,
We trust an arm of flesh in vain.

Verse 2
In vain we Causes false assign
Of all these heavy plagues divine;
They must remain, they must increase,
Till we the real Cause confess,
Our sins with deep repentance mourn,
And to our angry Smiter turn.

Verse 3
Th’ immediate Authors of our woes
Charge their own crimes upon their foes,
And seizing on the Helm, declare
That They our ruin will repair,
The Ship they dash’d against the strand
Refit, and bring us safe to land.

Verse 4
We never can confide in Them:
But do not yet ourselves condemn,
Or hear the Rod by Heaven employ’d
On us, who have ourselves destroy’d,
And reap in our extreme distress,
The fruits of our own wickedness.

Verse 5
O might we each distinctly grieve,
Death’s sentence in himself receive,
Before the measure is fulfil’d,
Before the general doom is seal’d,
And find relief in contrite prayer,
And hope emerging from despair.

Verse 6
“My sins have rais’d the stormy sea,
“It works, and roars, and yawns for me;
“My sins have shook the shatter’d state,
“And arm’d the ministers of fate,
“To wasters giv’n their wasting power,
“And made the slaughtering sword devour.[”]

Verse 7
When humbly thus our sins we own
Which forc’d, O God, thy judgments down,
Our sins, which brought this evil day,
O woudst Thou take them all away,
And then our punishment remove,
In honor of thy pardning love.

Verse 8
If yet Thou mayst intreated be,
To change th’ extirpating Decree,
The Virtue of that Name impart
Which roots out sin from every heart,
That all may bless thy Saving Power,
Thy Son, when time shall be no more.