Thou awful God, whose righteous ire

Verse 1
Thou awful God, whose righteous ire
In Sion as a furnace burns,
Fit fewel of eternal fire,
A race that all thy mercy scorns;
Behold us where in death we lie,
Nor let our souls for ever die.

Verse 2
All we like sheep have gone astray,
Have turn’d to our own wickedness,
Rush’d headlong down the spatious way;
But O! How few their sins confess,
Their foul apostacy bemoan,
Or tremble as the wrath comes down.

Verse 3
Yet hast thou left thyself a seed,
A remnant of peculiar grace,
A little flock who mourn and plead,
And wrestle for the faithless race
That will not hear thy threatning rod,
Or turn, and find a pard’ning God.

Verse 4
Touch’d from above with fear divine,
We would the weeping few increase,
Our broken hearts and voices join,
And wail our nation’s wickedness,
In deepest groans our crimes declare,
In all the agony of prayer.

Verse 5
Alas for us, to evil sold,
A seed of lips and hearts unclean,
In vice beyond example bold,
Sunk in the dregs of time and sin,
Laden with all iniquity,
As Satan contrary to thee!

Verse 6
Yet for the righteous remnant’s sake
Our death-devoted Sodom spare,
And call the storms of vengeance back—
Or if thou canst no more forbear,
Thyself resume our wretched breath,
But save us from eternal death.

Hymnal/Album: Introduced in John and Charles Wesley, Hymns for Times of Trouble and Persecution, 2nd edition (Bristol: Farley, 1745). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 4 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1869), page 69.
Publishing: Public Domain