1143    C.M.     A. Steele
Confession and Prayer for Church and Nation

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.