A WAKE from thy sleep, O thou sleeper in death!
Dost hear not the rumblings of pride-crushing wrath,
That threatens to smite from Jehovah above?
O Britain awake, to renew thy first love.
For once ’twas thy glory Jehovah to know,
To own the Lord Jesus, His praises to show
To earth’s farthest limits, to carry the light,
His Word, to those nations deep lost in death’s night.
O when didst thou find Him a wilderness wild,
That Him thou hast mocked like a vain wayward child,
Repaying his mother with evil return,
Receiving kind counsels, but only to spurn?
The milk of His Word to our fathers brought health,
Revealing in Christ the unsearchable wealth
Of grace and of mercy in God, which alone
Provided the Lamb for their sins to atone.
This Word to their hearts did God’s love-message bring,
And came to their conscience, the Word of the King
Who ruleth forever o’er princes and kings,
Whose praises in glory the angel-host sings.
But full with His blessing, in pride thou hast turned
Thy wit ‘gainst His Word, and His wisdom hast spurned.
The Word that to thee all thy blessing hast brought,
Thou rending, wouldst turn from the work thou hast wrought
But surely the day that the righteous shall turn
From works that divine approbation do earn,
No mention shall henceforth forever be heard
Of works of the past, for contempt of His Word.
The Spirit of truth, dost thou vainly despise?
The idol of reason hath made thee so wise!
For blindness by sin wouldst thou proudly deny,
And yet prove the truth of the Spirit thereby.
Thy hand to the foes of God’s Word wilt thou give,
His Word that who keepeth, he ever shall live,
To papal intriguers and glib critics bold?
Awake, ere to death thou thy children hast sold!
How vain is the wisdom that leads thee to mock
The Word of that God who is Israel’s Rock!
Thyself ‘gainst the Rock shalt thou dashing but break.
O Britain return, to thy danger awake!
O slumbering deep in the stillness of death,
Shall’t prove that, in judgment given over to wrath,
The Word that the warnings of Heaven declare,
Despised and unheeded, must mock Thy despair?
O turn Thee, O Lord, to our land yet again,
Discover Thy power, and mighty shall then
The Word of Jehovah be seen to dispel
The stillness of death, and the darkness of hell.
W. M.