The Works of the Reverend and Learned Isaac Watts, D. D. Containing, besides his Sermons, and Essays on miscellaneous subjects, several additional pieces, Selected from his Manuscripts by the Rev. Dr. Jennings, and the Rev. Dr. Doddridge, in 1753: to which are prefixed, memoirs of the life of the author, compiled by the Rev. George Burder. In six volumes |
 | IV. |
 |
| I. |
Divine Judgments.
|
| II. |
| III. |
|
|
 | The Works of the Reverend and Learned Isaac Watts, D. D. |  |
424
Divine Judgments.
I.
Not from the dust my sorrows spring,Nor drop my comforts from the lower skies:
Let all the baneful planets shed
Their mingled curses on my head,
How vain their curses, if th'eternal King
Look thro' the clouds and bless me with his eyes.
Creatures with all their boasted sway
Are but his slaves, and must obey;
They wait their orders from above,
And execute his word, the vengeance, or the love.
II.
'Tis by a warrant from his handThe gentler gales are bound to sleep:
The north wind blusters, and assumes command
Over the desart and the deep;
Old Boreas with his freezing pow'rs
Turns the earth iron, makes the ocean glass,
Arrests the dancing riv'lets as they pass,
And chains them moveless to their shores;
The grazing ox lows to the gelid skies,
Walks o'er the marble meads with withering eyes,
Walks o'er the solid lakes, snuffs up the wind, and dies.
III.
Fly to the polar world, my song,And mourn the pilgrims there, (a wretched throng!)
Seiz'd and bound in rigid chains,
A troop of statues on the Russian plains,
And life stands frozen in the purple veins.
Atheist, forbear; no more blaspheme:
God has a thousand terrors in his name,
A thousand armies at command,
Waiting the signal of his hand,
And magazines of frost, and magazines of flame.
Dress thee in steel to meet his wrath;
His sharp artillery from the north
Shall pierce thee to the soul, and shake thy mortal frame.
Sublime on winter's rugged wings
He rides in arms along the sky,
And scatters fate on swains and kings;
And flocks and herds, and nations die;
While impious lips, profanely bold,
Grow pale; and, quivering at his dreadful cold,
Give their own blasphemies the lie.
IV.
The mischiefs that infest the earth,When the hot dog-star fires the realms on high,
Drought and disease, and cruel dearth,
Are but the flashes of a wrathful eye
From the incens'd divinity.
In vain our parching palates thirst,
For vital food in vain we cry,
And pant for vital breath;
The verdant fields are burnt to dust,
The sun has drunk the channels dry,
And all the air is death.
Ye scourges of our Maker's rod,
'Tis at his dread command, at his imperial nod
You deal your various plagues abroad.
V.
Hail, whirlwinds, hurricanes and floodsThat all the leafy standards strip,
And bear down with a mighty sweep
The riches of the fields, and honours of the wood;
Storms, that ravage o'er the deep,
And bury millions in the waves;
Earthquakes, that in midnight-sleep
Turn cities into heaps, and make our beds our graves?
While you dispense your mortal harms,
'Tis the Creator's voice that sounds your loud alarms,
When guilt with louder cries provokes a God to arms.
VI.
O for a message from aboveTo bear my spirits up!
Some pledge of my Creator's love
To calm my terrors, and support my hope!
Let waves and thunders mix and roar,
Be thou my God, and the whole world is mine:
While thou art sov'reign, I'm secure;
I shall be rich till thou art poor;
For all I fear, and all I wish, heav'n, earth and hell are thine.
| The Works of the Reverend and Learned Isaac Watts, D. D. | |