Who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like launderer’s soap.
Malachi 3:2
Words: James Montgomery, Original Hymns for Public, Private and Social Devotion (London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1853), number 290. During the Cholera. Confession and Supplication.
Music: Breslau As Hymnodus Sacer (Leipzig, Germany: 1625) (🔊 pdf nwc).
It is the Lord! Behold His hand
Outstretched with an afflictive rod;
And hark! a voice goes through the land,
Be still, and know that I am God.
Shall we, like guilty Adam, hide
In darkest shades our darker fears?
For who His coming may abide?
Or who shall stand when He appears?
No—let us throng around His seat;
No—let us meet Him face to face,
Prostrate our spirits at His feet,
Confess our sins, and sue for grace.
Who knows but God will hear our cries,
Turn swift destruction from our path,
Restrain His judgments, or chastise
In tender mercy, not in wrath?
He will, He will, for Jesus pleads;
Let Heav’n and earth His love record;
For us, for us, He intercedes;
Our help is nigh—it is the Lord!
Into His hands then let us fall,
Come health or sickness, life or death;
Whether He send us balm for gall,
Or immortality for breath.