Classic Poem

HYMN IV.

When th' antient world God's patience try'd,
And long his threatning vengeance dar'd,
The righteous Noah favour found,
His family alone was spar'd.

In secret chambers of the ark
They all secure from danger lie,
When th' ocean's banks were broke, and floods
Burst thro' the windows of the sky.

Proud waters o'er the mountains roll,
And common ruin widely spread;
Yet the bless'd patriarch's house survives,
When all mankind beside were dead.

At the Almighty's awful word
Th' obsequious floods retire again;
And Noah from his mystick tomb
Peoples the ruin'd earth with men.

So to restore a world o'erwhelm'd
With guilt and mis'ry, dead in sins,
Our Saviour rising from the grave,
Another race of men begins:

New creatures of a heavenly form,
Whose souls his sacred image bear;
While dead to sin they live to God,
And spotless in white robes appear.

Bury'd in their redeemer's grave,
With him they live, with him they rise;
While the lost race of human kind
Delug'd with sin and ruin lies.

O happy souls, whom grace revives!
Their bodies too their Lord will raise,
Refin'd and fit for holy souls,
To see his face and sing his praise.