Isaac Watts: Verses about Fear

Christ's presence makes death easy.

Why should we start, and fear to die
What timorous worms we mortals are!
Death is the gate of endless joy,
And yet we dread to enter there.

The pains, the groans, and dying strife,
Fright our approaching souls away;
Still we shrink back again to life,
Fond of our prison and our clay.

O! if my Lord would come and meet,
My soul should stretch her wings in haste,
Fly fearless through death's iron gate,
Nor feel the terrors as she passed.

Jesus can make a dying bed
Feel soft as downy pillows are,
While on his breast I lean my head,
And breathe my life out sweetly there.

Salvation in the cross.

Here at thy cross, my dying God,
I lay my soul beneath thy love,
Beneath the droppings of thy blood,
Jesus, nor shall it e'er remove.

Not all that tyrants think or say,
With rage and lightning in their eyes,
Nor hell shall fright my heart away,
Should hell with all its legions rise.

Should worlds conspire to drive me thence,
Moveless and firm this heart should lie;
Resolved, (for that's my last defence,)
If I must perish, there to die.

But speak, my Lord, and calm my fear;
Am I not safe beneath thy shade?
Thy vengeance will not strike me here,
Nor Satan dares my soul invade.

Yes, I'm secure beneath thy blood,
And all my foes shall lose their aim:
Hosannah to my dying God,
And my best honors to his name.

Youth and judgment.

Eccl. 11:9.

Ye sons of Adam, vain and young,
Indulge your eyes, indulge your tongue,
Taste the delights your souls desire,
And give a loose to all your fire;

Pursue the pleasures you design,
And cheer your hearts with songs and wine;
Enjoy the day of mirth, but know
There is a day of judgment too.

God from on high beholds your thoughts,
His book records your secret faults;
The works of darkness you have done
Must all appear before the sun.

The vengeance to your follies due
Should strike your hearts with terror through:
How will you stand before his face,
Or answer for his injured grace?

Almighty God! turn off their eyes
From these alluring vanities;
And let the thunder of thy word
Awake their souls to fear the Lord.

v.1-5,10-12
C. M.
On a day of humiliation for disappointments in war.

Lord, hast thou cast the nation off?
Must we for ever mourn?
Wilt thou indulge immortal wrath?
Shall mercy ne'er return?

The terror of one frown of thine
Melts all our strength away;
Like men that totter drunk with wine,
We tremble in dismay.

Great Britain shakes beneath thy stroke
And dreads thy threat'ning hand;
O heal the island thou hast broke,
Confirm the wav'ring land.

Lift up a banner in the field
For those that fear thy name;
Save thy beloved with thy shield,
And put our foes to shame.

Go with our armies to the fight,
Like a confed'rate God;
In vain confed'rate powers unite
Against thy lifted rod.

Our troops shall gain a wide renown
By thine assisting hand
'Tis God that treads the mighty down,
And makes the feeble stand.

Storm and thunder.

Give to the Lord, ye sons of fame,
Give to {he Lord renown and power,
Ascribe due honors to his name,
And his eternal might adore.

The Lord proclaims his power aloud
Over the ocean and the land;
His voice divides the wat'ry cloud,
And lightnings blaze at his command.

He speaks, and tempest, hail, and wind,
Lay the wide forest bare around:
The fearful hart and frighted hind
Leap at the terror of the sound.

To Lebanon he turns his voice,
And lo, the stately cedars break;
The mountains tremble at the noise,
The valleys roar, the deserts quake.

The Lord sits sovereign on the flood,
The Thund'rer reigns for ever king;
But makes his church his blest abode,
Where we his awful glories sing.

In gentler language there, the Lord
The counsels of his grace imparts;
Amidst the raging storm, his word
Speaks peace and courage to our hearts.

Hell; or, The vengeance of God.

With holy fear and humble song,
The dreadful God our souls adore;
Rev'rence and awe become the tongue
That speaks the terrors of his power.

Far in the deep where darkness dwells,
The land of horror and despair,
Justice has built a dismal hell,
And laid her stores of vengeance there.

[Eternal plagues, and heavy chains,
Tormenting racks, and fiery coals,
And darts t' inflict immortal pains,
Dyed in the blood of damned souls.]

[There Satan, the first sinner, lies,
And roars, and bites his iron bands;
In vain the rebel strives to rise,
Crushed with the weight of both thy hands.]

There guilty ghosts of Adam's race
Shriek out, and howl beneath thy rod
Once they could scorn a Savior's grace,
But they incensed a dreadful God.

Tremble, my soul, and kiss the Son;
Sinners, obey the Savior's call;
Else your damnation hastens on,
And hell gapes wide to wait your fall.

Miracles attending Israel's journey.

When Isr'el, freed from Pharaoh's hand,
Left the proud tyrant and his land,
The tribes with cheerful homage own
Their King, and Judah was his throne.

Across the deep their journey lay;
The deep divides to make them way;
Jordan beheld their march, and fled
With backward current to his head.

The mountains shook like frighted sheep,
Like lambs the little hillocks leap;
Not Sinai on her base could stand,
Conscious of sovereign power at hand.

What power could make the deep divide?
Make Jordan backward roll his tide?
Why did ye leap, ye little hills?
And whence the fright that Sinai feels?

Let every mountain, every flood,
Retire and know th' approaching God,
The King of Isr'el: see him here;
Tremble, thou earth, adore and fear.

He thunders, and all nature mourns;
The rock to standing pools he turns;
Flints spring with fountains at his word,
And fires and seas confess the Lord.

v.1-5
L. M.
Public prayer and praise.

The praise of Zion waits for thee,
My God, and praise becomes thy house;
There shall thy saints thy glory see,
And there perform their public vows.

O thou whose mercy bends the skies
To save when humble sinners pray,
All lands to thee shall lift their eyes,
And islands of the northern sea.

Against my will my sins prevail,
But grace shall purge away their stain;
The blood of Christ will never fail
To wash my garments white again.

Blest is the man whom thou shalt choose,
And give him kind access to thee;
Give him a place within thy house,
To taste thy love divinely free.

PAUSE.

Let Babel fear when Zion prays;
Babel, prepare for long distress,
When Zion's God himself arrays
In terror and in righteousness.

With dreadful glory God fulfils
What his afflicted saints request;
And with almighty wrath reveals
His love, to give his churches rest.

Then shall the flocking nations run
To Zion's hill, and own their Lord;
The rising and the setting sun
Shall see the Savior's name adored.

Man mortal, and God eternal
A mournful song at a funeral.

Through every age, eternal God,
Thou art our rest, our safe abode;
High was thy throne ere heav'n was made,
Or earth thy humble footstool laid.

Long hadst thou reigned ere time began,
Or dust was fashioned to a man;
And long thy kingdom shall endure
When earth and time shall be no more.

But man, weak man, is born to die,
Made up of guilt and vanity;
Thy dreadful sentence, Lord, was just,
"Return, ye sinners, to your dust."

[A thousand of our years amount
Scarce to a day in thine account;
Like yesterday's departed light,
Or the last watch of ending night.

PAUSE.

Death, like an overflowing stream,
Sweeps us away; our life's a dream,
An empty tale, a morning flower,
Cut down and withered in an hour.]

[Our age to seventy years is set;
How short the time! how frail the state!
And if to eighty we arrive,
We rather sigh and groan than live.

But O how oft thy wrath appears,
And cuts off our expected years!
Thy wrath awakes our humble dread;
We fear the power that strikes us dead.]

Teach us, O Lord, how frail is man;
And kindly lengthen out our span,
Till a wise care of piety
Fit us to die, and dwell with thee.

v.1-8,16-18,22
C. M.
Support for the afflicted and tempted soul.

O God, my refuge, hear my cries,
"Behold my flowing tears;
For earth and hell my hurt devise,
And triumph in my fears.

Their rage is leveled at my life,
My soul with guilt they load,
And fill my thoughts with inward strife,
To shake my hope in God.

With inward pain my heart-strings sound,
I groan with ev'ry breath;
Horror and fear beset me round
Amongst the shades of death.

O were I like a feathered dove,
And innocence had wings,
I'd fly, and make a long remove
From all these restless things.

Let me to some wild desert go,
And find a peaceful home;
Where storms of malice never blow,
Temptations never come.

Vain hopes, and vain inventions all
To 'scape the rage of hell!
The mighty God on whom I call,
Can save me here as well.

PAUSE.

By morning light I'll seek his face,
At noon repeat my cry;
The night shall hear me ask his grace,
Nor will he long deny.

God shall preserve my soul from fear,
Or shield me when afraid;
Ten thousand angels must appear,
If he command their aid.

I cast my burdens on the Lord,
The Lord sustains them all;
My courage rests upon his word,
That saints shall never fall.

My highest hopes shall not be vain,
My lips shall spread his praise;
While cruel and deceitful men
Scarce live out half their days.

Israel saved, and the Assyrians destroyed.

In Judah God of old was known;
His name in Isr'el great;
In Salem stood his holy throne,
And Zion was his seat.

Among the praises of his saints
His dwelling there he chose;
There he received their just complaints
Against their haughty foes.

From Zion went his dreadful word,
And broke the threat'ning spear,
The bow, the arrows, and the sword,
And crushed th' Assyrian war.

What are the earth's wide kingdoms else
But mighty hills of prey?
The hill on which Jehovah dwells
Is glorious more than they.

'Twas Zion's King that stopped the breath
Of captains and their bands;
The men of might slept fast in death,
And never found their hands.

At thy rebuke, O Jacob's God,
Both horse and chariot fell:
Who knows the terrors of thy rod?
Thy vengeance who can tell?

What power can stand before thy sight,
When once thy wrath appears?
When heav'n shines round with dreadful light,
The earth lies still and fears.

When God in his own sovereign ways
Comes down to save th' oppressed,
The wrath of man shall work his praise,
And he'll restrain the rest.

[Vow to the Lord, and tribute bring,
Ye princes, fear his frown;
His terror shakes the proudest king,
And cuts an army down.

The thunder of his sharp rebuke
Our haughty foes shall feel;
For Jacob's God hath not forsook
But dwells in Zion still.]