Great God, the Heav’ns’ Well Ordered Frame

Great God

the heav’ns’ well or­dered frame

Declares the glor­ies of Thy name;

There Thy rich works of won­der shine;

A thou­sand star­ry beau­ties there

A thou­sand ra­di­ant marks ap­pear

Of bound­less pow­er and skill di­vine.

From night to day

from day to night

The dawn­ing and the dy­ing light

Lectures of heav’n­ly wis­dom read;

With si­lent elo­quence they raise

Our thoughts to our cre­at­or’s praise

And nei­ther sound nor lang­uage need.

Yet their di­vine in­struct­ions run

Far as the jour­neys of the sun

And ev­ery nation knows their voice:

The sun like some young bride­groom dressed

Breaks from the cham­bers of the east

Rolls round

and makes the earth re­joice.

Where’er he spreads his beams abroad

He smiles and speaks his mak­er God;

All na­ture joins to show Thy praise:

Thus God in ev­ery crea­ture shines;

Fair is the book of na­ture’s lines

But fair­er is Thy book of grace.

I love the vol­umes of Thy Word;

What light and joy the leaves af­ford

To souls be­night­ed and dis­tressed!

Thy pre­cepts guide my doubt­ful way

Thy fear for­bids my feet to stray

Thy pro­mise leads my heart to rest.

From the dis­co­ver­ies of Thy law

The per­fect rules of life I draw;

These are my stu­dy and de­light;

Not honey so in­vites the taste

Nor gold that hath the fur­nace passed

Appears so pleas­ing to the sight.

Thy threat­en­ings wake my slum­ber­ing eyes

And warn me where my dan­ger lies;

But ’tis thy bless­èd Gos­pel

Lord

That makes my guil­ty con­science clean

Converts my soul

sub­dues my sin

And gives a free but large re­ward.

Who knows the er­rors of his thoughts?

My God

for­give my sec­ret faults

And from pre­sump­tu­ous sins re­strain;

Accept my poor at­tempts of praise

That I have read Thy book of grace

And book of na­ture not in vain.