Their seek and find's the same with do and live.
Hence would they a connection native place
Between their moral pains and saving grace:
Their nat❜ral poor essays the Judge won't miss,
In justice, to infer eternal bliss.
Thus commentaries on the word they make,
Which to their ruin are a grand mistake:
For, through the legal bias in their breast,
They scripture to their own destruction wrest,
Why, if we seek, we get, they gather hence;
Which is not truth save in the scripture-sense.
There Jesus deals with friends, and elsewhere saith,
These seekers only speed that ask in faith".
"The prayer of the wicked is abhorr'd,
"As an abomination to the Lord."
Their suits are sins, but their neglects no less,
Which can't their guilt diminish but increase.
They ought, like beggars, lie in grace's way:
Hence Peter taught the sorcerer to prays;
For though mere nat'ral men's address or pray'rs
Can no acceptance gain as work of theirs,
Nor have, as their performance, any sway;
Yet as a divine ordinance they may.
But spotless truth has bound itself to grant
The suit of none but the believing saint.
In Jesus persons once accepted, do
Acceptance find in him for duties too.
For he, whose Son they do in marriage take,
Is bound to hear them for their husband's sake.
But let no Christless soul, at pray'r appear,
As if JEHOVAH were oblig'd to hear:
But use the means, because a sov'reign God
May come with alms in this his wonted road.
He wills thee to frequent kind wisdom's gate,
To read, hear, meditate, to pray and wait;
Thy Spirit then be on these duties bent,
As gospel means, but not as legal rent,
From these don't thy salvation hope nor claim,
But from JEHOVAH in the use of them.
The beggar's spirit never was so dull,
• James i. 6. • Prov. xv. 9. xxviii. 9.
While waiting at the gate call'd Beautiful,
To hope for succour from the temple-gate,
At which he daily did so careful wait:
But from the rich and charitable sort,
Who to the temple daily made resort.
Means, ordinances, are the comely gate,
At which kind heav'n has bid us constant wait :
Not that from these we have our alms, but from
The lib'ral God, who there is wont to come.
If either we these means shall dare neglect,
Or yet from these th' enriching bliss expect,
We from the glory of the King defalk;
Who in the galleries is won't to walk;
We move not regular in duties road,
But base, invert them to an idol-god.
Seek then, if gospel-means you would essay,
Through grace to use them in a gospel-way:
Nor deeming that your duties are the price
Of divine favour, or of Paradise ;
Not that your best efforts employ'd in these
Are fit exploits your awful Judge to please.
Why thus you basely idolize your trash,
And make it with the blood of Jesus clash.
You'd buy the blessing with your vile refuse,
And so his precious righteousness abuse.
What! buy his gifts with filthy lumber? nay,
Whoever offers this, must hear him say,
"Thy money perish with thy soul for ayr."
Duties are means, which to the marriage-bed
Should chastely lead us like the chamber-maid;
But if with her, instead of Christ, we match,
We not our safety but our ruin hatch.
To Cæsar, what is Cæsar's, should be giv'n;
But Cæsar must not have what's due to Heav'n :
So duties should have duty's room 'tis true;
But nothing of the glorious Husband's due.
While means the debt of close attendance crave,
Our whole dependence God alone must have.
If duties, tears, our conscience pacify,
They with the blood of Christ presume to vie.
Means are his vassals; shall we without grudge
Discard the master, and espouse the drudge?
The hypocrite, the legalist does sin,
To live on duties, not on Christ therein.
He only feeds on empty dishes, plates,
Who dotes on means, but at the manna frets.
Let never means content thy soul at all,
Without the Husband, who is all in all.
Cry daily for the happy marriage hour:
To him belongs the mean, to him the pow'r.
A Call to believe in JESUS CHRIST, with some hints at the Act and Object of Faith.
Friend, is the question on thy heart engrav'd,
"What shall I do to be for ever sav'd?"
Lo! here's a living rock to build upon :
Believe in Jesus"; and on him alone
For righteousness and strength thine anchor drop,
Renouncing all thy former legal hope.
"Believe, say thou! I can no more believe,
"Than keep the law of works, the DO and LIVE.”
True, and it were thy mercy, didst thou see
Thine utter want of all ability.
New cov❜nant graces he alone can grant,
Whom God has giv'n to be the covenant;
E'en Jesus, whom the sacred letters call
Faith's object, author, finisher, and all;
In him alone, not in thy act of faith,
Thy soul believing full salvation hath.
In this new cov❜nant judge not faith to hold
The room of perfect doing in the old.
Faith is not giv'n to be the fed'ral price
Of other blessings, or of paradise:
But Heav'n by giving this, strikes out a door
At which is carry'd in still more and more.
No sinner must upon his faith lay stress,
As if it were a perfect righteousness.
$ Col. iii. 3. t Acts xvi. 30. " Acts xvi. 31.
God ne'er assign'd unto it such a place;
'Tis but at best a bankrupt begging grace.
Its object makes its fame to fly abroad,
So close it grips the righteousness of God;
Which righteousness receiv'd, is, without strife,
The true condition of eternal life.
But still, say you, pow'r to belive I miss. You may; but know you what believing is? Faith lies not in your building up a tow'r Of some great action by your proper pow'r. For heav'n well knows, that by the killing fall, No pow'r, no will remains in man at all For acts divinely good; 'till sov'reign grace By pow'rful drawing virtue turn the chase. Hence none believe in Jesus, as they ought, 'Till once they do believe they can do nought, Nor are sufficient e'en to form a thought". They're conscious in the right believing hour, Of human weakness, and of divine pow'r. Faith acts not in the sense of strength and might, But in the sense of weakness acts outright. It is (no boasting arm of pow'r or length) But weakness acting on almighty strength*. It is the pow'rless, helpless sinner's flight Into the open arms of saving might: "Tis an employing Jesus to do all That can within salvation's compass fall; To be the agent kind in ev'ry thing Belonging to the Prophet, Priest, and King; To teach, to pardon, sanctify, and save, And nothing to the creature's pow'r to leave. Faith makes us joyfully content that he Our head, our husband, and our all should be; Our righteousness and strength, our stock and store, Our fund for food and raiment, grace and glore. It makes the creature down to nothing fall, Content that Christ alone be all in all.
The plan of grace is faith's delightful view, With which it closes both as good and true, Unto the truth, the mind's assent is full; Unto the good, a free consenting will.
2 Cor. iii. 5. x 2 Cor. xii. 9.
The holy Spirit here, the agent chief,
Creates this faith, and dashes unbelief.
That very God who calls us to believe,
The very faith he seeks, must also give.
Why calls he then? say you. Pray, man, be wise;
Why did he call dead Lazarus to rise?
Because the orders in their bosom bear
Almighty pow'r to make the carcase hear.
But heav'n may not this mighty pow'r display.
Most true; yet still thou art oblig'd t' obey.
But God is not at all oblig'd to stretch
His saving arm to such a sinful wretch.
All who within salvation-rolls have place,
Are sav'd by a prerogative of grace:
But vessels all that shall with wrath be cramm'd,
Are by an act of holy justice damn'd.
Take then, dear soul, as from a friendly heart,
The counsel which the following lines impart.
An Advice to Sinners to apply to the sovereign Mercy of God, as it is discovered through Christ, to the highest honour of Justice and other divine attributes, in order to further their Faith in him unto salvation.
Go, friend, and at JEHOVAH's footstool bow:
Thou know'st not what a sov'reign God may do.
Confess, if he commiserate thy case,
"Twill be an act of pow'rful sov'reign grace.
Sequestrate carefully some solemn hours,
To sue thy grand concern in secret bow'rs.
Then in th' ensuing strain to God impart,
And pour into his bosom all thy heart.
O glorious, gracious, pow'rful, sov'reign Lord, 'Thy help unto a sinful worm afford ;
'Who from my wretched birth to this sad hour, 'Have still been destitute of will and pow'r 'To close with glorious Christ; yea fill'd with spite 'At thy fair darling, and thy saints' delight, 'Resisting all his grace with all my might.
'Come, Lord, and sap my enmity's strong tow'r ; O haste the marriage-day, the day of pow'r;
|