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Not deeming that your duties are the price
Of divine favour, or of paradife ;

Nor that your best efforts employ'd in these
Are fit exploits your awful Judge to please,
Why, thus you bafely idolize your trash,
And make it with the blood of Jefus clafh.
You'd buy the bleffing with your vile refufe,
And fo his precious righteoufnefs abuse.
What! buy his gifts with filthy lumber? nay;
Whoever offers this must hear him fay,
Thy money perish with thy foul for ay.*

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Duties are means, which to the marriage bed
Should chaftely lead us like a chamber maid;
But if with her inftead of Chrift we match,
We not our fafety, but our ruin hatch.
To Cefar what is Cefar's fhould be given,
But Cefar muft not have what's due to Heav'n;
So duties fhould have duties room, 'tis true,
But nothing of the glorious Husband's due.
While means the debt of clofe attendance crave,
Our whole dependence God alone must have.
If duties, tears, our confcience pacify,

They with the blood of Chrift presume to vie.
Means are his vaffals; fhall we without grudge
Difcard the master, and espouse the drudge?
The hypocrite, the legalift does fin,

To live on duties, not on Chrift therein.
He only feeds on empty dishes, plates,
Who dotes on means, but at the manna frets.
Let never means content thy foul at all,
Without the Hufband, who is all in all.†
Cry daily for the happy marriage hour;
To thee belongs the mean, to him the power.

SECT. III. A call to believe in Jefus Chrift, with fome hints at the act and object of Faith.

FRIEND, is the queftion on thy heart engrav'd, 'What fhall I do to be forever fav'd?

*Acts viii. 20.

+ Col. iii. 3.

Acts xvi. 30.

Lo! here's a living rock to build upon;
Believe in Jefus ;* and on him alone

For righteoufnefs and ftrength thine anchor drop,
Renouncing all thy former legal hope.

Believe (fay you!) I can no more believe,
Than keep the law of works, the DO and LIVE.'
True; and it were thy mercy, didft thou fee
Thine utter want of all ability.

New covenant graces he alone can grant,
Whom God has given to be the covenant;†
Even Jefus, whom the facred letters call
Faith's object, author, finisher, and all;
In him alone, not in thy act of faith,
Thy foul believing full falvation hath.

In this new covenant judge not faith to hold
The room of perfect doing in the old.
Faith is not given to be the fed'ral price
Of other bleflings, or of paradife :

But Heaven, by giving this, ftrikes out a door
At which is carried in ftill more and more.
No finner must upon his faith lay ftrefs,
As if it were a perfect righteousness.
God ne'er affign'd unto it fuch a place;
"Tis but at beft a bankrupt begging grace.
Its object makes its fame to fly abroad,
So close it gripes the righteoufness of God;
Which righteousness receiv'd, is (without ftrife)
The true condition of eternal life.

But ftill, fay you, power to believe I miss.
You may; but know you what believing is?
Faith lies not in your building up a tower
Of some great action by your proper power,
For Heaven well knows, that by the killing fall,
No power, no will remains in man at all
For acts divinely good; 'till fov'reign grace,
By powerful drawing virtue turn the chace.

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Hence none believe in Jefus as they ought,
'Till once they firft believe they can do nought,
Nor are fufficient e'en to form a thought.*

They're confcious, in the right believing hour,
Of human weakness, and of divine power.
Faith acts not in the sense of strength and might,
But in the fenfe of weakness acts outright.
It is (no boafting arm of power or length)
But weakness acting an almighty ftrength.†
It is the powerlefs, helpless finner's flight
Into the open arms of faving might:
'Tis an employing Jefus to do all
That can within falvation's compass fall;
To be the agent kind in ev'ry thing
Belonging to a prophet, prieft, and king;
To teach, to pardon, fanctify, and save,
And nothing to the creature's power to leave.
Faith makes us joyfully content that he

Our Head, our Husband, and our All should be;
Our righteoufnefs and ftrength, our ftock and ftore,
Our fund for food and raiment, grace and glore.
It makes the creature down to nothing fall,
Content that Chrift alone be all in all.

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The plan of grace is faith's delightful view, With which it clofes, both as good and true. Unto the truth, the mind's affent is full, Unto the good, a free confenting will. The Holy Spirit here the agent chief, Creates this faith, and dafhes unbelief. That very God who calls us to believe, The very faith he seeks must also give. Why calls he then? fay you. Pray, man, be wife; Why did he call dead Lazarus to rife? Because the orders in their bofom bear Almighty power to make the carcafe hear.

But Heaven may not this mighty power display. Moft true; yet still thou art obliged t' obey. But God is not at all obliged to stretch His faving arm to fuch a finful wretch.

*2 Cor. iii. 5.

† 2 Cor. xii. 9.

All who within falvation rolls have place,
Are faved by a prerogative of grace;

But veffels all that fhall with wrath be cramm'd,
Are by an act of holy juftice damn'd.

Take then, dear foul, as from a friendly heart,
The counfel which the following lines impart.

SECT. IV. An advice to finners to apply to the fovereign mercy of God, as it is difcovered through Chrift, to the higheft honour of justice, and other divine attributes, in order to further their faith in him unto falvation.

Go, friend, and at Jehovah's footstool bow;
Thou knowest not what a fov'reign God may do.
Confefs, if he commiferate thy cafe,

"Twill be an act of powerful fov'reign grace:
Sequeftrate carefully fome folemn hours,
To fhew thy grand concern in fecret powers.
Then in the enfuing ftrain to God impart,
And pour into his bofom all thy heart.

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O glorious, gracious, powerful, fov'reign Lord,
Thy help unto a finful worm afford;

Who from my wretched birth to this fad hour
Have ftill been deftitute of will and power

To clofe with glorious Chrift; yea, fill'd with spite
At thy fair darling, and thy faints' delight,

Refifting all his grace with all my might.

power:

Come, Lord, and fap my enmity's ftrong tower;
O hafte the marriage day, the day of
That fweetly, by refiftlefs grace inclin❜d,
My once reluctant be a willing mind.
Thou fpak'ft to being ev'ry thing we fee,
When thy almighty will faid, Let it be.
6 Nothings to beings in a moment pass :
Let there be light, thou faidft; and fo it was.
A powerful word like this, a mighty call,
Muft fay, Let there be faith, and then it fhall.

*

• Thou feek'st my faith and flight from fin and guilt; "Give what thou feek'ft, Lord; then feek what thou wilt..

*Gen. i. 3.

'What good can iffue from a root fo ill?
This heart of mine's a wicked lump of hell;
"Twill all thy common motions still refift,
Unless with special drawing virtue bleft.
Thou calls, but with the call thy power convey ;
• Command me to believe, and I'll obey,
Nor any more thy gracious call gainsay.
Command, O Lord, effectually command,
And grant I be not able to withstand;
Then powerless I will ftretch the wither'd hand.
I to thy favour can pretend no claim,
But what is borrow'd from thy glorious name;
Which though most justly thou may'ft glorify,
In damning fuch a guilty wretch as me,
A faggot fitted for the burning fire

Of thine incenfed everlasting ire:

Yet, Lord, fince now I hear thy glorious Son,
In favour of a race that was undone,
Did in thy name, by thy authority,

• Once to the full ftern juftice fatisfy;
And paid more glorious tribute thereunto
Than hell and all its torments e'er can do.
Since my falvation through his blood can raise
A revenue to juftice' highest praise,

Higher than rents, which hell for ever pays:
These to tremendous juflice never bring
A fatisfaction equal and condign.

But Jefus our once dying God performs,
What never could by ever dying worms:

Since thus thy threat'ning law is honour'd more
Than e'er my fins affronted it before:
Since juftice ftern may greater glory win,
By juftifying in thy darling Son,
Than by condemning ev'n the rebel me;
To this device of wisdom, lo! I flee.
Let juftice, Lord, according to thy will,
'Be glorify'd with glory great and full;
Not now in hell where juftice petty pay
Is but extorted parcels minc'd for ay:
But glorify'd in Chrift, who down has told
The total fum at once in liquid gold.

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