His Spirit in the gospel chariot rides,
And thews his loving heart to draw the bride's;
Though oft in clouds his drawing pow'r he

hides.

His love in gracious offers to her bears, In kindly answers to her doubts and fears, Resolving all objections more or less From former fins, or present worthlefsness. Persuades her mind of's conjugal confent, And then impow'rs her heart to say, Content. Content to be divorced from the law, No more the yoke of legal terms to draw. Content that he diffolve the former match, And to himself alone her heart attach. Content to join with Christ at any rate, And wed him as her everlasting mate. Content that he should ever wear the bays, And of her whole salvation have the praife. Content that he should rife, though the should And to be nothing, that he may be all. [fall, Content that he, because she nought can do, Do for her all her work, and in her too. Here she a peremptory mind displays, That he do all the work, get all the praise. And now she is, which ne'er till now took place, Content entirely to be sav'd by grace. She owns that her damnation just would be, And therefore her falvation must be free: That nothing being hers but fin and thrall, She must be debtor unto grace for all.

Hence comes she to him in her naked cafe, To be invested with his righteousness. She comes, as guilty, to a pardon free; As vile and filthy, to a cleansing sea:

E

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As poor and empty, to the richest stock;
As weak and feeble, to the strongest rock:
As perishing, unto a shield from thrall;
As worse than nothing, to an all in all.
She as a blinded mole, an ign'rant fool,
Comes for inftruction to the Prophet's school..
She, with a hell-deferving confcious breast,
Flees for atonement to the worthy Priest.
She, as a flave to fin and Satan, wings
Her flight for help unto the King of kings.
She all her maladies and plagues brings forth
To this Phyfician of eternal worth.
She fpreads before his throne her filthy fore;
And lays her broken bones down at his door.
No mite she has to buy a crumb of blifs,
And therefore comes impov'rish'd, as she is. '
By fin and Satan of all good bereft,
Comes e'en as bare as they her foul have left.
To sense, as free of holiness within,
As Chrift, the spotless Lamb, was free of fin.
She comes by faith, true; butit shews her want,
And brings her as a finner, not a faint;
A wretched finner flying for her good
To justifying, fanctifying blood.
[vaunts,
Strong faith no strength, nor pow'r of acting,
But acts in sense of weakness and of wants.
Drain'd now of ev'ry thing that men may call
Terms and conditions of relief from thrall;
Except this one, that Jesus be her all.
When to the bride he gives espousing faith,
It finds her under fin, and guilt, and wrath,
And makes her as a plagued wretch to fall
At Jesus footstool for the cure of all.
Her whole falvation now in him she seeks,
And musing thus perhaps in fecret speaks:

}

'Lo! all my burdens may in him be eas'd; The justice I offended he has pleas'd; The bliss that I have forfeit he procur'd; 'The curse that I deserved he endur'd; 'The law that I have broken he obey'd; The debt that I contracted he has paid: 'And though a match unfit for him I be, ' I find him ev'ry way most fit for me.

[part,

'Sweet Lord, I think, would thou thyself im'I'd welcome thee with open hand and heart. 'But thou that sav'st by price, must save by ' O fend thy Spirit in a fiery show'r, [pow'r; • This cold and frozen heart of mine to thaw, That nought, save cords of burning, love, can

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draw.

O draw me, Lord, then will I run to thee, ' And glad into thy glowing bosom flee. 'I own myself a mass of fin and hell, ' A brat that can do nothing but rebel: ‘But didst thou not, as facred pages shew*, '(When rifing up to spoil the hellish crew, 'That had by thousands, sinners captive made, 'And hadst in conquʻring chains them captive 'Get donatives, not for thy proper gain,

[led)

But royal bounties for rebellious men, 'Gifts, graces, and the Spirit without bounds, 'For God's new house with man on firmer grounds? 'O then let me a rebel now come speed, Thy holy Spirit is the gift I need. 'His precious graces too, the glorious grant, 'Thou kindly promis'd, and 1 greatly want. 'Thou art exalted to the highest place, 'To give repentance forth, and ev'ry gracet.

•O Giver of spiritual life and breath,

The author and the finifer of faith; • Thou húsband-like must ev'ry thing provide, 'If e'er the like of me become thy bride.*

SECT V.

Faith's view of the freedom of grace, cordial renunciation of all its own ragged righteousness, and formal acceptance of and closing with the person of glorious CHRIST.

T

HE bride with open eyes, that once were dim,
Sees now her whole falvation lies in him;

The Prince, who is not in difpenfing nice,
But freely gives without her pains or price.
This magnifies the wonder in her eye,
Who not a farthing has wherewith to buy;
For now her humbled mind can disavow
Her boafted beauty and affuming brow;
With confcious eye difcern her emptiness,
With candid lips her poverty confefs.

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O glory to the Lord, that grace is free, * Elfe never would it light on guilty me. I nothing have with me to be its price, • But hellish blackness, enmity, and vice.' In former times the durst prefuming come To grace's market with a petty sum Of duties, prayers, tears, a boafted fet, Expecting Heav'n would thus be in her debt. These were the price, at least she did suppose She'd be the welcomer because of those: But now the fees the vileness of her vogue, The dung that close doth ev'ry duty clog;

‡ Heb. xii. 2.

The fin that doth her holiness reprove,
The enmity that close attends her love;
The great heart-hardness of her penitence,
The stupid dulness of her vaunted fenfe;
The unblief of former blazed faith,
The utter nothingness of all she hath.
The blackness of her beauty she can fee,
The pompous pride of strain'd humility,
The naughtiness of all her tears and prayʻrs,
And now renounces all as worthless wares;
And finding nothing to commend herself,
But what might damn her, her embezzled pelf;
At sov'reign grace's feet does proftrate fall,
Content to be in Jefus' debt for all.
Her noifed virtues vanish out of fight,
As starry tapers at meridian light;
While sweetly, humbly, she beholds at length
Christ, as her only righteousness and strength.
He with the view throws down his loving dart,
Imprest with pow'r into her tender heart.
The deeper that the law's fierce dart was thrown,
The deeper now the dart of love goes down:
Hence, sweetly pain'd, her cries to heav'n do flee;
O none but Jesus, none but Chrift for me:
• O glorious Chrift, O beauty, beauty rare,
Ten thousand thousand heav'ns are not fo fair.
In him at once all beauties meet and shine,
The white and ruddy, human and divine.
As in his low, he's in his high abode,
The brightest image of the unseen God*.
• How justly do the harpers fing above,
His doing, dying, rifing, reigning love!

* Heb. i. 3.

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