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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 clash.
You'd buy the bleffing with your vile refufe,
And to his precious righteoufnefs abufe.
What! buy his gifts with filthy lumber? nay,
Whoever offers this, muft hear him fay,
"Thy money perith with thy ful for ay

Duties are means, which to the marriage-bed
Should chalily lead us, like the chamber-maid;
But if with her, instead of Chrift, we match,
We not our fafety, but our ruin hatch.
To Cefar, what is Cefar's, fhould be giv'n;
But Cefar muft not have what's due to Heav'n :
So duties fhould have duty's room, 'tis true;
But nothing of the glorious Hufband's due.
While means the debt of clofe attendance crave,
Oir whole dependance God alone must have.
If duties, tears, our confcience pacify,
They with the blood of Chrift prefume to vie.
Means are his vaffals; fhall we without grudge
Difcard the matter, and efpoufe 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 faul at all,
Without the Hufband, who is all in all †.
Cry daily for the happy marriage hour:
To him belongs the mean, to him the pow'r.

SECT. III.

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A CALL to believe in JESUS CHRIST, with fome bints at the Act and Object of Faith.

RIEND, is the queftion on thy heart engrav'd,
"What fhall I do to be for ever 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 strength thine anchor drop,
Renouncing all thy former legal hope.

"Believe, fay thou! 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 cov'nant graces he alone can grant,
Whom God has giv'n to be the covenant+;
E'en Jefus, whom the facred letters call
Faith's object, author, finifher, and all;
In him alone, not in thy act of faith,
Thy foul believing full falvation 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 bleflings, or of paradife :

But Heav'n by giving this, ftrikes out a door
At which is carry'd in ftill more and more.
No finner mult upon his faith lay ftrefs,
As if it were a perfect righteousness.
God ne'er aflign'd unto it fuch a place;
'Tis but at best a bankrupt begging grace.
Its object makes its fame to fly abroad,
So clofe it grips the righteoufness of God;
Which righteoufnefs receiv'd, is, without ftrife,
The true condition of eternal life.

But ftill, fay you, pow'r to believe I mifs.
You may; but know you what believing is?
Faith lies not in your building up a tow'r
Of fome 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 fov'reign grace
By pow'rful drawing virtue turn the chafe.
Hence none believe in Jefus, as they ought,
'Till once they do believe they can do nought,
Nor are fufficient e'en to form a thought .

Acts xvi. 31. + Ifa. xlii. 6.

2 Cor. iii. 5.

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They're confcious in the right believing hour,
Of human weakness, and of divine pow'r.
Faith acts not in the fenfe of ftrength and might,
But in the fenfe of weaknefs acts outright.
It is (no bafting arm of pow'r or length)
But weaknels acting on almighty ftrength *.
It is the pow'rlefs, helpless finner's flight
Into the open arms of faving might:
'Tis an employing Jefus to d› all
That can within falvation's compafs fall;
To be the agent kind in ev'ry thing
Belonging to the Prophet, Prieft, and King;
To teach, to pardon, fanctify, and fave,
And nothing to the creature's pow'r to leave.
Faith makes us joyfuly content that he

Our Head, our Hufbind, and our All should be;
Our righteoufnefs and ftrength, our stock and store,
Our fund for food and raiment, grace and glore.
It makes the creature down to no thing fall,
Content that Chrift alone be all in all.

The plan of grace is faith's delighful 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 feeks, muft alfo 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 pow'r to make the carcafe hear.

But Heav'n may not this mighty pow'r difplay. Moft true; yet ftill thou art oblig'd t'obey. But God is not at all oblig'd to stretch His faving arm to fuch a finful wretch. All who within falvation-rolls have place, Are fav'd by a prerogative of grace: But veffels all that fhall with wrath be cramm'd, Are by an act of holy justice damn'd.

2 Cor. xii. 9.

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

SECT. IV.

An ADVICE to Sinners to apply to the fovereign Mercy of GOD, as it is difcovered through CHRIST, to the bigbeft bonour of Justice and other divine attributes, in order to further their Faith in him unto falvation.

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O, friend, and at JEHOVAH's footftool bow:
Thou know'il not what a fov'reign God may
Confefs, if he commiferate thy cafe,,
"Twill be an act of pow'rful fov'reign grace.
Sequeftrate carefully fome folemn hours,
To fue thy grand concern in fecret bow'rs.
Then in th' enfuing ftrain to God impart,
And pour into his bofom all thy heart.

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Ó glorious, gracious, pow'rful, 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 pow'r

• To clofe with glorious Chrift; yea, fill'd with fpite
At thy fair darling, and thy faints delight,
Refifling all his grace with all my might.

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• Come, Lord, and fap my enmity's ftrong tow'r; O hatte the marriage-day, the day of pow'r; That fweetly, by refiltlefs grace inclin'd,

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My once reluctant be a willing mind.

• Thou fpak'it to being ev'ry thing we fee, When thy almighty will faid, Let it be, Nothings to being in a moment pafs:

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Let there be light, thou faidft; and fo it was." A pow'rful word like this, a mighty call,

Muft fay, Let there be faith, and then it fhall.

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

• What good can iffue from a root fo ill?

This heart of mine's a wicked lump of hell;
Twill all thy common motions ftill refift,
Unless with fpecial drawing virtue bleft.

Gen. i. 3.

• Thou calls, but with the call thy pow'r convey;
• Command me to believe, and I'll obey,
Nr any more thy gracious call gainfay.
Command, O Lord; effectually command,
And grant I be not able to withstand;
Then pow'rlefs 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 moft juftly thou may't glorifie,
• In damning fuch a guilty wretch as me,
A faggot fitted for the burning fire

Of thine incenfed everlafling 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 praife,

Higher than rents which hell for ever pays:
Thefe to tremendous juftice never bring
A fatisfaction equal and condign.

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

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Since thus thy threat'ning law is honour'd more
Than e'er my fins affronted it before:
Since juftice ftern may greater glory won,
By juftifying in thy darling Sơn,

Than by condemning ev'n the rebel me;
To this device of wifdom, 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.
In lowest hell low praife is only won,
But juftice has the higheft in thy Son,
The Sun of righteousness that fet in red,.
To fhew the glorious morning would fucceed.

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