And greater honour to the law does share,
Than boasters all that breathe the vital air.
E'en heathen morals vastly may outshine
The works that flow not from a faith divine.

Pretenfions high to faith a number have,
But, ah! it is a faith that cannot fave:
"We trust, say they, in Chrift, we hope in God;"
Nor blush to blaze their rotten faith abroad.
Nor, try the trust of which they make a shew,
If of a faving or a damning hue.
They own their fins are ill; true, but, 'tis fad,
They never thought their faith and hope were bad.
How evident's their home-bred nat'ral blaze,
Who dream they have believ'd well all their days,
Yet never felt their unbelief, nor knew
The need of pow'r their natures to renew ?
Blind fouls that boast of faith, yet live in fin,
May hence conclude their faith is to begin;
Or know they shall, by such an airy faith,
Believe themselves to everlasting wrath.
Faith that nor leads to good, nor keeps from ill,
Will never lead to heav'n, nor keep from hell.
The body without breath is dead no less *: no less
Is faith without the works of holiness †.
How rare is saving faith, when earth is cramm'd
With fuch as will believe, and yet be damn'd;
Believe the gospel, yet with dread and awe
Have never truly yet believ'd the law?
That matter shall be well, they hope too foon,
Who never yet have seen themselves undone.
Can of falvation their belief be true,
Who never yet believ'd damnation due?
Can thefe of endless life have folid faith,
Who never fear'd law-threats of endless death?
Nay, fail'd they ha'nt yet to the healing shore,
Who never felt their sinful woful fore.

Imaginary faith is but a blind,
That bears no fruit, but of a deadly kind;
Nor can from such a wild, unwholesome root
The least production raise of living fruit.

But saving faith can such an offspring breed,
Her native product is a holy feed.

The fairest issues of the vital breath

Spring from the fertile womb of heav'n-born faith;
Yet boasts the nothing of her own, but brings

Auxiliaries from the King of kings,

Who graves his royal law in rocky hearts,
And gracious aid in softning show'rs imparts:
This gives prolific virtue to the faith,
Inspir'd at first by his almighty breath.
Hence, fetching all her fuccours from abroad,
She still employs this mighty pow'r of God.
Drain'd clean of native pow'rs and legal aims,
No strength but in and from JEHOVAH claims.
And thus her fervice to the law o'ertops
The tow'ring zeal of Pharifaic fops.

SECT. IV.

:

The Believer only, being married to Christ, is justified and fanctified; and the more gospel-freedom from the law as a covenant, the more boly conformity to it as a

rule.

THUS doth the Husband by his Father's will

Both for and in his bride the law fulfil :

For her, as 'tis a covenant; and then
In her, as 'tis a rule of life to men.
First all law-debt he most completely pays;
Then of law-duties all the charge defrays.
Does first assume her guilt, and loose her chains;
And then with living water wash her stains :
Her fund restore, and then her form repair,
And make his filthy bride a beauty fair;
His perfect righteousness most freely grant,
And then his holy image deep implant;
Into her heart his precious feed indrop,
Which, in his time, will yield a glorious crop.
But by alternate turns his plants he brings
Thro' robbing winters and repairing springs.
Hence, pining oft, they suffer sad decays,
By dint of shady nights and stormy days.

:

But blest with sap, and influence from above,
They live and grow anew in faith and love;
Until transplanted to the higher foil,
Where furies tread no more, nor foxes spoil.
While Christ, the living root remains on high,
The noble plant of grace can never die:
Nature decays, and so will all the fruit,
That merely rifes on a mortal root.
Their works, however fplendid, are but dead,
That from a living fountain don't proceed;
Their fairest fruit is but a garnish'd shrine,
That are not grafted in the glorious vine.
Devoutest hypocrites are rank'd in rolls
Of painted puppets, not of living fouls.

No offspring but of Chrift's fair bride is good,
This happy marriage has a holy brood.
Let finners learn this mystery to read,
We bear to glorious Chrift no precious feed,
'Till, thro' the law, we to the law be dead. *.
No true obedience to the law, but forc'd,
Can any yield, 'till from the law divorc'd.
Nor to it as a rule, is homage giv'n,
Till from it, as a cov'nant, men be driv'n.
Yea more, till once they this divorce attain,
Divorce from fin they but attempt in vain;
The curfed yoke of fin they bafely draw,
'Till once unyoked from the curfed law.
Sin's full dominion keeps its native place,
While men are under law, not under grace. †
For mighty hills of enmity won't move,
'Till touch'd by fov'reign grace and mighty love.

Were but the gofpel-fecret understood,
How God can pardon where he fees no good;
How grace and mercy free, that can't be bought,
Reign thro' a righteousness already wrought:
Were woful reigning unbelief depos'd,
Mystrious grace to blinded minds disclos'd:
Did heav'n with gospel-news its pow'r convey,
And finners hear a faithful God but say,
"No more law-debt remains for you to pay;

1

"Lo! by the loving Surety all's discharg'd."
Their hearts behov'd with love to be enlarg'd :
Love, the succinct fulfilling of the law *,
Were then the easy yoke they'd sweetly draw,
Love would constrain and to his service move,
Who left them nothing else to do but love.
Slight now his loving precepts if they can;
No, no; his conqu'ring kindness leads the van.
When everlasting love exerts the sway,
They judge themselves more kindly bound t'obey;
Bound by redeeming grace in stricter sense
Than ever Adam was in innocence.

Why now they are not bound, as formerly,
To do and live, nor yet to do or die;

Both life and death are put in Jefus' hands,
Who urges neither in his kind commands,
Not fervile work their life and heav'n to win,
Nor flavish labour death and hell to shun.
Their aims are purer, since they understood
Their heav'n was bought, their hell was quench'd with
The oars of gofpel-fervice now they steer,
Without or legal hope or flavish fear.

(blood.

The bride in sweet security can dwell,
Nor bound to purchase heav'n, nor vanquish hell:
But bound for him the race of love to run,
Whofe love to her left none of these undone;
She's bound to be the Lamb's obedient wife:
And in his strength to ferve him during life,
To glorify his loving name for ay,
Who left her not a single mite to pay
Of legal debt, but wrote for her at large,
In characters of blood, a full discharge.
Henceforth no servile task her labours prove,
But grateful fruits of reverential love.

:

SECT.

V.

Gospel-grace giving no liberty nor freedom to fin, but to

boly Service and pure obedience.

THE glorious Husband's love can't lead the wife

To whoredom, or licentiousness of life :
Nay, nay; the finds his warmest love within,
The hottest fire to melt her heart for fin.
His kind embrace is still the strongest cord
To bind her to the service of her Lord.
The more her faith insures this love of his,
The more his law her delectation is.

Some dream, they might, who this afsurance win,
Take latitude and liberty to fin.

Ah! fuch bewray their ignorance, and prove
They want the lively sense of drawing love,
And how its sweet constraining force can move.
The ark of grace came never in to dwell,
But Dagon-lufts before it headlong fell.
Men bafely can unto lafciviousness
Abuse the doctrine, not the work of grace.
Huggers of divine love in vice's path,
Have but the fancy of it, not the faith.
They never foar'd aloft on grace's wing,
That knew not grace to be a holy thing;
When regnant the the pow'rs of hell appals,
And fin's dominion in the ruin falls.
Curst is the crew, whose Antinomian dress
Makes grace a cover to their idleness.
The bride of Christ will fure be very loth
To make his love a pillow for her floth.
Why, inay'nt she sin the more that grace abounds?
Oh! God forbid! the very thought confounds.
When dead unto the law, she's dead to fin;
How can the any longer live therein * ?
To neither of them is the now a flave,
But fhares the conquest of the great, the brave,
The mighty Gen'ral, her victorious Head,
Who broke the double chain to free the bride.

}