Hence, prompted now with gratitude and love,
Her chearful feet in swift obedience move.
More strong the cords of love to duty draw,
Than hell and all the curles of the law.
When with seraphic love the breast's inspir’d,
By that are all the other grace's fir’d;
These kindling round, the burning heart and frame
In life and walk fend forth a holy flame.

***

**********

******

CH A P.

Η Α Ρ IV. A CAUTION to all against a legal fpirit; especially

to the fo that have a prolefi n without power, and

learning without grace. Wy fans the haughty heart of legalihs,

Bund to the law of works by nat'ral twists, " Why such ado about a law.divorce ; “ Men's lives are bad, and would you have 'em worfe?

Such Antinomian fluff, with labour'd toil, * Would human beauty's native luftre spoil. " What wickednefs beneath the cov'ring lurks, " That lewdly would divorce us from all works?

Why such a flir arout the law and grace? " We knout that merit cannot now take place, " And what need more?" Well, to let flander drop, Be merit for a little here the forpe.

Ah! many learn to lisp in gospel-terms,
Who yet embrace the law with legal arms.
By wholefome education fome are taught
To'own that human merit now is naught;
Who faintly but renounce proud merit's name,
And cleave refin’dly to the Popish scheme.
For graceful works expecting divine bliss ;
And, when they fail, trnt Chrift for what's amiss.
Thus to his righteousness profefs to flee;
Yet by it fill would their own saviours be.
They seem to works of merit bloody fres;
Yet seek salvation, as it were.*, by those.

lap

Blind Gentiles found, who did not seek nor know;
But Ifra'l lost it whole, who fought it so *.

Let all that love to wear the gospel-dress,
Know that as fin, so dastard righteouiness
Has flain its thousands; who, in tow’ring pride,
The righteousness of Jesus Christ deride:
A robe divinely wrought, divinely won,
Yet cast by men for rags that are their own.
But fime to legal works leem whole denyid,
Yet would by gospel-works be justify'd,

-
By faith, repentance, love, and other fuch:
These dreamers being righteous overmuch t,
Like Uzza give the the ark a wrongful touch.
By legal deeds, however gospeliz'd,
Can e'er tremenduous justice be appeas'd ?

?
Or finners justify'd before that God,
Whole law is perfect and exceeding broad I.?
Nay, faith itfelf, that leading gospel.grace,
Hoids, as a work, no justifying place.
Just Heav'n to man for righteousness imputes
Not faith itself, or in its acts or fruits ;
But Jesus' meritorious life and death,
Faith's proper object, all the honour bath.
From this doth faith dérive its glorious fame,
Its great renown and justifying name;
Receiving all things, but deserving nought;
By faith all's begg'd and taken, nothing boughi.
Its highest nanie is from the wedding. vote,
So instrumental in the marriage.kuut.
JEHOVAH lends the bride, in that blest hour,
Th' exceeding greatness of his mighty pow'rt;
Which sweetly does her heart-conlevt command
To reach the wealthy Prince her naked hand.
For close to his embrace she'd never Itir,
If first his loving arms embrac'd not her :
But this he does by kindly gradual chase,
Of rouling, reaching, teaching, drawing grace.
He shews her, in his sweeteit love-address,
His glory, as the Sun of righteousness;
Rom. ix. 30, 31.' + Eccl. vii. 16. Plal. xix. 7. Rom. vii. 12.

+ Eph. i. Is.

At which all dying glories earth adorn
Shrink like the fick moon at the wholefone morn.
This glorious Sun arising with a grace,
Dark Thades of creature-righteousnels to chase,
Faith now disclaims itself, and all the train
Of virtues formerly accounted gain;
And counts them dung*, with holy, meek disdain.
For now appears the height, the depth iminense
Of divine bounty and benevolence;
Amazing mercy, ignorant of bounds!
Which most enlarged faculties confounds.
How vain, how void now seem the vulgar charms,
The monarch's pomp of courts, and pride of arms?
The boasted beauties of the human kind,
The pow'rs of body, and the gifts of mind ?
Lo! in the grandeur of IMMANUEL's train,
All's swallow'd up, as rivers in the main.
He's feen, when gospel.light and sight is giv'n,
Encompass'd round with all the pomp of heav'n.

The foul, now taught of God, fees human schools
Make Chriltless Rabbi's only lit’rate fools ;
And that, till divine teaching pow'rful draw,
No learning will divorce thein from the law.
Mere argument may clear the head, and force
A verbal, not a cordial clean divorce.
Hence many, taught the wholesome terms of art,
Have gospel.heads, but still a legal heart.
'Till fou'reign grace and pow'r the finner catch,
He takes not Jeliis for his only match,
Nay, works compete! Ah! true, however odd,
Dead works are rival with the living God.
'Till Heav'n's preventing mercy clear the sight,
Confound the pride with supernat’ral light;
No haughty foul of human kind is brought
To mortify her self.exalting thought.

Yet holiest creatures in clay-tents that lodge, Be but their lives scann'd by the dreadful Judge; How shall they e'er his awful search endure, Before whose purelt eyes heav'n is not sure?

Phil. üii 72

8.

How must their black indictment be enlarg'd,
When by him angels are with folly charg'd ?
What human worth fhall stand, when he thall scan?
O may his glory stain the pride of man.

How wondrous are the tracts of divine grace?
How searchless are his ways, how vast th' abyss?
Let haughty reason stop, and fear to leap;
Angelic plummets cannot found the deep.
With scorn he turns his eyes from haughty kings,
With pleasure looks on low and worthless things;
Deep are his judgments, fou'reign is his will,
Let ev'ry mortal worm be dumb, be still.
In vain proud reason swells beyond its bound;
God and his counsels are a gulf profound,
An ocean wherein all our thoughts are drown'd.

}

с н А Р. V. Arguments and Encouragements to Gospel-ministers to

avoid a legal strain of doctrine, and endeavour the finner's match with Christ by gospel-means.

SECT. I.

A legal Spirit the root of damnable errors.
YE
E heralds great, that blow in name of God,

The silver trump of gospel-grace abroad;
And found, by warrant from the great I am,

AM
The nuptial treaty with the worthy Lamb:
Might ye but stoop the unpolish'd muse to brook,
And from a shrub an wholesome berry pluck;
Ye'd take encouragement from what is said,
By gospel-means to make the marriage-bed,
And to your glorious Lord a virgin chaste to wed.

The more proud nature bears a legal sway,
The more should preachers bend the gospel-way :
Oft in the church arise destructive schilms
From anti-evangelic ‘aphorisms;
A legal spirit may be jusly nand
The fertile womb of ev'ry error damn'd.

}

Hence Pop'ry, fo connat'ral since the fall,
Makes legal works like faviours merit all;
Yea, more than merit on their shoulder loads,
To fupererogate like demi-geds.

Hence proud Socinians fet their reason high,
Buve ev'ry precious gospel-myllery,
Its divine author ftab, and without fear
The purple covert of his chariot tear.

With these run Arian monsters in a line,
All gospel truth at once to undermine;
To darken and delete, like hellith foes,
The brightest colour of the Sharon Rose.
At best its human red they but decry,
That blot the divine white, the native dye.

Hence dare Arminians too, with brazen face,
Give man's free-will the throne of God's free grace;
Whose felf-exalting tenets clearly thew
Great ignorance of law and gospel too.

Hence Neonomians spring, as fundry call The new law-makers, to redress onr fall. The law of works into repentance, faith, Is chang'd, as their Baxterian Bible faith. Shaping the gospel to an easy law, They build their tott'ring house with hay and straw; Yet hide, like Rachel's idols in the fluif, Their legal hands within a gospel muff.

Yea, hence spring Antinomian vile refuse, Whofe grofs abettors gospel.grace abuse; Unkill'd how grace's filken latchet binds Her captives to the law with willing miods.

SECT. II.

.

A legal Strain of Doctrine discovered and discarded,
N
To wonder Paul the legal spirit curse,

Of fatal errors such a feeding nurse.
He, in JEHOVAH's great tremenduous name,
Condemus perverters of the gospel-scheme.
He damn’d the fophist rude, the babbling priest
Would venture to corrupt it in the leait;