My righteoufnefs the safest ark
'Midft ev'ry threat'ning flood will be ; My graces but a leaking bark
Upon a ftormy raging fea.
I fee in juftifying grace
God's love to me does ardent burn; But by imparted holiness
I, grateful, love for love return.
My righteousness is that which draws
My thankful heart to this refpect:
The former then is firft the cause,
The latter is the fweet effect.
Christ is in justifying me,
By name, The Lord my righteousness; But, as he comes to fanctify,
The Lord my frength and help he is. In that I have the patient's place, For there Jehovah's act is all; But in the other, I'm through grace An agent working at his call. The first does flavish fear forbid, For there his wrath revenging ends: The last commands my filial dread, For here paternal ire attends. The former does annul my wo,
By God's judicial fentence pafs'd; The latter makes my graces grow, Faith, love, repentance, and the rest. The first does divine pard'ning love Most freely manifest to me; The last makes fhining graces prove Mine int'reft in the pardon free. My foul in justifying grace
Does full and free acceptance gain;
In fanctity I heav'n ward press,
By fweet affiftance I obtain.
The firft declares I'm free of debt,
And nothing left for me to pay;
The last makes me a debtor yet,
But helps to pay it ev'ry day.
My righteoufnefs, with wounds and blood,
Difcharg'd both law and juftice' score;
Hence, with the debt of gratitude
I'll charge myself for evermore.
SECT. II. The Harmony between Juftification and Sanctification.
He who me decks with righteousness,
With grace will alfo clothe;
For glorious Jefus came to bless
By blood and water both.
That in his righteousness I trust,
My fanctity will fhow;
Though graces cannot make me just,
They fhow me to be fo.
All thofe who, freely justify'd,
Are of the pardon'd race,
Anon are alfo fanctify'd
And purify'd by grace.
Where juftice ftern does justify,
There holiness is clear'd;
Heav'n's equity and fanctity
Can never be fever'd.
Hence, when my foul with pardon deck'd,
Perceives no divine ire,
Then holiness I do affect
With paffionate defire.
His juftifying grace is fuch
As wafts my foul to heav'n :
I cannot choose but love him much,
Who much has me forgiven.
The Sun of righteoufnefs that brings
Remiffion in his rays,
The healing, in his golden wings
Of light and heat, conveys.
Wherever Jefus is a Prieft,
There will he be a King;
He that affoils from fin's arrest,
Won't tolerate its reign.
The title of a precious grace
To faith may juftly fall,
Because its open arms embrace
A precious Chrift for all.
From precious faith a precious ftrife
Of precious virtues flow;
A precious heart, a precious life,
And precious duties too.
Wherever faith does juftify,
It purifies the heart:
The pardon and the purity
Join hands and never part.
The happy ftate of pardon doth
An holy life infer :
In fubjects capable of both
They never funder'd were.
Yet in defence of truth must we
Diftinctly view the twain;
That how they differ, how agree,
We may in truth maintain.
Two natures in one perfon dwell,
Which no divifion know,
In our renown'd Immanuel,
Without confufion too.
Thofe that divide them grofsly err,
Though yet diftin't they be Thofe who confufion hence infer,
Imagine blafphemy.
Thus righteoufnefs and grace we must
Nor funder nor confound;
Elfe holy peace to us is loft,
And facred truth we wound.
While we their proper place maintain,
In friendship sweet they dwell;
But or to part or blend the twain,
Are errors hatch'd in hell.
To feparate what God does join,
Is wicked and profane;
To mix and mutilate his coin,
Is damnable and vain.
Though plain diftinction must take place,
Yet no divifion here,
Nor dark confufion; else the grace
Of both will disappear.
Lo! errors grofs on ev'ry fide
Confpire to hurt and wound;
Antinomifts do them divide,
And legalifts confound.
The Believer's Principles concerning Faith and Senfe.
1. Of Faith and Senfe Natural.
2. Of Faith and Senfe Spiritual.
3. The Harmony and Discord between Faith and Senfe.
4. The Valour and Victories of Faith.
5. The Heights and Depths of Sense.
6. Faith and Frames compared; or, Faith building upon
SECT. I. Faith and Senfe Natural, compared and diftin
WHEN Abram's body, Sarah's womb,
Were ripe for nothing but the tomb,
Exceeding old, and wholly dead,
Unlike to bear the promis'd feed;
Faith faid, I fall an Ifaac fee:
No, no, said sense, it cannot be :
Blind reafon, to augment the ftrife,
Adds, How can death engender life?
My heart is like a rotten tomb,
More dead than ever Sarah's womb;
O! can the promis'd feed of
Spring forth from fuch a barren place?
Senfe gazing but on flinty rocks,
My hope and expectation chokes :
But could I, fkill'd in Abram's art,
O'erlook my dead and barren heart;
And build my hope on nothing lefs
Than divine power and faithfulness ;
Soon would I find him raise up fons
To Abram, out of stocks and stones.
Faith acts as bufy boatmen do,
Who backward look and forward row ;
It looks intent to things unseen,
Thinks objects vifible too mean.
Senfe thinks it madness thus to fteer,
And only trufts its eye and ear;
Into faith's boat dare thruft its oar,
And put it further from the fhore.
Faith does alone the promise eye;
Senfe won't believe unless it fee;
Nor can it trust the divine guide,
Unless it have both wind and tide.
Faith thinks the promife fure and good;
Senfe doth depend on likelihood;
Faith ev'n in ftorms believes the feers;
Senfe calls all men, even prophets, liars.
Faith ufes means, but refts on none;
Senfe fails when outward means are gone,
Trufts more on probabilities,
Than all the divine promises.
It refts upon the rusty beam
Of outward things that hopeful feem;
Let thefe its fupport fmk or cease,
No promife then can yield it peace.
True faith, that's of a divine brood,
Confults not base with flesh and blood;
But carnal fenfe, which ever errs,
With carnal reafon ftill confers.
What! wont my difciples believe
That I am rifen from the grave?
Why will they pore on duft and death,
And overlook my quick'ning breath?
Why do they flight the word I spake?
And rather forry counfel take
With death, and with a powerful grave,
If they their captive can relieve?
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