The revelation of the gospel-flow'r, Is still the organ fam'd of saving pow'r; Most justly then are legal minds condemn'd, That of the glorious gospel are asham'd: For this the divine arm, and only this, The pow'r of God unto salvation is.* For therein is reveal'd to screen from wrath, The righteousness of God from faith to faith. The happy change in guilty sinners case They owe to free displays of sov❜reign grace; Whose joyful tidings of amazing love The ministration of the Spirit prove. The glorious vent the gospel news express, Of God's free grace, thro' Christ's full righteousness, Is Heav'n's gay chariot where the Spirit bides, And in his conqu'ring pow'r triumphant rides. The gospel-field is still the Spirit's soil, The golden pipe that bears the holy oil; The orb where he outshines the radiant sun, The silver channel where his graces run. Within the gospel-banks his flowing tide Of lightning, quickening, motions sweetly glide. Received ye the Spirit, Scripture saith,† By legal works, or by the works of faith? If by the gospel only, then let none Dare to be wiser than the wisest one.
We must, who freely get, as freely give The vital word that makes the dead to live. For ev'n to sinners dead within our reach We in his living name may most successful preach. The Spirit and the scripture both agree
Jointly (says Christ) to testify of me.
The preacher then will from his text decline,
That scorns to harmonize with this design.
Press moral duties to the last degree;
Rom. i. 16, 17. Gal. iii. 2.
Why not? but mind, lest we successless be,
No light, no hope, no strength for duties spring,
Where Jesus is not Prophet, Priest, and King.
No light to see the way unless he teach,
No joyful hope save in his blood we reach,
No strength unless his royal arm he stretch.
Then from our leading scope how gross we fall,
If, like his name, in ev'ry gospel-call,
We make not him the First, the Last, the All!
Our office is to bear the radiant torch
Of gospel-light into the darkened porch
Of human understandings, and display
The joyful dawn of everlasting day;
To draw the golden chariot of free grace,
The darkened shades with shining rays to chase,
'Till Heav'n's bright lamp on circling wheels be hurl'd,
With sparkling grandeur round the dusky world;
And thus to bring, in dying mortals sight,
New life and immortality to light.
We're charg'd to preach the gospel, unconfin'd,
To ev'ry creature of the human kind;
To call, with tenders of salvation free,
All corners of the earth to come and see:
And ev'ry sinner most excuseless make,
By urging rich and poor to come and take.
Ho, ev'ry one that thirsts,* is grace's call
Direct to needy sinners great and small,
Not meaning those alone, whose holy thirst
Denominates their souls already blest,
If only those were call'd, then none but saints;
Nor would the gospel suit the sinner's wants.
But here the call does signally import
Sinners and thirsty souls of ev'ry sort;
And mainly to their door the message brings,
Who yet are thirsting after empty things;
Who spend their means no living bread to buy,
And pains for that which cannot satisfy.
Such thirsty sinners here invited are,
Who vainly spend their money, thought, and care,
On passing shades, vile lusts, and trash so base
As yield immortal souls no true solace.
The call directs them, as they would be blest,
To choose a purer object of their thirst.
All are invited by the joyful sound
To drink who need, as does the parched ground,
Whose wide-mouth'd clefts speak to the brazen sky
Its passive thirst, without an active cry.
The gospel-preacher then with holy skill
Must offer Christ to whosoever will,
To sinners of all sorts that can be nam'd;
The blind, the lame, the poor, the halt, the maim'd.
Not daring to restrict the extensive call,
But op'ning wide the net to catch 'em all.
No soul must be excluded that will come,
Nor right of access be confi'd to some.
Tho' none will come till conscious of their want,
Yet right to come they have by sov'reign grant;
Such right to Christ, his promise and his grace,
That all are damn'd who hear and don't embrace.
So freely is th' unbounded call dispens'd,
We therein find ev'n sinners unconvinc'd ;
Who know not they are naked, blind, and poor,*
Counsel'd to buy or beg at Jesus' door,
And take the glorious robe, eye-salve, and golden store.
This prize they are oblig'd by faith to win,
Else unbelief would never be their sin.
Yea, gospel-offer but a sham we make,
If ev'ry sinner has not right to take.
Be gospel-heralds fortify'd from this,
To trumpet grace, howe'er the serpent hiss.
Did hell's malicious mouth in dreadful shape
'Gainst innocence itself malignant gape?
Then sacred truth's devoted vouchers may
For dire reproach their measures constant lay.
With cruel calumny of old commenc'd,
This sect will ev'ry where be spoke against;
While to and fro he runs the earth across
Whose name is ADELPHON KATEGOROS.*
In spite of hell be then our constant strife
To win the glorious Lamb a virgin-wife,
An exhortation to all that are out of CHRIST; in order to their closing the match with him: containing also motives and directions.
EADER, into thine hands these lines are giv'n,
But not without the providence of Heav'n;
Or to advance thy bliss, if thou art wise,
Or aggravate thy woe, if thou despise.
For thee, for thee, perhaps the omniscient ken
Has form'd the counsel here, and led the pen.
The writer then does thy attention plead,
In his great name that gave thee eyes to read.
Conviction offered to sinners, especially such as are wedded strictly to the law, or self-righteous, that they may see their need of Christ's righteousness.
I marriage-bed;;
F never yet thou didst fair Jesus wed,
* Or, The accuser of the brethren.
But hitherto art wedded to the law,
Which never could thy chain'd affections draw
From brutish lusts and sordid lovers charms;
Lo! thou art yet in Satan's folded arms.
Hell's pow'r invisible thy soul retains
His captive slave, lock'd up in massy chains.
O sinner then, as thou regard'st thy life,
Seek, seek with ardent care and earnest strife
To be the glorious Lamb's bethrothed wife.
For base corrivals never let him lose
Thy heart, his bed of conjugal repose.
Wed Christ alone, and with severe remorse
From other mates pursue a clean divorce;
For they thy ruin seek by fraud or force.
As lurking serpents in the shady bow'rs
Conceal their malice under spreading flowers;
So the deceitful lusts with cruel spite
Hide ghastly danger under gay delight.
Art thou a legal zealot, soft or rude,
Renounce thy nat'ral and acquired good.
As base deceitful lusts may work thy smart,
So may deceitful frames upon thy heart.
Seeming good motions may in some be found,
Much joy in hearing, like the stony ground;
Much sorrow too in praying, as appears
In Esau's careful suit with rueful tears.
Touching the law they blameless may appear,
From spurious views most specious virtues bear
Nor merely be devout in men's esteem,
But prove to be sincerely what they seem,
Friends to the holy law in heart and life,
Suers of heav'n with utmost legal strife;
Yet still with innate pride so rankly spic'd,
Converted but to duties, not to Christ,
That publicans and harlots heav'n obtain
Before a crew so righteous and so vain.
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