Now, now, the daunted bride her state bewails, And downward furls her felf-exalting fails; With pungent fear, and piercing terror brought To mortify her lofty legal thought. Why, the commandment comes, fin is reviv'd*, That lay fo hid, while to the law she liv'd;
Infinite majesty in God is then, And infinite malignity in fin; That to its expiation must amount, A facrifice of infinite account. Justice its dire feverity displays, The law its vast dimensions open lays. She fees for this broad standard nothing meet, Save an obedience finless and complete. Her cob-web righteousness, once in renown, Is with a happy vengeance now swept down. She who of daily faults could once but prate, Sees now her finful, miferable state. [to dwell, Her heart, where once the thought fome good The devil's cab'net fill'd with trash of hell. Her boafted features now unmasked bare, Her vaunted hopes are plung'd in deep despair. Her haunted shelter-house in bypast years, Comes tumbling down about her frighted ears. Her former rotten faith, love, penitence, She fees a bowing wall, and tott'ring fence. Excellencies of thought, and word and deed, All swimming, drowning in a fea of dread; Her beauty now deformity she deems, Her heart much blacker than the devil seems. With ready lips she can herself declare The vileft ever breath'd in vital air. Her former hopes, as refuges of lies, Are swept away, and all her boafting dies,
She once imagin'd Heav'n would be unjust To damn so many lumps of human duft, Form'd by himself; but now she owns it true, Damnation furely is the finner's due: Yea, now applauds the law's just doom so well, That justly she condemns herself to hell; Does herein divine equity acquit, Herself adjudging to the lowest pit. Her language, Oh! if God condemn, I must • From bottom of my foul declare him just. • But if his great falvation me embrace, • How loudly will I sing surprising grace ! • If from the pit he to the throne me raise, • I'll rival angels in his endless praife. • If hell-deferving me to heav'n he bring, • No heart so glad, no tongue so loud shall fing. • If wisdom has not laid the saving plan, • I nothing have to claim, I nothing can. • My works but fin, my merit death I fee; Oh! mercy, mercy, mercy! pity me.' Thus all felf-justifying pleas are dropp'd, Moft guilty she becomes, her mouth is stopp'd, Pungent remorse does her past conduct blame, And flush her confcious cheek with spreading Her felf-conceited heart is felf-convict [thame. With barbed arrows of compunction prick'd: Wonders, how justice spares her vital breath, How patient Heav'n adjourns the day of wrath; How pliant earth does not with open jaws Devour her, Korah-like, for equal cause ; How yawning hell, that gapes for fuch a prey, Is frustrate with a further hour's delay. She that could once her mighty works exalt, And boast devotion fram'd without a fault,
Extol her nat'ral pow'rs, is now brought down, Her former madness, not her pow'rs, to own. Her present beggar'd state, most void of grace, Unable even to wail her woful cafe, Quite pow'rless to believe, repent, or pray; Thus pride of duties flies and dies away. She, like a harden'd wretch, a ftupid ftone, Lies in the duft, and cries, Undone, Undone.
The deeply humbled foul RELIEVED with some faving discoveries of CHRIST the Redeemer.
HEN thus the wounded bride perceives
full well Herself the vilest finner out of hell, The blackest monster in the universe; Pensive if clouds of wo shall e'er disperse.
When in her breast Heav'n's wrath fo fiercely
'Twixt fear and guilt her bones have no repose. When flowing billows of amazing dread Swell to a deluge o'er her finking head; When nothing in her heart is found to dwell, But horrid Atheism, enmity, and hell; When endless death and ruin seems at hand, And yet the cannot for her foul command A figh to ease it, or a gracious thought, [bought. Though heav'n could at this petty rate be When darkness and confusion overcloud, And unto black despair temptations croud; When wholly without strength to move or ftir, And not a star by night appears to her: But she, while to the brim her troubles flow, Stands, trembling on the utmost brink of wo.
Ah! weary cafe! But, lo! in this fad plight
The fun arifes with surprising light. The darkest midnight is his ufual time Of rifing and appearing in his prime. To shew the hills from whence falvation springs, And chase the gloomy fhades with golden wings, The glorious Husband now unvails his face, And thews his glory full of truth and grace*; Presents unto the bride, in that dark hour, Himself a Saviour, both by price and power: A mighty helper to redeem the loft, Relieve and ranform to the uttermoflf; To feek the vagrant heep to deferts driv'n, And fave from lowest hell to highest heav'n. Her doleful cafe he fees, his bowels move, And makes her time of need his time of love †; He shews, to prove himself her mighty shield, His name is JESUS, by his Father feal'd ||: A name with attributes engraved within, To fave from ev'ry attribute of fin. With wisdom fin's great folly to expose, And righteousness its chain of guilt to loose, Sanctification to subdue its sway, Redemption all its woful brood to flay §. Each golden letter of his glorious name Bears full deliv'rance both from sin and shame.. Yea, not privation bear from fin and wo, But thence all positive falvations flow, To make her wise, just, holy, happy too. He now appears a match exactly meet To make her ev'ry way in him complete, In whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells*, That the may boaft in him, and nothing else.
* John i 14. || Matt. i. 21.
† Heb. vii. 25. † Ezek. xvi. 6, 8.
In gospel lines she now perceives the dawn Of Jefus' love with bloody pencil drawn; How God in him is infinitely pleas'd, And Heav'n's avenging fury whole appeas'd: Law-precepts magnify'd by her beloved, And ev'ry let to stop the match remov'd. Now in her view her prison gates break ope, Wide to the walls flies up the door of hope; And now the fees with pleasure unexpress'd For shatter'd barks a happy shore of reft.
The working of the Spirit of faith in feparating the heart from all felf-righteousness, and drawing out its confent to, and desire after CHRIST alone and wholly.
HE bride at Sinai little understood, How these law humblings were design'd
T' enhance the value of her Husband's blood. J The tow'r of tott'ring pride thus batter'd down, Makes way for Christ alone to wear the crown. Conviction's arrows pierc'd her heart, that fo The blood from his pierc'd heart, to hers might
The law's sharp plough tears up the fallow
ground, Where not a grain of grace was to be found, Till straight perhaps behind the plow is sown The hidden feed of faith, as yet unknown. Hence now the once reluctant bride's inclin'd To give the gospel an affenting mind, Dispos'd to take, would grace the pow'r impart, Heav'n's offer with a free confenting heart.
« VorigeDoorgaan » |