Till haughtiness of men be funk thereby,

That Chrift alone may be exalted high.

Now ftable earth feems from her centre toft,
And lofty mountains in the ocean loft.
Hard rocks of flint and haughty hills of pride,.
Are torn in pieces by the roaring tide.
Each flash of new conviction's lucid rays
Heart-errors, undifcerned till now, displays:
Wrath's maffy cloud upon the confcience breaks,
And thus menacing Heaven, in thunder speaks;
• Black wretch, thou madly under foot haft trod
• Th' authority of a commanding God;

Thou, like thy kindred that in Adam fell, 'Art but a law-reverfing lump of hell,

And there by law and justice doom'd to dwell.'
Now, now, the daunted bride her ftate 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 fhe liv'd;
Infinite majefty in God is feen ;

And infinite malignity in fin;
That to its expiation muft amount
A facrifice of infinite account.
Juftice its dire feverity difplays,
The law its vaft dimenfions open lays.
She fees for this broad ftandard nothing meet,
Save an obedience finless and complete.
Her cobweb righteoufnefs, 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.

Her heart, where once the thought fome good to dwell,
The devil's cab'net filled with trafh of hell.

Her boafted feature now unmasked bare,

Her vaunted hopes are plunged in deep despair.
Her haunted fhelter-house in bypast years

Comes tumbling down about her frighted ears.

• Rom. vii. 9.

Her former rotten faith, love, penitence,

She fees a bowing wall, and tott'ring fence.
Excellencies of thought, and word, and deed,
All fwimming, drowning in a fea of dread,
Her beauty now deformity fhe deems,

Her heart much blacker than the devil's feems;
With ready lips fhe can herfelf 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 Heaven would be unjust
To damn fo many lumps of human duft,
Form'd by himself; but now fhe owns it true,
Damnation furely is the finner's due:

Yea, now applauds the law's just doom fo well,
That juftly fhe condemns herself to hell;
Does herein divine equity acquit,
Herfelf adjudging to the lowest pit.

Her language, Oh! if God condemn, I mu
From bottom of my foul declare him juft.
• But if his great falvation me embrace,
How loudly will I fing furprising grace!
If from the pit he to the throne me raise,
I'll rival angels in his endle's praife.

If, hell-deferving, me to heaven he bring, 'No heart fo glad, no tongue fo loud fhall fing. If wisdom has not laid the faving 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 fhe becomes, her mouth is stopp'd.
Pungent remorse does her past conduct blame,
And flufh her confcious cheek with fpreading shame.
Her felf-conceited heart is felf-convict,

With barbed arrows of compunction pricked:
Wonders how justice spares her vital breath,
How patient Heaven adjourns the day of wrath;
How pliant earth does not with open jaws
Devour her, Korah-like, for equal caufe;
How yawning hell, that gapes for such a prey,

Is fruftrate with a further hour's delay,
She that could once her mighty works exalt,
And boaft devotion fram'd without a fault,
Extol her natʼral powers, is now brought down,
Her former madness, not her powers, to own.
Her prefent beggar'd ftate, most void of grace,
Unable even to wail her woful cafe,

Quite powerless 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.

SECT. III. The deeply humbled foul relieved with fome faving difcoveries of Chrift the Redeemer.

WHEN thus the wounded bride perceives full well, Herself the vileft finner out of hell,

The blackest monster in the universe;

Penfive, if clouds of wo fhall e'er disperse;

When in her breaft Heaven's wrath fo fiercely glows,
"Twixt fear and guilt her bones have no repofe.
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 feems at hand,
And yet fhe cannot, for her foul, command
A figh to eafe it, or a gracious thought,

Though heaven could at this petty rate be bought;
When darkness and confufion overcloud,
And unto black despair temptations crowd;
When wholly without ftrength to move or ftir,
And not a ftar by night appears to her :
But fhe, while to the brim her troubles flow,
Stands, trembling, on the utmost brink of woe.
Ah! weary cafe! But, lo! in this sad plight,
The fun arifes with furprifing light.

The darkest midnight is his usual time
Of rifing, and appearing in his prime.

To fhew the hills from whence falvation fprings,.
And chafe the gloomy fhade with golden wings,,

*

The glorious husband now unvails his face,
And thews his glory full of truth and grace:
Prefents unto the bride, in that dark hour,
Himfelf a Saviour, both by price and power:
A mighty Helper to redeem the loft,
Relieve and ransom to the uttermoft ;†
To feek the vagrant fheep to deserts driven,
And fave from lowest hell to highest heaven.
Her doleful cafe he fees, his bowels move,
And make her time of need his time of love ;‡
He fhews, to prove himself her mighty fhield,
His name is JESUS, by his Father feal'd:§
A name with attributes engrav'd within,
To fave from ev'ry attribute of fin.
With wifdem fin's great folly to expose,
And righteoufnefs its chain of guilt to loofe,
Sanctification to fubdue its way,

}

Redemption all its woful brood to flay.
Each golden letter of his glorious name
Bears full deliv'rance both from fin and shame.
Yea, not privation bare from fin and wo,
But thence all pofitive falvations flow,
To make her wife, juft, 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 she may boast in him, and nothing else.
In gospel lines fhe now perceives the dawn
Of Jefus' love, with bloody pencil drawn ;
How God in him is infinitely pleas'd,
And Heav'n avenging fury wholly appeas'd:
Law precepts magnify'd by her belov'd,
And ev'ry let to ftop the match remov'd.
Now in her view her prifon gates break ope,
Wide to the wall flies up the door of hope;
And now the fees with pleasure unexprefs'd,
For fhatter'd barks a happy fhore of rest.

John i. 14.
S Matth. 1. 21.

+ Heb. vii. 25.

1 Cor. i. 39.

Ezek. xvi. 6, 8.
Col. ii. 9, 10.

SECT. IV. The working of the Spirit of Faith, in feparating the heart from all felf-righteousness, and drawing out its confent to, and defire after Chrift alone and wholly.

THE bride at Sinai little understood
How thefe law humblings were defign'd for good,
T'enhance the value of her Hufband's blood.
The tow'r of tott'ring pride thus batter'd down,
Makes way for Chrift alone to wear the crown.
Conviction's arrows pierc'd her heart, that so

The blood from his pierc'd heart, to her's might flow.
The law's fharp plough tears up the fallow ground,
Where not a grain of grace was to be found,
Till ftraight perhaps behind the plough is fown
The hidden feed of faith, as yet unknown.
Hence now the once reluctant bride's inclin'd
To give the gospel an affenting mind,

Difpos'd to take, would grace the pow'r impart,
Heav'n's offer with a free confenting heart.
His Spirit in the gospel chariot rides,

And fhews his loving heart to draw the bride's;
Though oft in clouds his drawing pow'r he hides.
His love in gracious offers to her bears,
In kindly answers to her doubts and fears;
Refolving all objections more or lefs

From former fins, or prefent worthlessness.
Perfuades her mind of 's conjugal confent,
And then impow'rs her heart to fay, Content.
Content to be divorced from the law,
No more the yoke of legal terms to draw ;
Content that he diffolve the former match,
And to himself alone her heart attach;
Content to join with Christ at any rate,
And wed him as her everlasting mate;
Content that he fhould ever wear the bays,
And of her whole falvation have the praise;
Content that he should rife, though the fhould fall,
And to be nothing, that he may be all;
Content that he, because fhe nought could do,
Do for her all her work, and in her too.

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