Arguments and Encouragements to Gospel Ministers
Arguments and Encouragements to Gospel Minis-’ r$ to avoid a legal Strain of Doctrine, and endeavour the Sinners Match with Christ by Gospel-means
SECT. I.
A legal Spirit the Root of damnable Errors.
^V”E heralds great, that blow in name of God, The silver trump of gospel-grace abroad; And sound, by warrant from the great I AM, The nuptial treaty with the worthy Lamb:
Might ye but stoop th’ unpolish’d muse to brook. And from a shrub an wholesome berry pluck; Wd take encouragement from what is said* i By gospel-means to make the marriage-bed, !> And to your glorious Lord a virgin chaste to wed* J
The more proud nature bears a legal sway, The more should preachers bend the gospel way* Oft in the church arise destructive schisms From anti-evangelic aphorisms; A legal spirit may be justly nam’d The fertile womb of ev’ry error damn’d.
Hence Pop’ry, so connat’ral since the fall, Makes legal works, like saviours, merit all; Yea, more than merit on their shouider loads, To supererogate like demi-gods. Hence proud Socmians seat their reason high* ‘Bove ev’ry precious gospel-mystery, Its divine Author stab, 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 hellish 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 Whose self-exalting tenets clearly shew [grace; Great ignorance of law and gospel too.
Hence ileonomians spring, as sundry call The new law-makers to redress our fall. The law of w7or.ks into repentance, faith, Is changed, as their Baxterian-bible saith. 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 stuff, Their legal hands within a gospel mufti.
Tin: believer’s espousals. fS
Yea, hence springs Antinomian vile refuse, Whose gross abettors gospel grace abuse: Unskilled how grace’s silken latchet binds Her captives to the law, with willing minds.
SECT. IT.
A legal Strain of Doctrine discovered and discarded.
No wonder Paul the legal spirit curse, Of fatal errors such a feeding nurse. He, in Jehovah’s great tremendous name, Condemns perverters of the gospel-scheme. He damn’d the sophist rude, the babbling priest Would venture to corrupt it in the least; Yea, curs’ d the heav’nly angel down to hell, That daring would another gospel tell e. [pense Which crime is charg’d on these that dare dis-The self-same gospel in another sense.
Christ is not preach’d in truth, but in disguise, If his fright glory half absconded lies; When gospel soldiers that divide the word, Scarce brandish any but the legal sword. While Christ the author of the law they press, More than the end of it for righteousness; Christ as a seeker of our service trace, More than a giver of enabling grace. The King commanding holiness they show, More than the Prince exalted to bestow; Yea, more on Christ the sin-revenger dwell, Than Christ Redeemer both from sin and hell.
With legal spade the gospel-field he delves, Who thus drives sinners in unto themselves; Halving the truth that should be all reveaTd, The sweetest part of Christ is oft conceafd. “We bid men turn from sin, but seldom say, Behold the Lamb that takes all sin awayf! Christ, by the gospel rightly understood, Not only treats a peace, but makes it good
c Gai. i. 7,8. f John i. io.
Those suitors, therefore, of the hride, who hope, By force, to drag her with the legal rope; Nor use the drawing cord of conquering grace, Pursue with flaming zeal a fruitless chase* In vain lame doings urge, with solemn awe, To bribe the fury of the fiery law: With equal success to the fool that aims, By” paper walls to bound devouring flames.
The law’s but mock’d by their most graceful That wed not first the law-fulfilling Head; [deed, It values neither how they wrought nor wept, That slight the ark wherein alone ’tis kept. Yet legalists, DO, DO, with ardour press, And with prepost’rous zeal and warm address, Would seem the greatest friends to holiness: J But vainly (could such opposites accord) Respect the law, and yet reject the Lord, They shew not Jesus as the way to bliss, But, Judas-like, betray him with a kiss Of boasted works, or mere profession puft, LawT-boasters, proving but law-breakers oft.
SECT. III.
The Hnrtfulness of not preaching Christ, and distinguishing duly between Law and Gospel.
H ell cares not how crude holiness be preach’d, If sinners match with Christ be never reach’d; Knowing their holiness is but a sham, Who ne’er are married to the holy Lamb. Let words have never such a pious shew, And blaze aloft in rude professor’s view, With sacred aromatics richly spie’d, If they but drown in silence glorious Christ: Or if he may some vacant room supply, Make him a subject only by the bye; They mar true holiness with tickling chat, To breed a bastard Pharisaic brat.
They woefully the gospel message broke, Make fearful havoc of the Master’s flock;
V< t please tlu-msi Ives, and the blind multitude, By whom the gospel’s little understood.
Rude sods, perhaps, imagine little odds Between tie legal and the gospel roads: But vainly men attempt to blend the two; Th< y differ more than Christ and Moses do. Moses, evangelizing in a shade, By types the news of light approaching spread: B it from the law of works, by him proclaim’d, No ray of gospel-grace or mercy gleam’d. B uaturefa light, the law to ail is known, But lightsome news of gospel-grace to none. I.’.’ doing cov’nant now, in part or whole, Is strong to dama, but weak to save a soul. It hurts, and cannot help, but as it tends Through mercy, to subserve some gospel-ends, Law-thunder roughly to the gospel tames, The gospel mildly to the law reclaims. The fiery law, as ’tis a covenant, Schools men to see the gospel-aid they want; Then gospel-aid does sweetly them incline, Back to the law, as ’tis a rule divine. Heav’n’s healing work is oft commenced with
wounds, Terror begins what loving-kindness crowms. Preachers may therefore press the fiery law, To strike theChristless man with dreadful awe: Law threats which for his sins to hell depress, Yea, damn him for his rotten righteousness; That while he views the law exceeding broad, He fain may wed the righteousness of God.
But, ah! to press law-works as terms of life, “Was ne’er the way to court the Lamb a wife. To urge conditions in the legal frame, Is to renew the vain old cov’nant game. The law is good, when lawfully ’tis ns’d*, But most destructive when it is abusll.
They set no duties in their proper sphere, Who duly law and gospel don’t sever; But under massy chains let sinners lie, As tributaries, or to DO or DIE. Nor make the law a squaring rule of life, But in the gospel-throat a bloody knife,
SECT. IV.
JDamnable Pride and Self-righteousness, so natural to all :llen, has little Need to be encouraged by legal Preaching.
The legal path proud nature loves so well, (Though yet ’tis but the cleanest road to hell) That lo! e’en these that take the foulest ways, Whose lewdness no controuling bridle stays, If but their drowsy conscience raise its voice, ‘Twill speak the law of works, their native choice, And echo to the rousing sound; c Ah, true!
* I cannot hope to live unless I DO.’
No conscious breast of mortal kind can trace The myst’ry deep of being sav’d by grace. Of this, nor is the nat’ral conscience skill’d, Nor will admit it when it is reveal’d; But pushes at the gospel like a ram, As proxy for the law, against the Lamb. The proud self-righteous Pharisaic strain Is, ‘Blest be God, I’m not like other men;
* I read and pray, give alms, I mourn and fasth,
* And therefore hope I’ll get to heav’n at last:
* For, though from ev’ry sin I be not free,
4 Great multitudes of men are worse than me.
* I’m none of those that swear, cheat, drink, and
whore.’ Thus on the law he builds his Babel tow’r.
Yea, ev’n the vilest cursed debauchee -j
Will make the law of works his very plea;
* Why, (says the rake) what take you me to be? J
“. Tim. i. .3, h Lcfcc xviii. n; xa.
c A Turk or i nfidel; (you lie) I can’t -^
‘Be term’d so base, but by a sycophant;
c Only I hate to act the whining saint. J
c I am a Christian true; and therefore bode,
* It shall be well with me, I hope in God. ‘An’t I an honest man? yea, I dety
1 The tongue that dare assert black to mine eye.’ Perhaps, when the reprover turns his back, He’ll vend the viler wares o’ ’s open’d pack, And with his fellows, in a strain more big,
* Bid damn the base, uncharitable whig.
* These scoundrel hypocrites (he’ll proudly say)
* Think none shall ever merit heav’n but they,
* And yet we may compete with them; for see, c The best have blemishes as well as we.
f We have as good a heart (we trust) as these,, Tho’ not their vain superfluous shew and blaze,
* Bigotted zealots, whose foul crimes are hid,
* Would damn us all to hell; but God forbid.
* Whatever such a whining sect profess, 1 ‘Tis but a nice, morose, affected dress.
* And though we don’t pretend so much as they,
* We hope to compass heav’n a shorter way;
* We seek God’s mercy, and are all along
4 Most free of malice, and do no man wrong.
* But whims fantastic shan’t our heads annoy, ‘That would our social liberties destroy.
* Sure, right religion never was design’d
‘To mar the native mirth of human kind.
* How weak are those that would be thought nonsuch!
* How mad, that would be righteous o’ermuch!
* We have sufficient, though we be not cramm’d; 4 We’ll therefore hope the best, let them be
damn’d.’ Ah, horrid talk! yet so the legal strain Lards e’en the language of the most profane. Thus dev’lish pride o’erlooks a thousand faults, And on a legal ground itself exalts.
This DO and LIVE, though doing pow’r be lost, In ev’ry mortal is proud nature’s boast. How doijs a vain conceit of goodness swell, And feed false hope, amidst the shades of hell? Shall we, who should by gospel-methods draw, Send sinners to their nat’ral spouse the law; And harp upon the doing string to such, Who ignorantly dream they do so much? Why, thus, instead of courting Christ a bride, We harden rebels in their native pride.
Much rather ought we in God’s “name to place His great artill’ry straight against their face; And throw hot Sinai thunder-bolts around, To burn their tow’ring hopes down to the ground; To make the pillars of their pride to shake, And damn their doings to the burning lake; To curse the doers unto endless thrall, That never did continue to do all; To scorch their conscience with the flaming air, And sink their haughty hopes in deep despair: Denouncing Ebal’s black revenging doom, To blast their expectation in the bloom; Till once vain hope of life by works give place Unto a solid hope of life by grace. The vig’rous use of means is safely urg’d, When pressing calls from legal dregs are purg’d; But most unsafely in a fed’ral dress, Confounding terms of life with means of grace. Oh! dang’rous is th’ attempt proud flesh to please, Or send a sinner to the law for ease; Who rather needs to feel its piercing dart, Till dreadful pangs invade his trembling heart And thither should be only sent for flames Of fire to burn his rotten hopes and claims; That thus disarmed, he gladly may embrace, And grasp with eagerness the news of grace*
Gal. iii« ict
SECT. V.
Gospel of dirine Gface, the only Means of converting
Sinners; and should be preached therefore most clearly* fully, and freely.
They ought, who royal grace’s herald be, To trumpet loud salvation, full and free; Nor safely can to humour mortal pride, In silence evangelic myst’ries hide. What heav’n is pleas’ d to give, dare we refuse? Or underground conceal, lest men abuse? Suppress the gospel-flow’r, upon pretence That some vile spiders may suck poison thence? Christ is a stumbling blockk, shall we neglect To preach him, lest the blind should break their neck? That high he’s for the fall of many set, As well as for the rise, must prove no let. No grain of precious truth must be supprest, Though reprobates shouldto their ruin wrest. Shall heav’n’s corruscant lamp be dimm’d, that pays Its daily tribute down in golden rays, Because some blinded with the blazing gleams, Share not the pleasure of the light’ning beams? Let those be harden’d, petrify’d, and harm’d, The rest are mollify’d and kindly warm’d. A various savour”1 flowers in grace’s field, Of life to some, of death to other’s yield. Must then the rose be veil’d, the lily hid, Their fragrant savour stifled? God forbid!
The revelation of the gospel-flower Is still the organ fam’d, of saving pow’r; .Most justly then are legal minds condemned, That of the glorious gospel are asham’d: Tor this the divine arm, and only this, The pow’r of God unto salvation is.
* i Cor i. 23. l L«keii.34« n 1 Cjr.ii.iC* For therein is reveaTd, 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 sovereign 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 conquering pow’r triumphant rides. The gospel-field is still the Spirit’s soil, rrhe 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 saith0, By legal works, or by the word 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 wrord 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 mep. The preacher then will from his text decline, That scorns to harmonize with this design. Press moral duties to the last degree; Why not? but mind, lest we successful 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. J
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! J
Rom.i, 26, 27. ° Gal. iii. 2. p John xv. 26. r John v. 39.
Our office is to bear the radiant torch Of gospel-light into thedark’ned porch Of human understandings, and display
The joyful dawn of everlasting clay; 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 huri*d9 Willi sparkling grandeur round the dusky world; And thus to bring in dying mortals sight, New life and immortality to light8. We’re charg’d to preach the gospel unconhVd, Toev’ry creature of the human kind; To call, with tenders of salvation free, All corners of the earth to come and seen: And ev’ry sinner must excuseless make, By urging rich and poor to come and take*. Ho, ev’ry one that thirsts7, 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; xor would the gospel suit the sinner’s wants. Bui here the call does signally import, Sinneio, and thirsty souls of ev’ry sort; Vnd 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,
1 2 Tim. i. io.: Mark xvi. 15. I>a.xlv. 22.
John i. 39. 46. * Rev. xxii. 17. Iia. lv. 1,2,
D ‘3
Whose wide-mouth’d clefts speak to the brazen fiky 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 naitt’d; The blind, the lame, the poor, the halt, the maim’d2; Not daring to restrict th’ extensive call, But op’niog wide the net to catch ’em all. No soul must be excluded that will come, Nor right of access be oonfin’d to some. Though none will come till conscious of their want, Yet right to come they have by sovereign grant; Such right to Christ, his promise, and his grace, That all aredamn’d who hear and don’t embrace. So freely is th’ unbounded call dispensed, We therein findev’n sinners unconvinc’d, Who know not they are naked, blind, and poor a, “) Counsel I’d to buy or beg at Jesus’ door, [store. J> And take the glorious robe, eye-salve, and golden- J This prize they are oblig’d by faith to win, Else unbelief would never be their sin. Yea, gospel-offers but a sham we make, If each description 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 voucher’s mky For dire reproach their measures constant lay. With cruel calumny of old commenced, This sect will ev’ry where be spoke againstb; While to and fro he runs the earth across, ‘Whose name is Adelpiion kategorosc. In spite of hell be then our constant strife To win the glorious Lamb a virgin wife.
7 Lukcxiv. 21. a Rev. iii. 17, 18. b Acts xxviii. 2Z«
L Or, the accuser of the brethren.