February 23, 2005

• GOD NO
  LIAR

  If faith is established on works of our own,

  Then, the plain apostolic is fairly overthrown;

  But faith must be founded on God’s Word alone,

  Unmovedly fix’t on the work he has done.

   

  God declares, that “in Jesus His soul is well
  pleas’d,

  And all who believe him with Jesus are rais’d:”

  Behold the glad tidings, to Gentile and Jew!

  Believers are sav’d, if the witness is true.

   

  God’s Word is sufficient for us, and for all;

  God’s word into question we never dare call–

  but what our objectors will now take us up;

  “What!–Get you by faith the assurance of hope?”

   

  Yes! Yes! We avow it; assurance of hope,

  With assurance of faith, have abundance of scope;

  Both sounded in evidence plain and direct:
  What Jesus has
  joined, no mortal should break.
    

  Like the Jews, you are crying for signs in the
  skies,

  While Messiah’s works finished flashed in your
  eyes,

  Still praying, “O may we be saved! and O!

  (If indeed we be saved), the same may we know!”

   

  But why don’t you see? O you blind men of light!

  You grope in the dark, and you say you have
  sight.

  You maintain that the Gospel’s believed by you!

  Impossible! Else you would joy in it too.

   

  “But how shall I know, I believe not in vain,

  but by my desire, and my love, and my pain,

  By my deeds, and endeavours the best that I can?

  And how can the LORD not accept such a man!”

   

  Lo, here is the whirl-pool that swallows you up,

  While failing away from your Cape of God Hope!

  You box round your compass of labour and jeer,

  Your alms, and your order, and discipline dear!

   

  But hark! If your labour should fail you a title,
  

  Then hell is your portion, by way of requital:

  The example from Christ which you wickedly draw,

  Must fail you, for he was as pure as law.

   

  Thus, you labour for ever, and labour in vain,

  For assurance of hope, which you ne’er can
  attain;

  For according to you, ’tis the finishing favour:

  Your talk then about it, is a mere haver.

   

  You snap at a shadow, and run at a rainbow;

  As puppies, and children, and fools, all in vain
  do–

  What pitiful doings must yours be indeed,

  If of hell, or of heaven, you know not, till
  dead!

   

  Thus, weary, and pained, and fearful till death,

  They labour in fire, and they labour for wrath:

  For still to their idols, (their own deeds,) they
  go,

  Inquiring of them, “if they’re saved or no?”

   

  But O ye Christians in heart and in name,

  Whose faith, and whose hope’s with th’ Apostles the
  same!

  Your drink of a purer and nobler wine,

  the fruit of the Spirit and Jesus our Vine,

   

  Reconciled to God in the blood of his Son,

  We praise him, and glory in what he has done,

  For what were the blood, e’en the blood of the cross,
  

  Unless we could view it as flowing for us?

   

  No doubt, peradventure, nor maybe we know,

  In any one thing which the Spirit does show:

  We know we are saved, and certainly seal’d,

  When Jesus the Saviour in us is reveal’d.

   

  Pray, who are the persons declar’d to be lost,

  But the blind to the gospel, by darkness
  engross’d?

  But God has commanded His glory to shine

  In hearts of Christians; — O glory divine!

   

  Our God is the Lord who has made earth and
  heaven,

  And “much do we love him, for much is forgiven!”

  Forgiveness does flow through the whole of His
  Word,

  And flows to our hearts with the blood of our
  Lord.

   

  Forgiveness stills reigns, in you if it dwell;

  In every believer it bearsthe bell:

  Forgiveness does grow in the heart, as the root

  Of every good product and Christian fruit.

   

  ‘Tis true, while in this life, no man’s free from
  sin;

  Nor saint is exeem’d from a warfare within:

  But deeds of the body shall mortified fall,

  By power of the Spirit who dwells in us all.

   

  No real Christian so foolish and weak,

  As harbour this woeful and common mistake;

  “because he’s not perfect as Jesus His Lord,

  That therefore he has not believed his word.”

   

  Who’ll say that King David was no king at all,

  while David was warring with the th’ old house of
  Saul?

  Or, say, of Rebecca, she knew not of life,

  When feeling the children within her at strife?

   

  The Glas has so dreadfully broken their light,

  That it wholly confounds their soul and their
  sight;

  Else how could they fancy, “that Mary first
  show’d

  To Jesus, that he was the dear Son of God.” (Glas’ works, 2
  vol, page 15, 1 ed).

   

  Look now, you despisers of churches and Popes,

  Confounded, I grant, in their fears and their hopes;
  

  Though they are as earthly, and blind as a mole,

  They scarce can be more so, than you on the
  whole.

   

  Consider your tenets, and ponder them well;

  (Were ever absurder invented in hell?–)

  You say, “from your works, your own faith you must
  know;”

  As if from a stream e’er a fountain could flow!

   

  In your way the building must rest on the top;

  The tree with its root must depend on the crop;

  The branches must spring from the blossoms they
  bear,

  Or else you will reckon no branches are there!

   

  Proud; bold overturners of God’s fixed laws,

  Calling sons their own father, — effects their own
  cause!

   

  If you’re in the right, then the saints all are
  wrong,

  “To him who lov’d us,” is the strain of the song;

  But, if “Christ loved me,” any person shall cry,

  Then you’ll send him to Satan–to teach him to
  lie!

  • 12:28 pm
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