Calvin's Commentaries on Isaiah

I read the following poem this morning in Calvin's Commentary on Isaiah. I wanted to share it with you.

An Epigram vpon the Translation of
M. Caluins Commentarie vpon the Prophecie of Isaiah.

THRICE happie (England) if thou knew'st thy blisse,
Since Christs eternall Gospell in thee shin'd
Thou art. H'is beetle-blind that sees not this,
Brutishly ingrate that with a thankfull mind
Doth not acknowledge Gods great Grace herein,
And learne thereby for to forsake his sinne.

Gods word hat long in thee been soundly taught,
The sound thereof hath rung throughout the Land,
And many a Soule by Fishers net been caught,
Which erst lay thrall in Satans cruell band:
This fauour great by none can be exprest,
But such as haue it felt in their owne brest.

Thy natiue sonnes in thine owne bowels bred,
Like faithfull Shepheards haue done worthilie,
And thee with store of heauenlie Manna fed,
Forcing the Wolues to leaue their crueltie,
To slinke aside, and hide themselues in holes,
In caues and dens, like pur-blind Backs and Moles.

TYNDALL, FRITH, PHILPOT, father LATIMER,
The Gospell preacht by word, by life, by death:
IUEL, FOX, REYNOLDS, FULK, and WHITAKER
To second them haue spent their vitall breath.
In hot pursuit of that great Romish Bore,
Who spoiled quite this English vine before.

I spare to speake of DEERINGS siluer voice,
Of GREENHAMS zeale, of PERKINS labours sound,
Of hundreds moe of Zion-builders choice,
The like whereof can scarce elsewhere be found:
Such ground-worke they of Gods truth here haue plac'd
As neuer shall by Hels whole force be razt.

Besides all these, of forren Lights the chiefe,
BEZA, and VRSINUS, many other moe,
MARTYR, MUSCULUS, for thy more reliefe
Are seene in English weed abroade to goe
From place to place in euery Shire and Towne,
To teach the Truth and throw all Errors downe.

And here presented is vnto thy sight
The Roiall Prophet Esaias Euangel:
For so me thinkes I may it terme aright,
That Prince of holy Prophets doth so well,
So liuely Christs whole historie presage,
As if h'had liu'd in that same very Age.

Whose Oracles great CALUIN doth vnfold
In thine owne natiue Tongue for thy Soules health.
Here maist thou gather precious Stones and Gold,
And store vp heapes of Heauenly lasting wealth;
Here maist thou find with very little paine
Which would'st not lose for thousand Worlds againe.

Here maist thou see the black-mouth'd Atheists
Confounded quite by Demonstration cleare;
The cunning Papist put vnto his shifts,
And made in his right Colours to appeare;
Her's Christ, his Truth, and Life, thee set before,
Heauens Gates set open wide: what would'st thou more?

By FRANCIS HERING, Doctor in Physicke.

GOSPEL SONNETS – Chapter 3 – Section 3

GOSPEL SONNETS
By Ralph Erskine
Chapter 3

SECTION III. – True saving faith magnifying the law both as a covenant and as a rule. False faith unfruitful and ruining.

PROUD nature may reject this gospel-theme,
And curse it as an Antinomian scheme.
Let slander bark, let envy grin and fight,
The curse that is so causeless shall not light.(1)
If they that fain would make by holy force
‘Twixt sinners and the law a clean divorce,
And court the Lamb a virgin chaste to wife,
Be charged as foes to holiness of life,
Well may they gladly suffer on this score,
Apostles great were so maligned before.
Do we make void the law through faith?(2) Nay; why,
We do it more fulfil and magnify
Than fiery seraphs can with holiest flash.
Avaunt, vain legalists – unworthy trash!
When as a cov’nant stern the law commands,
Faith puts her Lamb’s obedience in its hands;
And when its threats gush out a fiery flood,
Faith stops the current with her victim’s blood.
The law can crave no more, yet craves no less,
Than active, passive, perfect righteousness.
Yet here is all, yea, more than its demand,
All rendered to it by a divine hand.
Mankind is bound law-service still to pay,
Yea, angel-kind is also bound t’obey.
It may by human and angelic blaze
Have honour, but in finite, partial ways.
These natures have its lustre once defaced,
‘Twill be by part of both for aye disgraced,
Yet had they all obsequious stood and true,
They’d given the law no more than homage due.
But faith gives’t honour yet more great, more odd –
The high, the humble service of its God.
Again, to view the holy law’s command,
As lodged in a Mediator’s hand;
Faith gives it honour, as a rule of life,
And makes the bride the Lamb’s obedient wife.
Due homage to the law those never did,
To whom th’obedience pure of faith is hid.
Faith works by love, and purifies the heart,(3)
And truth advances in the inward part;
On carnal hearts impresses divine stamps,
And sully’d lives inverts to shining lamps.
From Abram’s seed that are most strong in faith.
The law most honour, God most glory hath.
But due respect to neither can be found,
Where unbelief ne’er got a mortal wound,
To still the virtue-vaunter’s empty sound.
Good works he boasts, a path he never trod
Who is not yet the workmanship of God,(4)
In Jesus thereunto created new;
Nois’d works that spring not hence are but a shew.
True faith that’s of a noble divine race,
Is still a holy sanctifying grace;
And greater honour to the law does share,
Than boasters all that breathe the vital air.
Ev’n heathen morals vastly may outshine
The works that flow not from a faith divine.
Pretensions high to faith a number have,
But, ah! it is a faith that cannot save:
“We trust,” say they, “in Christ, we hope in God:
Nor blush to blaze their rotten faith abroad.
Nor try the trust of which they make a shew,
If of a saving or a damning hue.
They own their sins are ill; true-but ‘tis sad
They never thought their faith and hope were bad.
How evident’s their home-bred nat’ral blaze,
Who dream they have believ’d well all their days;
Yet never felt their unbelief, nor knew
Their need of pow’r their nature to renew.
Blind souls, who boast of faith, yet live in sin,
May hence conclude their faith is to begin,
Or know they shall, by such an airy faith,
Believe themselves to everlasting wrath.
Faith, that nor leads to good, nor keeps from ill,
Will never lead to heaven, nor keep from hell.
The body without breath is dead;(5) no less
Is faith without the works of holiness.(6)
How rare is saving faith, when earth is cramm’d
With such as we believe, and yet be damn’d;
Believe the gospel, yet with dread and awe
Have never truly first believ’d the law.
That matters shall be well, they hope too soon
Who never yet have seen they were undone.
Can of salvation their belief be true,
Who never yet believ’d damnation due?
Can these of endless life have solid faith
Who never fear’d law threats of endless death?
Nay, sail’d they han’t yet to the healing shore,
Who never felt their sinful, woful sore.
Imaginary faith is but a blind
Which bears no fruit but of a deadly kind:
No can from such a wild unwholesome root
The least production rise of living fruit.
But saving faith can such an offspring breed,
Her native product is a holy seed.
The fairest issues of the vital breath
Spring from the fertile womb of Heav’n-born faith;
Yet boasts she nothing of her own, but brings
Auxiliaries from the King of kings,
Who graves his royal law on rocky hearts,
And gracious aid in soft’ning showers imparts,
This gives prolific virtue to the faith
Inspir’d at first by his almighty breath,
Hence, fetching all her succours from abroad,
She still employes this mighty pow’r of God.
Drain’d clean of native pow’rs and legal aims,
No strength but in and from Jehovah claims;
And thus her service to the law o’ertops
The tow’ring zeal of Pharisaic fops.

(1) Prov. xxvi. 2.
(2) Rom. iii. 21.
(3) Gal. v. 6.
(4) Eph. ii. 10.
(5) James ii. 26.
(6) James ii. 17. 10.

GOSPEL SONNETS - Chapter 3 - Section 2

GOSPEL SONNETS
By Ralph Erskine
Chapter 3

SECTION II. – Faith’s victories over sin and Satan, through new and farther discoveries of CHRIST, making believers more fruitful in holiness than all other pretenders to works.

THE gospel-path leads heav’n-ward; hence the fray,
Hell’s pow’rs still push the bride the legal way.
So hot the war, her life’s a troubled flood,
A field of battle, and a scene of blood.
But he that once commenc’d the work in her,
Whose working fingers drop the sweetest myrrh,
Will still advance it by alluring force,
And, from her ancient mate, more clean divorce;
Since ‘tis her antiquated spouse, the law,
The strength of sin and hell did on her draw.
Piece-meal she finds hell’s mighty force abate,
By new recruits from her almighty Mate.
Fresh armour sent from grace’s magazine,
Makes her proclaim eternal war with sin.
The shield of faith, dipt in the Surety’s blood,
Drowns fiery darts, as in a crimson flood.
The Captain’s ruddy banner, lifted high,
Makes hell retire, and all the furies fly.
Yea, of his glory every recent glance
Makes sin decay, and holiness advance.
In kindness therefore does her heavenly Lord
Renew’d discov’ries of his love afford,
That her enamour’d soul may, with the view,
Be cast into his holy mould anew.
For when he manifests his glorious grace,
The charming favour of his smiling face,
Into his image fair transforms her soul, (1)
And wafts her upwards to the heavenly pole,
From glory unto glory by degrees,
Till vision and fruition shall suffice.
And thus in holy beauty Jesus’ bride
Shines far beyond the painted sons of pride,
Vain merit-vouchers, and their subtle apes,
In all their most refined, delusive shapes.
No lawful child is ere the marriage born;
Though therefore virtues feigned their life adorn,
The fruit they bear is but a spurious brood,
Before this happy marriage be made good.
And ‘tis not strange; for, from a corrupt tree
No fruit divinely good produced can be,(2)
But, lo! the bride, graft in the living Root,
Brings forth most precious aromatic fruit.
When her new heart and her new husband meet,
Her fruitful womb is like a heap of wheat,
Beset with fragrant lilies round about,(3)
All divine graces, in a comely rout,
Burning within, and shining bright without.
And thus the bride, as sacred scripture saith,
When dead unto the law through Jesus’ death,(4)
And matched with him, bears to her God and Lord
Accepted fruit, with increase pure decored.
Freed from law-debt, and bless’d with gospel ease,
Her work is now her dearest Lord to please,
By living on him as her ample stock,
And leaning to him as her potent rock.
The fruit that each law-wedded mortal brings
To self accresces, as from self it springs.
So base a rise must have a base recourse,
The stream can mount no higher than its source.
But Jesus can his bride’s sweet fruit commend,
As brought from him the root, to him the end.
She does by such an offspring him avow
To be her ALPHA and OMEGA too.
The work and warfare he begins, he crowns,
Though maugre various conflicts, ups and downs,
Thus through the darksome vale she makes her way,
Until the morning dawn of glory’s day.

(1) 2 Cor. iii. 18.
(2) Matt. vii. 17, 18.
(3) Cant. vii. 2.
(4) Rom. vii. 4.

GOSPEL SONNETS - Chapter 3 - Section 1

GOSPEL SONNETS
By Ralph Erskine
Chapter 3

SECTION I. The sweet solemnity of the marriage now over, and the sad effects of the remains of a legal spirit.

THE match is made, with little din 'tis done,
But with great pow'r, unequal prizes won.
The Lamb has fairly won his worthless bride;
She her great Lord, and all his store beside.
He made the poorest bargain, though most wise;
And she, the fool, has won the worthy prize.
Deep floods of everlasting love and grace,
That under ground ran an eternal space,
Now rise aloft 'bove banks of sin and hell,
And o'er the tops of massy mountains swell.
In streams of blood are tow'rs of guilt o'erflown,
Down with the rapid purple current thrown.
The bride now as her all can Jesus own,
And prostrate at his footstool cast her crown,
Disclaiming all her former groundless hope,
While in the dark her soul did weary grope.
Down tumble all the hills of self-conceit,
In him alone she sees herself complete;
Does his fair person with fond arms embrace,
And all her hopes on his full merit place;
Discard her former mate, and henceforth draw
No hope, no expectation from the law.
Though thus her new-created nature soars,
And lives aloft on Jesus' heav'nly stores;
Yet apt to stray, her old adult'rous heart
Oft takes her old renounced husband's part.
A legal cov'nant is so deep ingrain'd,
Upon the human nature, laps'd and stain'd,
That, till her spirit mount the purest clime
She's never totally divorced in time.
Hid in her corrupt part's proud bosom lurks
Some hope of life still by the law of works.
Hence flow the following evils more or less;
Preferring oft her partial holy dress,
Before her husband's perfect righteousness.
Hence joying more in grace already giv'n
Than in her Head and stock that's all in heav'n.
Hence grieving more the want of frames and grace,
Than of himself the spring of all solace.
Hence guilt her soul imprisons, lusts prevail,
While to the law her rents insolvent fail,
And yet her faithless heart rejects her Husband's bail.
Hence soul disorders rise, and racking fears,
While doubtful of his clearing past arrears;
Vain dreaming, since her own obedience fails,
His likewise little for her help avails.
Hence duties are a task, while all in view
Is heavy yokes of laws, or old or new:
Whereas, were once her legal bias broke,
She'd find her Lord's commands an easy yoke.
No galling precepts on her neck he lays,
Nor any debt demands, save what he pays
By promis'd aid; but, lo! the grievous law,
Demanding brick, won't aid her with a straw.
Hence also fretful, grudging, discontent,
Crav'd by the law, finding her treasure spent,
And doubting if her Lord will pay the rent.
Hence pride of duties too does often swell,
Presuming she perform'd so very well.
Hence pride of graces and inherent worth
Springs from her corrupt legal bias forth;
And boasting more a present with'ring frame,
Than her exalted Lord's unfading name.
Hence many falls and plunges in the mire,
As many new conversions do require:
Because her faithless heart sad follies breed,
Much lewd departure from her living Head,
Who, to reprove her aggravated crimes,
Leaves her abandon'd to herself at times;
That, falling into frightful deeps, she may
From sad experience learn more stress to lay,
Not on her native efforts, but at length
On Christ alone, her righteousness and strength:
Conscious, while in her works she seeks respose,
Her legal spirit breeds her many woes.

GOSPEL SONNETS - Chapter 2 - Section 5

GOSPEL SONNETS
By Ralph Erskine
Chapter 2

SECTION V. - Faith's view of the freedom of grace, cordial renunciation of all its own ragged righteousness, and formal acceptance of and closing with the person of glorious CHRIST.

THE bride with open eyes, that once were dim,
Sees now her whole salvation lies in him;
The Prince, who is not in dispensing nice,
But freely gives without her pains or price.
This magnifies the wonder in her eye,
Who not a farthing has wherewith to buy,
For now her humbled mind can disavow
Her boasted beauty and assuming brow;
With conscious eye discern her emptiness,
With candid lips her poverty confess.
"O glory to the Lord that grace is free,
Else never could it light on guilty me.
I nothing have with me to be its price,
But hellish blackness, enmity, and vice."
In former times she durst presuming come
To grace's market with a petty sum
Of duties, prayers, tears, a boasted set,
Expecting Heaven would thus be in her debt.
These were the price; at least she did suppose
She'd be the welcomer because of those:
But now she sees the vileness of her vogue,
The dung that close doth every duty clog;
The sin that doth her holiness reprove,
The enmity that close attends her love;
The great heart-hardness of her penitence,
The stupid dulness of her vaunted sense;
The unbelief of former blazed faith,
The utter nothingness of all she hath.
The blackness of her beauty she can see,
The pompous pride of strain'd humility,
The naughtiness of all her tears and pray'rs,
And now renounces all as worthless wares;
And finding nothing to commend herself,
But what might damn her, her embezzled pelf;
At sov'reign Grace's feet doth prostrate fall,
Content to be in Jesus' debt for all.
Her noised virtues vanish out of sight,
As starry tapers at meridian light;
While sweetly, humbly, she beholds at length
Christ, as her only righteousness and strength.
He with the view throws down his loving dart,
Imprest with pow'r into her tender heart.
The deeper that the law's fierce dart was thrown,
The deeper now the dart of love goes down:
Hence, sweetly pain'd, her cries to heaven do flee;
"O none but Jesus, none but Christ for me:
O glorious Christ, O beauty, beauty rare,
Ten thousand thousand heav'ns are not so fair.
In him at once all beauties meet and shine,
The white and ruddy, human and divine.
As in his low, he's in his high abode,
The brightest image of the unseen God. (1)
How justly do the harpers sing above,
His doing, dying, rising, reigning love!
How justly does he, when his work is done,
Posses the centre of his Father's throne!
How justly does his awful throne before
Seraphic armies prostrate him adore,
That's both by nature and donation crown'd
With all the grandeur of the Godhead round!
"But wilt thou, Lord, in very deed come dwell
With me that was a burning brand of hell?
With me so justly reckon'd worse and less
Than insect, mite, or atom can express?
Wilt thou debase thy high imperial form,
To match with such a mortal crawling worm?
Yea, sure thine errand to our earthly coast,
Was in deep love to seek and save the lost;(2)
And since thou deign'st the like of me to wed,
O come and make my heart thy marriage-bed.
Fair Jesus, wilt thou marry filthy me?
Amen, Amen, Amen; so let it be."

(1) Heb. i. 2.
(2) Luke xix. 10.

O Wretched Man!

O wretched man with darkened heart,
Doubled minded and unstable!
Seeking what God would impart,
Willing, yet unable

To walk the walk of holiness.
Maintain desires for God alone
In sweet marital bliss
Forsaking all others, they can’t atone,

For sins that I’ve committed.
My desire is toward my Saviour,
Yet, in my soul, within my spirit,
I turn away His favor.

Desiring things I should not,
Entertaining thoughts impure,
My conscious is apt to rot,
Lest Jesus draw me near.

In me, (that is, in my flesh),
Dwelleth no good thing,
With earnestness I do wish,
For goodness only to bring.

Alas, the good that I would I do not,
But evil I would not, that I do.
The sin dwelling in me is what
These evil works are brought unto.

I find a law, that when I would do good,
Evil is present with me.
Convincing me against what I should,
And from my God I flee!

For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
My mind committed to His Word.
Within my members dwells the law of sin,
To bring me into captivity with its evil sword.

Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
God’s law giv’n to us through His very breath,
Brings life to me through His written Word.

With my mind, I serve the law of God,
But with the flesh, the law of sin,
And so it goes in this path I trod,
Over and over again.

GOSPEL SONNETS - Chapter 2 - Section 4

GOSPEL SONNETS

By Ralph Erskine

Chapter 2

 

SECTION IV. – The working of the Spirit of faith, in separating the heart from all self-righteousness, and drawing out its consent to, and desire after CHRIST alone and wholly..

 

THE bride at Sinai little understood

How these law-humblings were designed for good,

T' enhance the value of her Husband's blood.

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 so

The blood from his pierc'd heart, to her's might flow.

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 plough is sown

The hidden seed of faith, as yet unknown.

Hence now the once reluctant bride's inclined

To give the gospel an assenting mind,

Dispos'd to take, would grace the pow'r impart,

Heav'n's offer with a free consenting heart.

His Spirit in the gospel-chariot rides,

And shews 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,

Resolving all objections more or less

From former sins, or present worthlessness.

Persuades her mind of's conjugal consent,

And then impow'rs her heart to say, Content.

Content to be divorced from the law,

No more the yoke of legal terms to draw;

Content that he dissolve 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 should ever wear the bays,

And of her whole salvation have the praise;

Content that he should rise, though she should fall,

And to be nothing, that he may be all;

Content that he, because she nought could do,

Do for her all her work, and in her too.

Here she a peremptory mind displays,

That he do all the work, get all the praise.

And now she is, which ne'er till now took place,

Content entirely to be sav'd by grace.

She owns that her damnation just would be,

And therefore her salvation must be free:

That nothing being hers but sin and thrall,

She must be debtor unto grace for all.

Hence comes she to him in her naked case,

To be invested with his righteousness.

She comes, as guilty, to a pardon free;

As vile and filthy, to a cleansing sea;

As poor and empty, to the richest stock;

As weak and feeble to the strongest rock:

As perishing , unto a shield from thrall;

As worse than nothing, to an all in all.

She, as a blinded mole, an ign'rant fool,

Comes for instruction to the Prophet's school.

She, with a hell-deserving conscious breast,

Flies for atonement to the worthy Priest.

She as a slave to sin and Satan, wings

Her flight for help unto the King of kings.

She all her maladies and plagues brings forth

To this Physician of eternal worth.

She spreads before his throne her filthy sore;

And lays her broken bones down at his door.

No mite she has to buy a crumb of bliss,

And therefore comes impoverished as she is;

By sin and Satan, of all good bereft,

Comes e'en as bare as they her soul have left.

To sense, as free of holiness within,

As Christ, the spotless Lamb, was free of sin.

She comes by faith, true; but it shews her want,

And brings her as a sinner, not a saint;

A wretched sinner, flying for her good

To justifying, sanctifying blood.

Strong faith no strength nor power of acting vaunts,

But acts in sense of weakness and of wants.

Drain'd now of every thing that men may call

Terms and conditions of relief from thrall;

Except this one, that Jesus be her all.

When to the bride he gives espousing faith,

It finds her under sin, and guilt, and wrath,

And makes her as a plagued wretch to fall

At Jesus' footstool for the cure of all.

Her whole salvation now in him she seeks,

And musing thus perhaps in secret speaks;

 "Lo! all my burdens may in him be eased;

The justice I offended he has pleased;

The bliss that I have forfeit he procured;

The curse that I deserved he endured;

The law that I have broken he obeyed;

The debt that I contracted he has paid;

And though a match unfit for him I be,

I find him every way most fit for me.

"Sweet Lord, I think, would thou thyself impart,

I'd welcome thee with open hand and heart.

But thou that sav'st by price, must save by power;

O send thy Spirit in a fiery shower,

This cold and frozen heart of mine to thaw,

That nought, save cords of burning love, can draw.

O draw me, Lord, then will I run to thee,

And glad into thy glowing bosom flee.

I own myself a mass of sin and hell,

A brat that can do nothing but rebel:

But didst thou not, as sacred pages shew, (1)

When rising up to spoil the hellish crew,

That had by thousands, sinners captive made,

And hadst in conqu'ring chains them captive led,

Get donatives, not for they proper gain,

But royal bounties for rebellious men,

Gifts, graces, and the Spirit without bounds,

For God's new house with man on firmer grounds?

O then let me a rebel now come speed,

Thy Holy Spirit is the gift I need.

His precious graces too, the glorious grant,

Thou kindly promis'd and a greatly want.

Thou art exalted to the highest place,

To give repentance forth, and ev'ry grace. (2)

O giver of spiritual life and breath,

The author and the finisher of faith; (3)

Thou husband-like must ev'ry thing provide,

If e'er the like of me become thy bride."

 

(1) Psalm xviii. 18.

(2) Acts v. 31.

(3) Heb. xii. 2.

GOSPEL SONNETS - Chapter 2 - Section 3

GOSPEL SONNETS
By Ralph Erskine
Chapter 2

SECTION III. – The deeply humbled soul RELIEVED with some saving discoveries of CHRIST the Redeemer.

WHEN thus the wounded bride perceives full well,
Herself the vilest sinner out of hell,
The blackest monster in the universe;
Pensive, if clouds of wo shall e’er disperse;
When in her breast Heaven’s wrath so fiercely glows,
‘Twixt fear and guilt, her bones have no repose.
When flowing billows of amazing dread
Swell to a deluge o’er her sinking 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 she cannot, for her soul, command
A sigh to ease it, or a gracious thought,
Though heaven could at this petty rate be bought;
When darkness and confusion overcloud,
And unto black despair temptations crowd;
When wholly without strength to move or stir,
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 woe.
Ah! weary case! But, lo! in this sad plight,
The sun arises with surprising light.
The darkest midnight is his usual time
Of rising, and appearing in his prime.
To shew the hills from whence salvation springs,
And chase the gloomy shade with golden wings,
The glorious husband now unveils his face,
And shews his glory full of truth and grace: (1)
Presents unto the bride, in that dark hour,
Himself a Saviour, both by price and power:
A mighty Helper to redeem the lost,
Relieve and ransom to the uttermost; (2)
To seek the vagrant sheep to deserts driven,
And save from lowest hell to highest heaven.
Her doleful case he sees, his bowels move,
And make her time of need his time of love; (3)
He shews, to prove himself her mighty shield,
His name is JESUS, by his Father sealed: (4)
A name with attributes engraved within,
To save from every attribute of sin.
With wisdom sin’s great folly to expose,
And righteousness its chain of guilt to loose,
Sanctification to subdue its sway,
Redemption all its woful brood to slay. (5)
Each golden letter of his glorious name
Bears full deliverance both from sin and shame.
Yea not privation bare from sin and woe,
But thence all positive salvations flow,
To make her wise, just, holy, happy too.
He now appears a match exactly meet
To make her every way in him complete,
In whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells, (6)
That she may boast in him, and nothing else.
In gospel lines she now perceives the dawn
Of Jesus’ love, with bloody pencil drawn;
How God in him is infinitely pleased,
And Heaven-avenging fury wholly appeased:
Law-precepts magnified by her beloved,
And every let to stop the match removed,
Now in her view her prison gates break ope,
Wide to the wall flies up the door of hope;
And now she sees with pleasure unexpressed
For shattered barks a happy shore of rest.

(1) John i. 14.
(2) Heb. vii. 25.
(3) Ezek. xvi. 6, 8.
(4) Matt. i. 21.
(5) 1 Cor. i. 30.
(6) Col. ii. 9, 10.

GOSPEL SONNETS - Chapter 2 - Section 2

GOSPEL SONNETS
By Ralph Erskine
Chapter 2

SECTION II. – Conviction of SIN and WRATH, carried on more deeply and effectually on the heart.

So proudly forward is the bride, and now
Stern Heav’n begins to stare with cloudier brow;
Law-curses come with more condemning pow’r
To scorch her conscience with a fiery show’r
And more refulgent flashes darted in;
For by the law the knowledge is of sin. (1)
Black Sinai thund’ring louder than before,
Does awful in her lofty bosom roar:
Heav’n’s furious storms now rise from ev’ry airth, (2)
In ways more terrible to shake the earth, (3)
Till haughtiness of men be sunk thereby,
That Christ alone may be exalted high.
Now stable earth seems from her centre tost,
And lofty mountain in the ocean lost;
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, undiscerned till now, displays.
Wrath’s massy cloud upon the conscience breaks,
And thus menacing Heaven, in thunder speaks:
“Black wretch, thou madly under foot hast trod
Th’ authority of a commanding God;
Thou, like thy kindred that in Adam fell,
Art but a law-reversing lump of hell,
And there by law and justice doomed to dwell.”
Now, now, the daunted bride her state bewails,
And downward furls her self-exalting sails;
With pungent fear, and piercing terror brought
To mortify her lofty legal thought.
Why? The commandment comes, sin is revived, (4)
That lay so hid, while to the law she lived;
Infinite majesty in God is seen,
And infinite malignity in sin,
That to its expiation must amount
A sacrifice of infinite account.
Justice its dire severity displays,
The law its vast dimensions open lays.
She sees for this broad standard nothing meet,
Save an obedience sinless 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 sinful, miserable state.
Her heart, where once she thought some good to dwell,
The devil’s cab’net filled with trash of hell.
Her boasted features now unmasked bare,
Her vaunted hopes are plunged in deep despair.
Her haunted shelter-house in by-past years
Comes tumbling down about her frighted ears.
Her former rotten faith, love, penitence,
She sees a bowing wall, and tott’ring fence.
Excellencies of thought, and word, and deed,
All swimming, drowning in a sea of dread,
Her beauty now deformity she deems;
Her heart, much blacker that the devil’s seems;
With ready lips she can herself declare
The vilest ever breathed in vital air.
Her former hopes, as refuges of lies,
Are swept away, and all her boasting dies.
She once imagined Heaven would be unjust
To damn so many lumps of human dust,
Formed by himself; but now she owns it true,
Damnation surely is the sinner’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 soul declare him just;
But if his great salvation 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 praise:
If, hell-deserving, me to heaven he bring,
No heart so glad, no tongue so loud shall sing.
If wisdom has not laid the saving plan,
I nothing have to claim, I nothing can.
My works but sin, my merit death I see;
Oh! mercy, mercy, mercy, pity me!”
Thus all self-justifying pleas are dropped,
Most guilty she becomes – her mouth is stopped.
Pungent remorse does her past conduct blame,
And flush her conscious cheek with spreading shame.
Her self-conceited heart is self-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 cause;
How yawning hell, that gapes for such a prey,
Is frustrate with a further hour’s delay.
She that could once her mighty works exalt,
And boast devotion framed without a fault,
Extol her nat’ral powers, – is now brought down,
Her former madness, not her powers, to own;
Her present beggared state, most void of grace,
Unable even to wail her woful case,
Quite powerless to believe, repent, or pray:
Thus pride of duties flies and dies away.
She, like a hardened wretch, a stupid stone,
Lies in the dust, and cries, Undone, undone!

(1) Rom iii. 20.
(2) Wind, or quarter.
(3) Isa. ii. 17, 19.
(4) Rom vii. 9.

GOSPEL SONNETS - Chapter 2 - Section 1

GOSPEL SONNETS
By Ralph Erskine
Chapter 2

SECTION I. – Of a LAW-WORK, and the workings of legal pride under it.

So proud’s the bride, so backwardly disposed;
How then shall e’er the happy match be closed?
Kind grace the tumults of her heart must quell,
And draw her heav’n-ward by the gates of hell.
The Bridegroom’s Father makes, by’s Holy Sp’rit,
His stern command with her stiff conscience meet;
To dash her pride, and shew her utmost need,
Pursues for double debt with awful dread.
He makes her former husband’s frightly ghost
Appear and damn her, as a bankrupt lost;
With curses, threats, and Sinai thunder-claps,
Her lofty tower of legal boasting saps.
These humbling storms, in high or low degrees,
Heav’n’s Majesty will measure as he please;
But still he makes the fiery law at least
Pronounce its awful sentence in her breast,
Till through the law(1) convict of being lost,
She hopeless to the law gives up the ghost;
Which now in rigour comes full debt to crave,
And in close prison cast; but not to save.
For now ‘tis weak, and can’t (through our default)
Its greatest votaries to life exalt.
But well it can command with fire and flame,
And to the lowest pit of ruin damn.
Thus doth it, by commission from above,
Deal with the bride, when Heaven would court her love.
Lo! now she startles, at the Sinai trump,
Which throws her soul into a dismal dump,
Conscious another husband she must have,
Else die for ever in destruction’s grave.
While in conviction’s jail she’s thus inclos’d,
Glad news are heard, the royal Mate’s propos’d.
And now the scornful bride’s inverted stir
Is racking fear he scorns to match with her.
She dreads his fury, and despairs that he
Will ever wed so vile a wretch as she.
And here the legal humour stirs again
To her prodigious loss, and grievous pain:
For when the Prince presents himself to be
Her husband; then she deems, “Ah! is not he
Too fair a match for such a filthy bride?”
Unconscious that the thought bewrays her pride,
Ev’n pride of merit, pride of righteousness,
Expecting Heav’n should love her for her dress;
Unmindful how the fall her face did stain,
And make her but a black, unlovely swain;
Her whole primeval beauty quite defac’d,
And to the rank of fiends her form debas’d;
Without disfigur’d, and defil’d within,
Incapable of any thing but sin.
Heav’n courts not any for their comely face,
But for the glorious praise of sov’reign grace,
Else ne’er had courted one of Adam’s race,
Which all as children of corruption be
Heirs rightful of immortal misery.
Yet here the bride employs her foolish with,
For this bright match her ugly form to fit;
To daub her features o’er with legal paint,
That with a grace she may herself present.
Hopeful the Prince with credit might her wed,
If once some comely qualities she had.
In humble pride her haughty spirit flags;
She cannot think of coming all in rags.
Were she a humble, faithful penitent,
She dreams he’d then contract with full content.
Base varlet! think she’d be a match for him,
Did she but deck herself in handsome trim.
Ah! foolish thoughts! in legal deeps that plod;
Ah! sorry notions of a sov’reign God!
Will God expose his great, his glorious Son,
For our vile baggage to be sold and won?
Should sinful modesty the match decline,
Until its garb be brisk and superfine;
Alas! when should we see the marriage-day?
The happy bargain must flee up for aye.
Presumptuous souls in surly modesty,
Half saviours themselves would fondly be,
Then, hopeful th’ other half their due will fall,
Disdain to be in Jesus’ debt for all.
Vainly they first would wash themselves, and then
Address the fountain to be wash’d more clean.
First heal themselves, and then expect the balm:
Ah! many slightly cure their sudden qualm.
They heal their conscience with a tear of pray’r;
And seek no other Christ, but perish there.
O sinner! search the house, and see the thief
That spoils thy Saviour’s crown, thy soul’s relief,
The hid, but heinous sin of unbelief.
Who can possess a quality that’s good,
Till first he come to Jesus’ cleansing blood?
The pow’r that draws the bride, will also shew
Unto her by the way her hellish hue,
As void of ev’ry virtue to commend,
And full of ev’ry vice that will offend:
Till sov’reign grace the sullen bride shall catch,
She’ll never fit herself for such a match.
Most qualifi’d they are in heav’n to dwell,
Who see themselves most qualifi’d for hell;
And, ere the bride can drink salvation’s cup,
Kind Heav’n must reach to hell and lift her up:
For no decorum e’er about her found,
Is she belov’d; but on a nobler ground.
JEHOVAH’S love is like his nature free,
Nor must his creature challenge his decree;
But low at sov’reign grace’s footstool creep,
Whose ways are searchless, and his judgments deep:
Yet Grace’s suit meets with resistance rude
From haughty souls; for lack of innate good
To recommend them. Thus the backward bride
Affronts her suitor with her modest pride.
Black hatred for his offer’d love repays,
Pride under mask of modesty displays:
In part would save herself; hence, saucy soul,
Rejects the matchless Mate would save in whole.

(1) Gal. ii. 19.

GOSPEL SONNETS - Chapter 1 - Section 5

GOSPEL SONNETS
By Ralph Erskine
Chapter 1

SECTION V. – Men’s vain attempt to seek LIFE by CHRIST’S righteousness joined with their own; and legal hopes natural to all.

BUT still the bride reluctant disallows
The junior suit, and hugs the senior spouse:
Such the old selfish folly of her mind;
So bent to lick the dust, and grasp the wind.
Alledging works and duties of her own
May for her criminal offense atone;
She will her antic dirty robe provide,
Which vain she hopes will all pollutions hide.
The filthy rags that saints away have flung,
She, holding, wraps, and rolls herself in dung;
Thus maugre all the light the gospel gives,
Unto her natural consort fondly cleaves.
Though mercy set the royal match in view,
She’s loath to bid her ancient mate adieu,
When light of scripture, reason, common sense,
Can hardly mortify her vain pretence
To legal righteousness. Yet if at last
Her conscience roused begins to stand aghast;
Pressed with the dread of hell, she’ll rashly patch,
And halve a bargain with the proffered match;
In hopes his help, together with her own,
Will turn to peaceful smiles the wrathful frown.
Through grace the rising Sun delightful sings,
With full salvation in his golden wings,
And righteousness complete; the faithless soul,
Receiving half the light, rejects the whole;
Revolves the sacred page, but reads purblind
The gospel-message with the legal mind.
Men dream their state, ah! too, too slightly viewed,
Needs only be amended, not renewed;
Scorn to be wholly debtors unto grace,
Hopeful their works may meliorate their case.
They fancy present prayers, and future pains
Will for their former failings make amends:
To legal yokes they bow their servile necks
And, lest soul’s slips their false repose perplex,
Think Jesus’ merits make up all defects.
They patch his glorious robe with filthy rags,
And burn but incense to their proper drags,(1)
Disdain to use his righteousness alone,
But as an aiding stirrup to mount their own;
Thus in Christ’s room his rival self enthrone;
And vainly would, dressed up in legal trim,
Divine salvation ‘tween themselves and him.
But know, vain man, that to his share must fall
The glory of the whole, or none at all.
In him all wisdom’s hidden treasures lie,(2)
And all the fulness of the Deity.(3)
This store alone, immense and never spent,
Might poor insolvent debtors well content;
But to hell prison justly Heaven will doom
Proud fools that on their petty stock presume.
The softest couch that gilded nature knows,
an give the wakened conscience no repose.
When God arraigns, what mortal power can stand
Beneath the terror of his lifted hand!
Our safety lies beyond the nat’ral line,
Beneath a purple covert all divine.
Yet how is precious Christ, the way, despised,
And high the way of life by doing prized!
But can its voteries all its levy show?
They prize it most who least its burden know:
Who by the law in part would save his soul,
Becomes a debtor to fulfil the whole.(4)
Its prisoner he remains, and without bail,
‘Till every mite be paid; and if he fail,
(As sure he must, since, by our sinful breach,
Perfection far surmounts all mortal reach,)
Then cursed for ever must his soul remain:
And all the folk of God must say, AMEN.(5)
Why, seeking that the law should help afford,
In honoring the law, he slights its Lord;
Who gave his law-fulfilling righteousness
To be the naked sinner’s perfect dress,
In which he might with spotless beauty shine
Before the face of majesty divine:
Yet, lo! the sinner works with mighty pains
A garment of his own to hide his stains;
Ungrateful, overlooks the gift of God,
The robe wrought by his hand, dy’d in his blood.
In vain the Son of God this web did weave,
Could our vile rags sufficient shelter give.
In vain he every thread of it did draw,
Could sinners be o’ermantled by the law.
Can men’s salvation on their works be built,
Whose fairest actions nothing are but guilt?
Or can the law suppress th’ avenging flame,
When now its only office is to damn!
Did life come by the law in part or whole,
Bless’d Jesus died in vain to save a soul.
Those then who life by legal means expect,
To them is Christ become of no effect;(6)
Because their legal mixtures do in fact
Wisdom’s grand project plainly counteract.
How close proud carnal reasonings combine,
To frustrate sovereign grace’s great design!
Man’s heart by nature weds the law alone,
Nor will another paramour enthrone.
True, many seem, by course of life profane,
No favour for the law to entertain;
But break the bands, and cast the cords away,
That would their raging lusts and passions stay.
Yet even this reigning madness may declare
How strictly wedded to the law they are;
For now (however rich they seemed before)
Hopeless to pay law-debt they give it o’er,
Like desp’rate debtors mad, still run themselves in more.
Despair of success shews their strong desires,
Till legal hopes are parched with lustful fires.
“Let’s give,” say they, “our lawless will free scope,
And live at random, for there is no hope.”(7)
The law, that can’t them help, they stab with hate,
Yet scorn to beg, or court another mate.
Here lusts most opposite their hearts divide,
Their beastly passion and their bankrupt pride.
In passion they their native mate deface,
In pride disdain to be obliged to grace.
Hence plainly as a rule ‘gainst law they live,
Yet closely to it as a cov’nant cleave.
Thus legal pride lies hid beneath the patch,
And strong aversion to the gospel-match.

(1) Hab. 1:16
(2) Col. 2:3
(3) Col. 2:9
(4) Gal. 5:3
(5) Deut. 27:26
(6) Gal. 2:21; v. 2, 4
(7) Jer. 18:12

GOSPEL SONNETS - Chapter 1 - Section 4

GOSPEL SONNETS
By Ralph Erskine
Chapter 1

SECTION IV. – Man’s strict attachment to legal TERMS, or to the law as a condition of life.

SAY, on what terms then Heaven appeased will be?
Why, sure perfection is the least degree.
Yea, more, full satisfaction must be given
For trespass done against the laws of Heaven.
These are the terms: what mortal back so broad,
But must for ever sink beneath the load?
A ransom must be found, or die they must,
Sure even as justice infinite is just.
But, says the legal, proud, self-righteous heart,
Which cannot with her ancient consort part,
“What! won’t the goodness of the God of heaven,
Admit of smalls, when greater can’t be given?
He knows our fall diminished all our funds,
Won’t he accept of pennies now for pounds?
Sincere endeavours for perfection take,
Or terms more possible for mankind make?”
Ah! poor divinity, and jargon loose;
Such hay and straw will never build a house.
Mistake not here, proud mortal, don’t mistake;
God changes not, nor other terms will make.
Will divine faithfulness itself deny,
Which swore solemnly, Man shall do, or die?
Will God most true extend to us, forsooth,
His goodness, to the damage of his truth?
Will spotless holiness be baffled thus?
Or awful justice be unjust for us?
Shall faithfulness be faithless for our sake,
And he his threats, as we his precepts break?
Will our great Creator deny himself,
And for full payment take our filthy pelf?
Dispense with justice, to let mercy vent,
And stain his royal crown with ‘minished rent?
Unworthy thought! O let no mortal clod
Hold such base notions of a glorious God.
Heaven’s holy covenant, made for human race,
Consists, or whole of works or whole of grace.
If works will take the field, then works must be
For ever perfect to the last degree:
Will God dispense with less? Nay sure he won’t
With ragged toll his royal law affront.
Can rags, that Sinai flames will soon despatch,
E’er prove the fiery law’s adequate match?
Vain man must be divorced, and choose to take
Another husband, or a burning lake.
We find the divine volume no where teach
New legal terms within our mortal reach.
Some make, though in the sacred page unknown,
Sincerity assume perfection’s throne;
But who will boast this base usurper’s sway,
Save ministers of darkness, that display
Invented night, to stifle scripture day?
The nat’ralist’s sincerity is naught,
That of the gracious is divinely taught;
Which teaching keeps their graces, if sincere,
Within the limits of the gospel sphere,
Where, vaunting, none created graces sing,
Nor boast of streams, but of the Lord the spring.
Sincerity’s the soul of every grace,
The quality of all the ransomed race,
Of promised favour ‘tis a fruit, a clause;
But no procuring term, no moving cause.
How unadvised the legal mind confounds
The marks of divine favour with the grounds,
And qualities of covenanted friends
With the condition of the covenant blends?
Thus holding gospel truths with legal arms,
Mistakes new-covenant fruits for federal terms:
The joyful sound no change of terms allows,
But change of persons, or another spouse.
The nature same that sinned must do or die,
No milder terms in gospel-offers lie.
For grace no other law abatement shews,
But now law-debtors may restore its dues;
Restore, yea, through a Surety in their place,
With double interest, and a better grace.
Here we of no new terms of life are told,
But of a husband to fulfil the old;
With him alone by faith we’re called to wed,
And let no rival *bruik the marriage bed.

*Enjoy.

GOSPEL SONNETS - Chapter 1 - Section 3

GOSPEL SONNETS
By Ralph Erskine
Chapter 1

SECTION III. – Man’s LEGAL Disposition.

BUT, after all, the bride’s so mal-content,
No argument, save pow’r is prevalent
To bow her will, and gain heart’s consent.
The glorious Prince’s suit she disapproves,
The law, her old primordial husband, loves;
Hopeful in its embraces life to have,
Though dead and buried in her suitor’s grave;
Unable to give life, as once before;
Unfit to be a husband any more.
Yet proudly she the new address disdains,
And all the blest Redeemer’s love and pains;
Though now his head, that cruel thorns did wound,
Is with immortal glory circled round;
Archangels at his awful footstool bow,
And drawing love sits smiling on his brow.
Though now he sends in gospel-tidings good
Epistles of his love, sign’d with his blood;
Yet lordly she the royal suit rejects,
Eternal life by legal works affects;
In vain the living seeks among the dead, (1)
Sues quick’ning comforts in a killing head.
Her dead and bury’d husband has her heart,
Which can nor death remove, nor life impart.
Thus all-revolting Adam’s blinded race
In their first spouse their hope and comfort place.
They natively expect, if guilt them press,
Salvation by a home-bred righteousness:
They look for favour in JEHOVAH’s eyes,
By careful doing all that in them lies.
‘Tis still their primary attempt to draw
Their life and comfort from the vet’ran law;
They flee not to the hope the gospel gives;
To trust a promise bare, their minds aggrieves,
Which judge the man that does, the man that lives.
As native as they draw their vital breath,
Their fond recourse is to the legal path.
“Why,” says old Nature, “in law wedded man,
Won’t heaven be pleased, if I do all I can?
If I conform my walk to nature’s light,
And strive, intent to practise what is right,
Thus won’t I by the God of heav’n be bless’d,
And win his favour, if I do my best?
Good God! (he cries) when press’d with debt and thrall,
‘Have patience with me and I’ll pay thee all.’ (2)
Upon their all, their best, they’re fondly mad,
Though yet their all is naught, their best is bad.
Proud man his can-does mightily exalts,
Yet are his brightest works but splendid faults:
A sinner may have shews of good, but still
The best he can, even at his best, is ill.
Can heaven or divine favour e’er be won
By those that are a mass of hell and sin?
The righteous law does numerous woes denounce
Against the wretched soul that fails but once:
What heaps of curses on their heads it rears,
That have amass’d the guilt of numerous years!

(1) Luke xxiv. 5.
(2) Matt. xviii. 26.

GOSPEL SONNETS - Chapter 1 - Section 2

GOSPEL SONNETS
By Ralph Erskine
Chapter 1

SECTION II. – Redemption through CHRIST

THE second Adam, sov’reign Lord of all,
Did, by his Father’s authorizing call,
From bosom of eternal love descend,
To save the guilty race that him offend;
To treat an everlasting peace with those
Who were and ever would have been his foes.
His errand, never-ending life to give
To them, whose malice would not let him live;
To make a match with rebels, and espouse
The brat which at his love her spite avows.
Himself he humbled to depress her pride,
And make his mortal foe his winning bride.
But, ere the marriage can be solemniz’d,
All lets must be remov’d, all parties pleas’d:
Law-righteousness requir’d, must be procur’d,
Law-vengeance threaten’d, must be full endured,
Stern justice must have credit by the match,
Sweet mercy by the heart the bride must catch.
Poor bankrupt! all her debt must first be paid,
Her former husband in the grave be laid:
Her present lover must be at the cost,
To save and ransom to the uttermost;
If all these things this suitor kind can do,
Then he may win her, and her blessing too.
Hard terms indeed! while death’s the first demand;
But love is strong as death,(1) and will not stand
To carry on the suit, and make it good,
Though at the dearest rate of wounds and blood.
The burden’s heavy, but the back is broad,
The glorious lover is the mighty God. (2)
Kind bowels yearning in th’ eternal Son,
He left his Father’s court, his heav’nly throne:
Aside he threw his most divine array,
And wrapt his Godhead in a vail of clay.
Angelic armies, who in glory crown’d,
With joyful harps his awful throne surround,
Down to the crystal frontier of the sky,(3)
To see the Saviour born, did eager fly;
And ever since behold with wonder fresh
Their Sov’reign and our Saviour wrapt in flesh;
Who in his garb did mighty love display,
Restoring what he never took away,(4)
To God his glory, to the law its due,
To heav’n its honour, to the earth its hue,
To man a righteousness divine, complete,
A royal robe to suit the nuptial rite.
He in her favour, whom he lov’d so well,
At once did purchase heav’n and vanquish hell.
Oh! unexampled love! so vast, so strong,
So great, so high, so deep, so broad, so long!
Can finite thought this ocean huge explore,
Unconscious of a bottom or a shore?
His love admits no parallel, -- for why?
At one great draught of love he drank hell dry.
No drop of wrathful fall he left behind;
No dreg to witness that he was unkind.
The sword of awful justice pierc’d his side,
That mercy thence might gush upon the bride.
The meritorious labours of his life,
And glorious conquests of his dying strife,
Her debt of doing, suff’ring, both cancell’d,
And broke the bars his lawful captive held.
Down to the ground the hellish host he threw,
Then mounting high the trump of triumph blew,
Attended with a bright seraphic band,
Sat down enthrone’d sublime on God’s right hand;
Where glorious choirs their various harps employ,
To sound his praises with confed’rate joy.
There he, the bride’s strong intercessor, sits,
And thence the blessing of his blood transmits,
Sprinkling all o’er the flaming throne of God,
Pleads for her pardon his atoning blood;
Sends down his holy co-eternal Dove,
To shew the wonders of incarnate love,
To woo and win the bride’s reluctant heart,
And pierce it with his kindly killing dart;
By gospel light to manifest that now
She has no further with the law to do;
That her new Lord has loos’d the fed’ral tie,
That once hard bound her, or to do or die;
That precepts, threats, no single might can crave:
Thus for her former spouse he digg’d a grave;
The law fast to his cross did nail and pin,
Then bury’d the defunct his tomb within,
That he the lowly widow to himself might win,

(1) Song viii. 6.
(2) Isa. ix. 6.
(3) Luke ii. 9-14
(4) Psalm lxix. 4.

GOSPEL SONNETS - Chapter 1 - Section 1

GOSPEL SONNETS
By Ralph Erskine
Chapter 1
A general account of Man’s fall in ADAM, and the remedy provided in CHRIST; and a particular account of Man’s being naturally wedded to the law, as a covenant of works.

SECTION I. – The FALL of ADAM.

OLD Adam once a heav’n of pleasure found,
While he with perfect innocence was crowned;
His winged affections to his God could move,
In raptures of desire, and strains of love.
Man, standing spotless, pure, and innocent,
Could well the law of works with works content;
Though then, (nor since,) it could demand no less
Than personal and perfect righteousness:
These, unto sinless man were easy terms,
Though now beyond the reach of wither’d arms;
The legal cov’nant then upon the field,
Perfection sought, man could perfection yield
Rich had he, and his progeny, remain’d,
Had he primeval innocence maintain’d:
His life had been a rest without annoy,
A scene of bliss, a paradise of joy.
But subtile Satan, in the serpent hid,
Proposing fair the fruit that God forbid,
Man soon seduc’d by hell’s alluring art,
Did, disobedient, from the rule depart;
Devour’d the bait, and, by his bold offence,
Fell from his blissful state of innocence. (1)
Prostrate, he lost his God, his life, his crown,
From all his glory tumbled headlong down;
Plung’d in a deep abyss of sin and wo,
Where, void of heart to will, or hand to do,
For’s own relief he can’t command a thought,
The total sum of what he can is nought.
He’s able only now t’increase his thrall;
He can destroy himself, and this is all,
But can the hellish brat Heaven’s law fulfil,
Whose precepts high surmount his strength and skill?
Can filthy dross produce a golden beam?
Or poison’d springs a salutif’rous stream?
Can carnal minds, fierce enmity’s wide maw,
Be duly subject to the divine law?
Nay, now its direful threat’nings must take place
On all the disobedient human race,
Who do by guilt Omnipotence provoke,
Obnoxious stand to his uplifted stroke.
They must ingulph themselves in endless woes,
Who to the living God are deadly foes;
Who natively his holy will gainsay,
Must to his awful justice fall a prey.
In vain do mankind now expect, in vain
By legal deeds immortal life to gain:
Nay, death is threaten’d, threats must have their due,
Or, souls that sin must die, (2) as God is true.

(1) Gen. iii 1-6
(2) Ezek. xviii, 4

GOSPEL SONNETS - Preface

GOSPEL SONNETS
By Ralph Erskine

Part 1.

The Believer’s Espousals;
A Poem

Upon Isaiah liv. 5. Thy Maker is thy Husband

PREFACE

HARK, dying mortal, if the Sonnet prove
A song of living and immortal love,
‘Tis then thy grand concern the theme to know,
If life and immortality be so.
Are eyes to read, or ears to hear a trust?
Shall both in death be cramm’d anon with dust?
Then trifle not to please thine ear and eye,
But read thou, hear thou, for eternity.
Pursue not shadows wing’d, but be thy chase
The God of glory, on the field of grace:
The mighty hunter’s name is lost and vain,
That runs not this substantial prize to gain.
These humble lines assume no high pretence,
To please the fancy, or allure the sense,
But aim, if everlasting life’s thy chase,
To clear thy mind, and warn thy heart thro’ grace.
A marriage so mysterious I proclaim,
Betwixt two parties of such diff’rent fame,
That human tongues may blush their names to tell,
To wit, the Prince of Heav’n, the heir of hell!
But on so vast a subject who can find
Words suiting the conceptions of his mind?
Or, if our language with our thought could vie,
What mortal thought can raise itself so high?
When words and thoughts both fail, may faith and pray’r
Ascend, by climbing up the scripture-stair:
From sacred writ these strong espousals may
Be explicated in the foll’wing way.

This is the preface from Ralph Erskine’s Gospel Sonnets. I have greatly enjoyed this book. Ralph Erskine was a pastor of the Secessionist Church of Scotland. He was born March 15, 1685 and died November 6, 1752. I also own two other books of his containing his sermons. Erskine is Calvinistic in his theology, and helped to lead me down that path as well. As I have time, I plan to share sections of Gospel Sonnets here in this blog. I first learned of this book from reading John G. Paton’s autobiography. Paton describes that his father was reading Erskine’s Gospel Sonnets aloud in a garden when a young lady heard him and commented on its beauty. They married, and John was born to them. John Paton’s story is remarkable. So much so that Sheri and I decided to name our fifth child, Paton Valor Southerland in John G. Paton’s honor.

The Hand of God: Our National Treasure

O’er spans of time and plans of God,
Do American progeny expound,
The wondrous works that He has wrought
At the humble site of Jamestown.

In celebration of two hundred years,
Eighteen – ought seven,
Marked the beginning of our cheers,
For God’s blessings thus given.

Then after fifty years had passed,
Virginia stopped to remember,
The hand of God in her past,
And great hope for her future.

Shortly after the turn of century twenty,
America still acknowledged the God of Heaven,
Thanked Him for His blessings of plenty,
And prayed aloud in nineteen ‘o seven.

Though society changed, with technology was driven,
Christian rulers still, with grateful hearts,
In nineteen fifty seven,
In official celebration, praised God for all He imparts.

And here we arrive in two-thousand seven.
Four hundred years have since passed,
Since this country’s first Christians,
Graced the shores of this land so blessed.

Strike up the band! Blow the horns!
Come celebrate this year!
Yet governmental response forlorn,
For God they no longer fear.