Lo! errors gross on ev'ry side
Conspire to hurt and wound;
Antinomists do them divide,
And legalists confound.
The BELIEVER'S PRINCIPLES Concerning Faith and Sense,
1. Of Faith and Sense Natural.
2. Of Faith and Sense Spiritual.`
3. The Harmony and Discord between Faith and Sense.
4. The Valour and Victories of Faith.
5. The Heights and Depths of Sense,
6. Faith and Frames compared, or Faith building upon Sense discovered.
Faith and Sense Natural, compared and distinguished,
When Abram's body, Sarah's womb,
Were ripe for nothing but the tomb,
Exceeding old, and wholly dead,
Unlike to bear the promis'd seed:
Faith said, I shall an Isaac see;
No, no, said sense; it cannot be :
Blind reason, to augment the strife,
Adds, How can death engender life?
My heart is like a rotten tomb,
More dead than ever Sarah's womb;
O! can the promis'd seed of grace
Spring forth from such a barren place!
Sense gazing but on flinty rocks,
My hope and expectation chokes:
But could I, skill'd in Abram's art,
O'erlook my dead and barren heart;
And build my hope on nothing less
Than divine pow'r and faithfulness:
Soon would I find him raise up song
To Abram, out of rocks and stones.
Faith acts as busy boatmen do,
Who backward look, and forward row;
It looks intent to things unseen,
Thinks objects visible too mean.
Sense thinks it madness thus to steer,
And only trusts its eye and ear;
Into faith's boat dare thrust its oar
And put it further from the shore.
Faith does alone the promise eye;
Sense won't believe unless it see;
Nor can it trust the divine guide,
Unless it have both wind and tide.
Faith thinks the promise sure and good;
Sense doth depend on likelihood;
Faith ev'n in storms believes the seers;
Sense calls all men, ev'n prophets, liars.
Faith uses means, but rests on none;
Sense fails when outward means are gone;
Trusts more in probabilities,
Than all the divine promises.
It rests upon the rusty beam
Of outward things that hopeful seem;
Let these its support sink or cease,
No promise then can yield it peace.
True faith that's of a divine brood,
Consults not base with flesh and blood;
But carnal sense, which ever errs,
With carnal reason still confers.
What! won't my disciples believe
That I am risen from the grave?
Why will they pore on dust and death,
And overlook my quick'ning breath?
Why do they slight the word I spake?
And rather sorry counsel take
With death, and with a pow'rless grave,
If they their captive can't relieve?
Sense does enquire if tombs of clay,
Can send their guests alive away?
But faith will hear JEHOVAH'S Word,
Of life and death the Sov'reign Lord.
Should I give ear to rotten dust,
Or to the tombs confine my trust:
No resurrection can I see,
For dust that flies into mine eye.
What! Thomas, can't thou trust so much
To me as to thy sight and touch?
Won't thou believe till sense be guide,
And thrust its hand into my side?
Where is thy faith, if it depends
On nothing but thy finger-ends?
But bless'd are they who truth do seal
By faith, yet neither see nor feel.
Faith and Sense Spiritual, compared and distinguished. Where also the Difference between the Assurance of Faith, and the Assurance of Sense.
THE certainty of faith and sense
Wide differ in experience :
Faith builds upon, Thus saith the Lord;
Sense views his work; and not his word.
God's word without is faith's resort;
His work within doth sense support.
By faith we trust him without pawns; [pledges.]
By sense we handle with our hands."
By faith the word of truth's receiv'd;
By sense we know we have believ'd,
Faith's certain by fiducial acts;
Sense by its evidential facts.
Faith credits the divine report;
Sense to his breathings makes resort;
That on his word of grace will hing;
This on his Spirit witnessing.
By faith I take the Lord for mine;
By sense I feel his love divine;
By that I touch his garment's hem;
By this find virtue thence to stream.
By faith I have mine all on band;
By sense I have some stock in hand:
By that some vision is begun;
By this I some fruition win.
My faith can fend ev'n in exile;
Sense cannot live without a smile.
By faith I to his promise fly;
By sense I in his bosom lie.
Faith builds upon the truth of God,
That lies within the promise broad:
But sense upon the truth of grace
His hand within my heart did place.
Thus Christ's the object faith will eye;
And faith's the object sense may see;
Faith keeps the truth of God in view,
While sense the truth of faith may shew.
Hence faith's assurance firm can stand,
When sense's in the deep may strand;
And faith's persuasion full prevail,
When comfortable sense may fail,
I am assur'd when faith's in act,
Though sense and feeling both I lack;
And thus mysterious is my lot,
I'm oft assur'd when I am not;
Oft pierc'd with racking doubts and fears;
Yet faith these brambles never bears:
But unbelief, that cuts my breath,
And stops the language of my faith.
Clamours of unbelieving fears
So frequently disturb my ears
I cannot hear what faith would
Till once the noisy clamours stay.
And then will fresh experience find,
When faith gets leave to speak its mind,
The native language thereof is,
My Lord is mine, and I am his.
Sad doubtings compass me about,
Yet faith itself could never doubt;
For as the sacred volume saith,
Much doubting argues little faith.
The doubts and fears that work my grief,
Flow not from faith, but unbelief;
For, faith, whene'er it acteth, cures
The plague of doubts, and me assures.
But when mine eye of faith's asleep,
I dream of drowning in the deep:
But, as befals the sleeping eye,
Though sight remain, it cannot see:
The seeing faculty abides,
Though sleep from active seeing hides;
So faith's assuring pow'rs endure
Ev'n when it ceases to assure.
There's still persuasion in my faith,
Ev'n when I'm fill'd with fears of wrath;
The trusting habit still remains,
Though slumbers hold the act in chains.
Th' assuring faculty it keeps,
Ev'n when its eye in darkness sleeps,
Wrapp'd up in doubts; but when it wakes,
It rouses up assuring acts.
The Harmony and Discord between Faith and Sense; how they help, and how they mar each other.
THOUGH gallant faith can keep the field
When cow'rdly sense will fly or yield;
Yet while I view their usual path,
Sense often stands and falls with faith.
Faith ushers in sweet peace and joy,
Which further heartens faith's employ;
Faith like the head, and sense the heart,
Do mutual vigour fresh impart.
When lively faith and feeling sweet
Like dearest darlings kindly meet,
They straight each other help and hug
In loving friendship close and snug.
Faith gives to sense both life and breath,
And sense gives joy and strength to faith;
"O now, says faith, how fond do I
"In sense's glowing bosom lie!"
Their mutual kindness then is such,
That oft they doting too too much,
Embrace each other out of breath;
As Esop hugg'd his child to death.
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