Imputed Righteousness! - beloved Friend,
To what advantage can this Doctrine tend?
If at the same time a Believer's breast,
Be not by real Righteousness possest?
And if it be, why volumes on it made,
With such a stress upon the imputed laid?
Amongst the Disputants of later days,
This in its turn, became a favourite phrase;
When much is divided in religious Schemes,
Contending Parties ran into extremes:
And now it claims th' attention of the age,
In Hervey's elegant and lively page:
This his Aspasio labours to impress,
With ev'ry turn of language and address.
With all the flow of eloquence, that shines
Through all his (full enough) embellish'd lines.
Though now so much exerting to confirm
Its vast importance, and revive the term,
He was himself, he lets his Theron know,
Of diff'rent sentiments not long ago.
And friends of yours, it has been thought, I find,
Have brought Aspasio to his present mind.
Now having read, but unconvinc'd I own,
What various Reasons for it he has shown;
Or rather Rhetoric - if it be true,
In any sense that has appear'd to you;
I rest secur'd of giving no offence
By asking - how you understand the sense?
By urging in a manner frank and free
What reasons, as I read, occur to me;
Why Righteousness, for man to rest upon,
Must be a real not imputed one.
