tween God and my soul, it is that abominable thing that hides his face, provokes his wrath, and will separate my soul from God for ever.* Oh what a wretched being am I by reason of sin! oh that my soul could lay it deeply to heart, as that which hath done me so much injury! (4.) What can I do to make God amends? will prayers, tears, labours, diligence in duties, resolution of obedience, pacify or please the Lord? will sufferings and sorrow quench the fire of God's anger? Oh, no, there is no created being whatsoever can make up this breach if I could perfectly keep the law, and offend in no tittle, in thought, word or deed, that will not do it: performing a new duty, is no payment of an old debt; if I should lie in hell for ever, that endless punishment of a finite creature will not satisfy infinite justice, and therefore the utmost farthing cannot be be paid; woe is me, is there no remedy? yes, the gospel propounds one, and that is Jesus Christ. 2. Sound-hearted faith in Christ. Whenever poor sinners are brought into God's favour, the next work God effects by his Spirit, is to produce a gospel faith, and this God doth, (1.) By engaging careless sinners to a diligent attendance upon the word preached, for faith comes by hearing. As this is a great and important duty, so it is a condition to which God hath made promises: "Hear, and your souls shall live." It is God's way and course into which he usually brings that sinner whom he is pleased to renew by his grace; be sure, then, that thou watch daily at his gates, waiting at the posts of his doors; || turn not thy back upon God's appointment; attend to the most plain and piercing ministry, it is the power of God unto salvation; who * Isa. lix. 2. + Rom. x. 17. Isa. lv. 3. || Prov. viii. 34. knows but God may send down his Spirit on the hearing of faith? * This is the method of his grace, first to reconcile men to his ordinances, and so by them to himself. (2.) He makes the poor soul mind the word spoken. The sinner was wont to disregard truths as uninteresting or unimportant, but now conviction is fastened, and his heart being deeply affected, he cannot but confess that God is in his word of a truth. † O that at last you would consider, and receive with meekness the engrafted word as a word of conviction, that you would not despise prophesying, nor quench the Spirit! If God intend you good, he will pierce and break your hearts, and make you solicitous about salvation, and to cry out, What shall I do to be saved? Soul-concerns will be a leading consideration in your thoughts, and then you proceed on the road to further good. (3.) He opens the eyes of men, to see further the nature of true justifying faith, that it is not such a dead, heartless thing as it is ordinarily taken to be; and that the faith which they imagined they had, is not the faith of God's elect; and that the soul hath not indeed a gospel faith, never did savingly believe, yet must necessarily have that faith, or be lost for ever. This is that which the Scripture assigns to be one of the works of the Spirit, John xvi. 8, 9; the Spirit shall convince the world of sin: what sin? because they believe not on me. O sirs, that you would study your unbelieving state! Think with thyself: the faith which will bring me off at the great day, must not be a faith of my own coining, but God's stamping; and alas, did I ever see the want of this? have I been convinced of the difficulty of believing and its necessity? what a sad thing will it be, if I go to the grave with a + 1 Cor. xiv. 24, 25. + Acts ii. 37. Rom. i. 16. Gal. iii. 2. presumption, instead of a sound faith? I see, I see I have been deluded with Satan's brat, rather than the genuine fruit of God's Spirit: oh, what shall I do for a grain of saving faith? (4.) He engages the poor guilty sinner to struggle with his own heart in the exercise of believing. O that I could believe! O that my heart were knit to Christ! fain would I accept of Christ, but I am beaten off, Satan and my own heart oppose it, I am like a man swimming against the stream, running uphill, I am just laying hold, but beat off again: I cry as the poor man in the gospel, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief:"* yet I will not give up the attempt, guilt makes me look on God as an enemy; yet I will say with Job, "Though he slay me, yet I will trust in him." I have no where else to go, no course else to take, Christ I must have, or I am undone for everChrist's person, as God and man, in the effects of both estates, humiliation and exaltation, in all his offices, Prophet, Priest, King Christ's merit to satisfy, and Spirit to sanctify-I will quit all things for him, it is the King's Son only that can bring my soul into favour with God: Prov. viii. 35, "Whoso findeth him findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord." If the Lord Jesus were mine, saith the soul, I question not but I should obtain favour with God, his blood is the atonement, he is the propitiation for sins, I must come to God by him, as the mystical ladder of Jacob. Alas, what shall I do? this heavy foot of mine will not step upon this ladder, this palsy hand will not lay hold on him; Lord, make my foot to move that I may come to Christ, strengthen my hand to receive him. I shall briefly touch the other means of enjoying God's favour, which are, ⚫. Mark ix. 24. + Job xiii. 15. 3. Self-resignation to God. Give up yourselves to God in covenant; nothing can satisfy you but God himself, nothing can satisfy God but yourselves; offer up your bodies as a living sacrifice, instead of the bodies of dead beasts under the law-holy, instead of carnal ordinances-reasonable, instead of irrational brutes, and this shall be acceptable to God, Rom. xii. 1. If you vow yourselves as a free-will offering to the Lord, he will graciously accept of your dedication, and smile upon you in Christ. Study his word, understand the terms of the covenant, accept voluntarily of those conditions, take his yoke upon you, put your necks under that easy yoke, and look upon it as your relief and pleasure, honour and ornament. First give up yourselves to the Lord, and then to his ministers. by the will of God, then be ready to profess your subjection to the gospel of Christ; be ready to say I am the Lord's, call yourselves by the name of Jacob, subscribe with your hand to the Lord, and sirname yourselves by the name of Israel, Isa. xliv. 5. Be ready to to give any pledges and testimonies of your fidelity, in troth-plighting to be the Lord's servants for ever; give all the members of thy body, and faculties of thy soul to his service; receive his words, hide his commandments with thee, incline thy ear to wisdom, apply thy heart to understanding, lift up thy voice, cry, seek for them as for silver, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God; † for the Scripture saith, "He that diligently seeketh good, procureth favour," Prov. xi, 27, that is, he that gives up himself to God in the way of his appointments, shall enjoy favour in the eyes of God and men: "A good man obtaineth favour of the Lord."-Prov. xii. 2. Make it thy business to walk with God, watch over. + Prov. ii. 1-5. 2 Cor. viii. 5. ix. 13. thy heart, mortify lusts, exercise graces, perform duties, do all the good, avoid all the evil thou canst, and see what the effect will be: "Among the righteous there is favour."-Prov. xiv. 9. Favour towards the cause of God, favour in God towards them; for thou Lord wilt bless the righteous, with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield. 66 4. Earnest prayer and supplication. Psalm cxix. 58, "I entreated thy favour with my whole heart;" it is worth seeking, his favour merits our petitions, O plead hard for it, be not put off without it; let such language as this be in thy heart, or on thy lips-Lord, here I am a poor forlorn wretch, a guilty sinner; once the first man Adam in my nature was in thy favour, as one of the courtiers of heaven, he walked all the days of his innocency in the light of thy countenance; but alas, he fell, offended thy Majesty, proved a traitor, lost thy favour, and we in him, by breaking thy laws; and now the poor, wretched human race are banished from the palace of the prince, into a dungeon of darkness, to lie and perish in the shades of sin, guilt, wrath and endless despair; shouldst thou give me my due, thou mayest justly banish me amongst devils and damned spirits for ever: but, Lord, though I deserve no favour, Jesus Christ doth, he drank of the brook in the way, he made a passage to thyself by a new and living way; the sun of righteousness is risen, hath banished the shades of gloomy darkness caused by God's displeasure, hath brought life and immortality to light, hath removed frowns from the face of God, that poor sinners may behold him in the face of Jesus Christ; through the tender mercy of our God, the day-spring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of * 2 Cor. iv. 6. * |