The Interpreter answered, "This is Christ, who continually with the
oil of his grace maintains the work already begun in the heart; by
the means of which, notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls
of his people prove gracious still. 2 Cor. 12: 9. And in that thou
sawest that the man stood behind the wall to maintain the fire; this
is to teach thee that it is hard for the tempter to see how this
work of grace is maintained in the soul."
There is to be seen at the bottom of this holy river, the glory of
God. We are saved, saved by grace, saved by grace through the
redemption that is in Christ, to the praise and glory of God. And
what a good bottom is here. Grace will not fail, Christ has been
sufficiently tried, and God will not lose his glory; therefore they
that drink of this river, shall doubtless be saved; to wit, they
that drink of it with a spiritual appetite to it.
It pleased God, for the glory of his wisdom, to make this the way;
to wit, to set up grace to reign. I have often thought, and
sometimes said, If God will be pleased with any way, surely he will
be pleased with his own. Now this is the way of his own devising,
the fruit and effect of his own wisdom. Wherefore, sinner, please
him, please him in that wherein he is well pleased; come to the
waters, cast thyself into them and fear not drowning; let God alone
to cause them to carry thee into his paradise, that thou mayest see
his throne.
Let us take notice of the carriage of God to man, and again of man
to God, in his conversion.
First, of God's carriage to man. He comes to him while he is in his
sins; he comes to him now, not in the heat and fire of his jealousy,
but in the cool of the day, in unspeakable gentleness, mercy, pity,
and love--not in clothing himself with vengeance, but in a way of
entreaty, and meekly beseecheth the sinner to be reconciled unto
him. 2 Cor. 5: 19, 20.
It is expected among men, that he who gives the offence, should be
the first in seeking peace; but, sinner, betwixt God and man it is
not so: not that we loved God, not that we chose God; but God was in
Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them. God is the first that seeketh peace; and in a
way of entreaty, he bids his ministers pray you in Christ's stead:
"As if God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be
ye reconciled to God."
O sinner, wilt thou not open? Behold, God the Father and his Son
Jesus Christ stand both at the door of thy heart, beseeching there
for favor from thee, that thou wilt be reconciled to them; with the
promise, if thou wilt comply, to forgive thee all thy sins. O grace,
O amazing grace! To see a prince entreat a beggar to receive an
alms, would be a strange sight; to see a king entreat the traitor to
accept of mercy, would be a stranger sight than that; but to see God
entreat a sinner, to hear Christ say, "I stand at the door and
knock, with a heart full and a heaven full of grace to bestow upon
him that opens;" this is such a sight as dazzles the eyes of angels.
What sayest thou now, sinner? Is not this God rich in mercy? hath
not this God great love for sinners? Nay, further, that thou mayst
not have any ground to think that all this is hut complimenting,
there is also here declared, that "God hath made him to be sin for
us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him." If God would have stuck at any thing, it would have been at
the death of his Son; but he delivered him up for us freely: how
shall he not then with him freely give us all things?
Let us now come to the carriage of these sinners to God, and that
from the first day he begins to deal with their souls, even to the
time that they are to be taken up into heaven.
1. And to begin with God's ordinary dealing with sinners: when at
first he ministers conviction to them by his word, how strangely do
they behave themselves. They love not to have their consciences
touched; they like not to ponder upon what they have been, what they
are, or what is like to become of them hereafter: such thoughts they
count unmanly and hurtful. And now they are for any thing rather
than the word: an alehouse, a playhouse, sports, pleasures, sleep,
the world, and what not, so they may stave of the power of the word
of God.
2. If God now comes up closer to them, and begins to fasten
conviction upon the conscience, though such convictions be the first
step to faith and repentance, yea, to life eternal, yet what shifts
will they have to forget them and wear them off! Yea, although they
now begin to see that they must either turn or turn, yet ofttimes
they will study to waive a present conversion. They object, they are
too young to turn yet; seven years hence is time enough; when they
are old, or come upon a sick bed.
O what an enemy is man to his own salvation! I am persuaded that God
has visited some of you often with his word, and you have thrown
water, as fast as he hath by the word cast fire, upon your
conscience.
Christian, what had become of thee, if God had taken thy denial for
an answer, and said, "Then will I carry the word of salvation to
another, and he will hear it?"
"Sinner, turn!" says God. "Lord, I cannot attend to it," says the
sinner. "Turn or burn," says God. "I will venture that," says the
sinner. "Turn and be saved," says God. "I cannot leave my
pleasures," says the sinner; "sweet sins, sweet pleasures, sweet
delights," says the sinner. But what grace is it in God thus to
parley with the sinner! O the patience of God to a poor sinner! What
if God should now say, "Then get thee to thy sins, get thee to thy
delights, get thee to thy pleasures, take them for thy portion; they
shall be all thy heaven, all thy happiness, all thy portion?"
3. But God comes again, and shows the sinner the necessity of
turning now or not at all; yea, and giveth the sinner this
conviction so strongly that he cannot put it if. But behold, the
sinner has one spark of enmity still: if he must needs turn now, he
will either turn from one sin to another, from great ones to little
ones, from many to few, or from all to one, and there stop. But
perhaps convictions will not thus leave him. Why, then he will turn
from profaneness to the law of Moses, and will dwell as long as God
will let him, upon his own seeming goodness. And now observe him, he
is a great stickler for legal performance; now he will be a good
neighbor, he will pay every man his own, will leave off his
swearing, the ale-house, his sports, and carnal delights; he will
read, pray, talk of scripture, and be a very busy one in religion,
such as it is; now he will please God, and make him amends for all
the wrong he has done him, and will feed him with chapters, and
prayers, and promises, and vows, and a great many more such dainty
dishes as these; persuading himself that now he must be fair for
heaven, and thinks besides that he serveth God as well as any man:
but all this while he is as ignorant of Christ as the stool he sits
on, and no nearer heaven than was the blind Pharisee, only he has
got in a cleaner way to hell than the rest of his neighbors are.
Might not God now cast off this sinner, and cast him out of his
sight? might he not leave him to his own choice, to be deluded by
and to fall in his own righteousness, because he trusts to it and
commits iniquity?
But grace, preventing grace preserves him. It is true, this turn of
the sinner is a turning short of Christ. But,
4. God in this way of the sinner will mercifully follow him, and
show him the shortness of his performances, the emptiness of his
duties, and the uncleanness of his righteousness. This I speak of
the sinner, the salvation of whose soul is graciously intended and
contrived of God; for he shall by gospel light be wearied out of
all; he shall be made to see the vanity of all, and that the
personal righteousness of Jesus Christ, and that only, is it which
of God is ordained to save the sinner from the due reward of his
sins. But behold, the sinner now, at the sight and sense of his own
nothingness, falleth into a kind of despair; for although he hath it
in him to presume of salvation through the delusiveness of his own
good opinion of himself, yet he hath it not in himself to have a
good opinion of the grace of God in the righteousness of Christ.
Wherefore he concludeth that if salvation be alone of the grace of
God through the righteousness of Christ, and all of a man's own is
utterly rejected as to the justification of his person with God,
then he is cast away.
Now, the reason of this sinking of heart is the sight that God has
given him--a sight of the uncleanness of his best performance. The
former sight of his immoralities did somewhat distress him, and make
him betake himself to his own good deeds to ease his conscience;
wherefore this was his prop, his stay. But behold, now God has taken
this from under him, and now he falls. Wherefore his best doth also
now forsake him, and fly away like the morning dew.
Besides, this revelation of the emptiness of his own righteousness
brings also with it a further discovery of the naughtiness of his
heart, in its hypocrisies, pride, unbelief, hardness of heart,
deadness, and backwardness to all gospel obedience; which sight of
himself lies like millstones upon his shoulders, and sinks him yet
further into doubts and fears of damnation. For bid him now receive
Christ; he answers, he cannot, he dares not. Ask him why he cannot;
he will answer, he has no faith nor hope in his heart. Tell him that
grace is offered him freely; he says, "But I have no heart to
receive it." Besides, he finds not, as he thinks, any gracious
disposition in his soul, and therefore concludes he does not belong
to God's mercy, nor has an interest in the blood of Christ, and
therefore dares not presume to believe. Wherefore he sinks in his
heart, he dies in his thoughts, he doubts, he despairs, and
concludes he shall never be saved.
5. But behold, the God of all grace leaves him not in this distress,
but comes up now to him closer than ever; he sends the Spirit of
adoption, the blessed Comforter, to him to tell him God is love, and
therefore not willing to reject the broken in heart; bids him cry
and pray for an evidence of mercy to his soul, and says,
"Peradventure you may be hid in the day of the Lord's anger."
At this the sinner takes some encouragement; yet he can get no more
than that which will hang upon a mere probability, which, by the
next doubt that ariseth in the heart, is blown quite away, and the
soul left again in its first plight, or worse; where he lamentably
bewails his miserable state, and is tormented with a thousand fears
of perishing; for he hears not a word from heaven, perhaps for
several weeks together. Wherefore unbelief begins to get the mastery
of him, and takes off the very edge and spirit, of prayer, and
inclination to hear the word any longer; yea, the devil also claps
in with these thoughts, saying, "All your prayers, and hearing, and
reading, and godly company, which you frequent, will rise up in
judgment against you at last; therefore better it is, if you must be
damned, to choose as easy a place in hell as you can."
The soul at this being quite discouraged, thinks to do as it has
been taught, and with dying thoughts it begins to faint when it goes
to prayer or to hear the word. But behold, when all hope seems to be
quite gone, and the soul concludes, "I die, I perish," in comes on a
sudden the Spirit of God again, with some good word of God which the
soul never thought of before; which word of God commands a calm in
the soul, makes unbelief give place, encourages to hope and wait
upon God again: perhaps it gives some little sight of Christ to the
soul, and of his blessed undertaking for sinners.
But behold, so soon as the power of things again begins to wear off
the heart, the sinner gives place to unbelief, questions God's
mercy, and fears damning again. He also entertains hard thoughts of
God and Christ, and thinks former encouragements were fancies,
delusions, or mere think-sos.
And why doth not God now cast the sinner to hell, for thus abusing
his mercy and grace? O no: "He will have mercy on whom he will have
mercy, and he will have compassion on whom he will have compassion;"
wherefore goodness and mercy shall follow him all the days of his
life, that he may dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
6. God, therefore, after all these provocations, comes by his Spirit
to the soul again, and brings sealing grace and pardon to the
conscience, testifying to it that its sins are forgiven and that
freely, for the sake of the blood of Christ. And now has the sinner
such a sight of the grace of God in Christ, as kindly breaks his
heart with joy and comfort. Now the soul knows what it is to eat
promises; it also knows what it is to eat and drink the flesh and
blood of Jesus Christ by faith; now it is driven by the power of his
grace to its knees, to thank God for forgiveness of sins and for
hopes of an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith
which is in Christ; now it has a calm and a sunshine; now "he washes
his steps with butter, and the rock pours him out rivers of oil."
7. But after this, perhaps the soul grows cold again; it also
forgets the grace received, and waxes carnal; begins again to hanker
after the world; loseth the life and savor of heavenly things;
grieves the Spirit of God; wofully backslides; casteth off closet
duties quite, or else retains only the formality of them; is a
reproach to religion, and grieves the heart of them that are awake
and tender of God's name.
But what will God now do? Will he take this advantage to destroy the
sinner? No. Will he let him alone in his apostasy? No. Will he leave
him to recover himself by the strength of his now languishing grace?
No. What then? Why, he will seek this man out till he finds him, and
bring him home to himself again: "For thus saith the Lord God,
Behold I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out, as a
shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among the sheep
that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver
them out of all places where they have been scattered. I will seek
that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away; I
will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which
was sick." Ezek. 34:11-16.
Of God's ordinary way of fetching the backslider home I will not now
discourse; namely, whether he always breaketh his bones for his
sins, as he broke David's, or whether he will all the days of his
life for this leave him under guilt and darkness; or whether he will
kill him now, that he may not be condemned in the day of judgment,
as he dealt with them at Corinth. I Cor. 11: 30-32.
God is wise, and can tell how to imbitter backsliding to them he
loveth. He can break their bones and save them; he can lay them in
the lowest pit, in darkness and the deep, and save them; he can slay
them as to this life, and save them. And herein appears wonderful
grace, that Israel is not forsaken.
8. But suppose God deals not either of these ways with the
backslider, but shines upon him again, and seals up to him the
remission of his sins a second time, saying, "I will heal their
backslidings, and love them freely." What will the soul do now?
Surely it will walk humbly now, and holily all its days. It will
never backslide again, will it? It may happen it will not; it may
happen it will. It is just as his God keeps him; for although his
sins are of himself, his standing is of God; I say, his standing
while he stands, and his recovery if he falls, are both of God.
Wherefore, if God leaves him a little, the next gap he finds, away
he is gone again: "My people," says God, "are bent to backsliding
from me."
Here is grace. So many times as the soul backslides, so many times
God brings him back again--I mean the soul that must be saved by
grace; he renews his pardons and multiplies them. Yea, for aught I
know, there are some saints, and they not long-lived either, that
must receive, before they enter into life, millions of pardons from
God for these; and every pardon is an act of grace, through the
redemption that is in Christ's blood.
The first step to the cure of a wounded conscience is for thee to
know the grace of God, especially the grace of God as to
justification.
Grace can pardon our ungodliness and justify us with Christ's
righteousness; it can put the Spirit of Jesus Christ within us; it
can help us when we are down; it can heal us when we are wounded; it
can multiply pardons, as we through frailty multiply transgressions.