‘If,’ saith he, ‘the Lord hath stirred thee up against me, let him
accept an offering, a smell, a sweet-smelling sacrifice; a figure of
the satisfactoriness of the sufferings of Jesus Christ’ (1 Sam 26:19).
What is the meaning of all these passages, if not to show that when we
go to pray to God, we should turn away our face from every thing of
ours, and look to God, only by the price of redemption paid for us by
Jesus Christ, and plead that alone with him as the great prevailing
argument, and that by and for the sake of which he giveth pardon and
grace to help in time of need? Wherefore, wouldst thou be a praying
man, a man that would pray and prevail? why, pray to God in the faith
of the merits of Christ, AND SPEED.[27]
Ninth. For this is the very cause why this is added in the text, to
wit, the plenteousness of redemption, it is, I say, that men should
hope to partake by it, of the goodness and mercy of God. ‘Let Israel
hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is
plenteous redemption.’ Mercy and redemption, mercy through a Redeemer,
therefore ‘let Israel hope’! It must also be noted, that this word
redemption is, as it were, the explicatory part of the text, for the
helping of Israel to hope. As who should say, as there is with God
mercy, so there is with him a way to his mercy, and that way is
redemption, or a price paid for your sins; and that you should not be
discouraged through the greatness of your sins, I tell you there is
with God plenty of this redemption, or a price paid to the full; to an
over and above. It also is as if he had said, Forget not this, for this
is the key of all the rest, and the great support to the saints in
prayer, or while they wait upon God in any of his appointments to
encourage them to hope.
Tenth. And lastly, This also should teach the saints, when they sin or
praise the Lord, they should not sing of mercy only, but of mercy and
judgment too; ‘I will sing of mercy and judgment; unto thee, O Lord,
will I sing’ (Psa 101:1). Of mercy and judgment, or justice in the
manifestation of it, as smiling upon our forgiveness. When Hannah sang
of, and rejoiced in God’s salvation, she sang aloud of holiness,
saying, ‘There is none holy as the Lord’ (1 Sam 2:1,2). Holy in keeping
his word, though it cost the blood of his Son. This also is that that
is called a helping of his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy,
and the performing of the mercy promised; even the oath that he sware
to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we being
delivered out of the hands of our enemies—by a Redeemer—might serve him
without fear, &c. (Luke 1:49,54). When you praise, therefore, remember
Christ and his blood, and how justice and judgment took hold on him,
that they might not take hold on thee; yea, how they by taking hold on
him, left a way to thee to escape. Isaac should have been sacrificed,
had not the Lord provided a ram; and thou thyself shouldest have been
damned, had not the Lord provided a lamb (Gen 22; Rev 5). Hence Christ
is called the ‘Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,’
that taketh them away by the sacrifice of himself. Sing therefore in
your praises unto God, and to the Lamb!
[THE APPLICATION OR USE OF THE WHOLE.]
I would come now to speak one short word of use to the whole. And,
First. This still shows more and more, what a sad state God’s people
have brought themselves into by sin. I told you before that the
revelation of so much mercy as is presented unto us by the first part
of the text, sufficiently declared our state to be miserable by sin.
But what shall we say, when there must be added to that the heart blood
of the Son of God, and all to make our salvation complete? For albeit
mercy is essential to our salvation, and that without which there can
be no salvation; yet it is the blood that maketh the atonement for the
soul, THAT propitiates, and so makes capable of enjoying of it. It was
mercy and love, as I said afore, that sent one to shed his blood for
us; and it is the blood of him that was sent, that puts us into the
enjoyment of mercy. O! I have thought sometimes, what bloody creatures
hath sin made us![28] The beasts of the field must be slain by
thousands before Christ came, to signify to us we should have a
Saviour; and after that, he must come himself, and die a worse death
than died those beasts, before the work of saving could be finished. O
redemption, redemption by blood, is the heart-endearing consideration!
This is that which will make the water stand in our eyes, that will
break a heart of flint, and that will make one do as they do, that are
‘in bitterness for their first-born’ (Zech 12:10).
Sinner, wouldst thou have mercy? wouldst thou be saved? Go thou then to
the blood of the cross, as set forth in the word of the truth of the
gospel, and there thou shalt find that mercy that thou hast need of
first; for there is a mercy that may be called a FIRST mercy, and that
is the mercy that gives admittance into, and an interest in all the
rest. Now the mercy that doth this, is that which reconcileth us to
God; but that other things cannot do, if we stand off from the blood of
the cross. Wherefore we are said to be reconciled to God, by the death
of his Son. ‘For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by
his life’ (Rom 5:10). According to that other saying, ‘He that spared
not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with
him also freely give us all things?’ (8:32). In both these places the
Son of God, and our Redeemer, is set forth to us in the first place, as
the only one that reconcileth to God the sinner by the blood of his
cross; wherefore to this Christ, as crucified, the sinner must come
first; because nothing else can reconcile to God; and if thou be not
reconciled to God, what art thou but an enemy to him, partake of what
mercy thou canst? (Col 1:20). Go to him, did I say? receive him into
the arms of thy faith; hold him fast, for he is a Saviour; yea, carry
him as set forth by the gospel, dying for thee, and pray God for his
sake to bestow upon thee all those mercies that will compass thee about
as with a shield, and follow thee all thy days, till thou enterest in
at the doors of eternity; and this is the way to speed! For he that
hath the Son hath life, in the beginning of it; and he that holds fast
the Son, shall have life in the consummation of it. I do the oftener
touch upon this matter, because this Christ is the door, in at which
whosoever entereth shall be saved; but he that climbs up any other way,
shall be judged as a thief and a robber (John 10:1).[29] But,
Second. Is Christ, as crucified, the way and door to all spiritual and
eternal mercy? And doth God come to the sinner, and the sinner again go
to God in a saving way by him, and by him only? And is there no other
way to the Father but by his blood, and through the veil, that is to
say, his flesh? (Heb 10:19,20). Then this shows the danger, upon what
pretence soever, of casting off the daily sacrifice, and setting up in
its place the abomination that maketh desolate. I mean, of casting away
a crucified Christ, and the setting up the vanity of moral obedience as
the more substantial and most acceptable thing with God. I call not a
crucified Christ the daily sacrifice, as if I thought he often suffered
for sin, since the foundation of the world; but because the virtue of
that one offering is that, and only that, by the which we daily draw
nigh unto God; and because the virtuousness of that one sacrifice will
for ever abide beneficial to them that come to God, to the world’s end
by him.
But I say, into what a miserable plight have such people put
themselves, that have cast off coming to God by Christ, as he is the
propitiation for their sins, and that seek to come another way? Such
are lapsed again to Gentilism, to Paganism, to Heathenism; nor will it
help at all to say they rely on the mercy and goodness of God, for
there is no such thing as spiritual and eternal mercy can come from God
to him, that comes not to him by Christ. The Turks, if I be not
mistaken, have this for the beginning of every chapter of their
Alcoran, ‘The Lord, God, gracious and merciful,’[30] yet are counted
unbelievers, and are verily so, for they have not received the faith of
Christ. The Lord God, gracious and merciful, will not save them, no not
by grace and mercy, unless repenting of their presuming upon mercy,
without a bloody sacrifice, they come to him by his Son (Acts 4:12).
Men therefore that have laid aside the necessity of reconciliation to
God by the precious blood of Christ, are in a damned state; nor will it
help at all to say they do indeed believe in him. I am not so void of
reason as to think that they that have cast away Christ, as he is a
propitiatory sacrifice with God for sin, should also cast away his name
out of their mouth; no, his name is too honorable, and the profession
of it too glorious for them to do such a thing. But retaining his name,
and the notion of him as a Saviour, they yet cast him off, and that in
those very things wherein the essential part of his sacrifice, the
merit of it, and his everlasting priesthood, consists; and in this lies
the mystery of their iniquity.
They will have him to be a Saviour, but it must not be by fulfilling of
the law for us; but it must not be by the putting of his glorious
righteousness, that which he performed by subjecting himself to the
law, on our behalf, upon us; but it must not be by washing of us from
our sins in his own blood; but it must be by his kingly and prophetical
offices. When, as for his kingly and prophetical offices, he puts those
people under the government of them that he has afore made to stand
justified before God, from the curse of the law by his priesthood. Nor
dare they altogether deny that Christ doth save his people as a priest,
but then their art is to confound these offices, by pleading that they
are in effect but one and the self-same thing; and then with a noise of
morality and government, they jostle the merit of his blood, and the
perfection of his justifying righteousness, out of doors; and so
retaining the name of Christ in their mouths, they cast those things of
Christ, that they like not, under feet; which things, they who have not
the faith of, must not, cannot see the kingdom of God.
The term of mercy is but a general sound, and is as an arrow shot at
rovers, unless the blood and death of the Son of God be set before us,
as the mark or mean by which our spirits are to be directed to it. What
profit shall a man have, and what shelter or succour shall he find, in
hearing of the most exact relation of the strength of the most
impregnable castle in the world, unless he knows the door, and entereth
in by that, into that place of strength, in the time when the enemy
shall pursue him? Why, this is the case: We hear a noise of mercy, and
of being at peace with God; what a good God, God is, and what a blessed
thing it is to be a child of God; how many privileges the children of
God have, and what will be their exaltation and glory in the next
world! And all the while they that tell us these things conceal from us
the way thereto, which is Christ, not in the naming of him, but in the
right administration of his gospel to us.
Christ, and faith in him as a Saviour, not in the name only, but in the
true sense thereof, is the mark, as I have said, from which if any
swerve, they err from the saving way, and so come nothing near that
mercy that can save them. Hence Christ is called a standard, an ensign
(Isa 5:26). ‘And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which
shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek,
and his rest shall be glorious’ (Isa 11:10). And again, ‘Thus saith the
Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles; and set up
my standard to the people’ (49:22). ‘Go through, go through the gates,
prepare ye the way of the people,—gather out the stones, lift up a
standard for the people. Behold the Lord hath proclaimed to the end of
the world; say ye to the daughter of Zion, behold thy salvation cometh.
Behold his reward is with him, and his work before him’ (62:10,11).
Hence again he is called the captain, the chieftain, of our salvation,
and him without whom there neither is nor can be any.
But now the men of this confederacy, rather than they will submit
themselves to the righteousness of God, will lay odiums and scandals
upon them that preach they should (Rom 10:2,4). Not forsooth, if you
will believe them, but that they are highly for the righteousness of
God, let it be that which they count so; but then to be sure it shall
never be the personal performances of Christ, by which they that
believe in him are justified from all things; but that which they call
‘first principles,’ ‘dictates of human nature,’ ‘obedience to a moral
precept,’ followed and done as they have Christ for an example; not
understanding that Christ, in his own doings, is the end of all these
things to every one that believeth. But if it be urged that Gentiles
and Pagans are possessed with those very principles, only they have not
got the art, as our men have, to cover them with the name of Christ and
principles of Christianity, then they fall to commending the heathens
and their philosophers, and the natural motives and principles by which
they were actuated; preferring of them much before what by others are
called the graces of the Spirit, and principles upon what the doctrine
of the free grace and mercy of God by Christ are grounded. But, as I
said, all the good that such preachers can do as to the next world, is,
to draw the people away from their ensign and their standard, and so
lead them among the Gentiles and infidels, to seek by their rules the
way to this unspeakable mercy of God. Wherefore their state being thus
deplorable, and their spirits thus incorrigible, they must be pitied,
and left, and fled from, if we would live.
Third. Is Christ Jesus the redemption; and, as such, the very door and
inlet into all God’s mercies? Christian man, look well to thyself, that
thou goest no whither, and dost nothing, I mean in any part of
religious worship, &c., but as thou art in him (2 Cor 12:18,19).[31]
Walk in him, speak in him, grow in him, for he is THE ALL (Col 2:6,7).
And though others regard not to ‘hold the head, from which all the body
by joints and bands have nourishment ministered,’ yet have thou a care!
(Eph 4:15; Col 2:19). This is he that is thy life, and the length of
thy days, and without whom no true happiness can be had. Many there be
that count this but a low thing; they desire to soar aloft, to fly into
new notions, and to be broaching of new opinions, not counting
themselves happy, except they can throw some new-found fangle, to be
applauded for, among their novel-hearers. But fly thou to Christ for
life; and that thou mayest so do, remember well thy sins, and the
judgment and wrath of God; and know also that he is merciful, but at
mercy none can come, but through the cursed death Christ underwent. And
although some of the wanton professors of our age may blame thee for
poring so much upon thy sins, and the pollution of thy nature, yet know
that there is an advantage in it. There be some alive in the world,
who, though they count the nature and commission of sin the very evil
of evils, yet can say that the remembrance of how vile they are, and of
what evils they have committed, has been to them a soul-humbling, a
Christ-advancing, and a creature-emptying consideration. Though sin
made death bitter to Christ, yet sin makes Christ sweet to his. And
though none should sin, that grace might abound, yet where sin has
abounded, grace doth much more abound, not only as an act of God, but
also in the eye of faith.
A sight of the filth, and a sense of the guilt of sin, makes a pardon
to such a soul more than empty notion; and makes the mean through which
the pardon comes more to be desired than is either life or limb. This
is it that makes the sensible soul prize the Lord Jesus, while the
self-justiciary[32] laugheth him to scorn. This is it which makes the
awakened sinner cast away his own righteousness, while the
self-conceited one makes it his advocate with the Father.
Some, indeed, count their own doings the only darling of their soul,
while others cast it to the dogs. And why should a man cumber himself
with what is his, when the good of all that is in Christ is laid, and
to be laid out for him? Not that a believer casts off to do good, for
he knows that what good thing is done in faith and love, is acceptable
to God, and profitable to his neighbour. But this is it, he setteth not
his good deed against the judgment of God; he cometh not in his own
good. When he comes to God for forgiveness of sins, then he sees
nothing, knows nothing, mentions nothing as righteousness, but that
which Christ wrought out in the days of his flesh, and that only. But
how then is what he doth accepted of God? Verily as the duty of a son,
and as the work of one that is justified. We must therefore conclude
that there is acceptation, and acceptation: acceptation of the person,
and acceptation of his performance. Acceptation of the person may be
considered with respect to justification from the curse, and so
acceptation there can be none, but through the one offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all. Also the acceptation of a duty done by
such a person is, by virtue of the self-same offering, the person being
considered as standing just through Christ before God. And the reason
why a justified person must have his duties accepted the same way, as
is his person, is because justifying righteousness sets not the person
free from sin, save only in the sight of God and conscience; he
remaineth still infirm in himself, and standeth still in need of the
fresh and continual application of the merits of the Lord Jesus, which
also the soul receiveth by virtue of Christ’s intercession. I speak now
of acceptation with reference to the justice of the law, and the
judgment of God upon person or work, according to the self-same law.
For so they both must be accepted through the self-same Mediator, or
they cannot be accepted at all. Nor is it a thing to be wondered at,
that a man should stand just in the sight of God, when polluted and
defiled in his own sight. He stands just before God in the justice of
his Son, upon whom God looks, and for whose sake he accepts him. May
not a scabbed, mangy man, a man all over-run with blains and blotches,
be yet made beautiful to the view of a beholder, through the silken,
silver, golden garment that may be put upon him, and may cover all his
flesh? Why, the righteousness of Christ is not only unto but upon all
them that believe (Rom 3:22). And whoso considers the parable of the
wretched infant, shall find, that before it was washed with water it
was wrapped up or covered, as it was found, in its blood, in and with
the skirt of his garment that found it in its filth. And then he washed
it with water, and then he sanctified it by the anointing oil of the
Spirit of God (Eze 16:8,9). I speak thus to thee, Christian reader,
partly because in the faith of these things is thy life; and because I
would yet enforce the exhortation upon thee with the reason and the
amplification thereof, to wit, to put thee upon trusting in the Lord
through the encouragement that thou hast in redeeming mercy so to do.
Some may say, Will God see that which is not? and will he judge a man
just that is a sinner? But I will answer, The man that had the rainbow
about his head, was to look on, or be looked upon, while he shone like
a jasper and a sardix-stone (Rev 4:3). The blood of the paschal lamb
was to be looked upon by him that came to destroy the land of Egypt in
their firstborn (Exo 12:13). I add, The rainbow that God gave to Noah
for a token that he would no more destroy the earth with the waters of
the flood, was to be looked upon, that God might remember to show mercy
to his people (Gen 9:8-17). Now all these meet in the man Christ Jesus,
who is the only one, for the sake of whom the sinner that believeth in
him stands acquitted in the sight of God. His is the blood, he is the
prince, that is more than the token of the covenant: nor do all the
colours in the rainbow appear so beautiful in the eyes of man, as does
the garment of Christ; which is from his loins, even upward, and from
his loins, even downward, in the eyes of the God of heaven (Eze
1:27,28). And wilt thou say these are things that are not? Also, he can
legally judge a man just, that is a sinner. Do but admit of a diverse
consideration, and God will so consider of that sinner which he
justifieth, in despite of all the teeth in thy proud mouth! ‘He
justifieth the ungodly’ (Rom 4:5). Not that were, but that are such
now, in the judgment and verdict of the law, might deal with them in
their own persons as men (Rom 5:5-10). He will then consider them in
his Son; in, and under the skirt of his Son. He will consider them as
washed in the blood of his Son, and will also consider ‘that in him is
no sin,’ and so he will deal with them. ‘We know that he was manifested
to take away our sins, and in him is no sin’ (1 John 3:5).
What though I have broke a thousand pound in my creditor’s debt—yet if
another will discharge the whole freely, what has the law to do with me
as to that? Or what if I cannot but live upon the spend all my days,
yet if my friend will always supply my need, and, through his bounty,
keep me from writ, bailiff, or jail, is it not well for me? Yea, what
if what I can get shall be laid up for me for hereafter, and that my
friend, so long as there is death or danger in the way, will himself
secure me, and bear my charges to the world’s end; may I not accept
thereof, and be thankful? Blessed be God for Jesus Christ! I believe he
is more than all this to me. ‘In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel
be justified, and shall glory’ (Isa 45:25). I know similitudes will not
hold in all things; but we that believe are set free from the curse of
the law by another man’s obedience. For ‘by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous’ (Rom 5:19). Let then the believer, as was said,
study and pray, and read God’s Word continually, for the sake of the
glory of this truth, that it may be made more his own, and that his
conscience may be more and more settled in the power and glory
thereof.[33]
Fourth. As the Christian should most labour to get into the power and
glory of this doctrine, so let him see that he holds it fast. This
doctrine is foreign to flesh and blood; it is not earthly, but from
heaven (Matt 16:17). It is with many that begin with this doctrine, as
it is with boys that go to the Latin school; they learn till they have
learned the grounds of their grammar, and then go home and forget all.
How have many, that as to the grounds of Christian religion, one would
think, had been well taught, yet not taking such heed thereto as they
should, they have let slip all, and their hearts have been filled with
the world again, or else have drunk in some opinion that has been
diametrically opposite to what they professed of the truth before (Heb
2:1-4). Wherefore hast thou anything of the truth of Christ in thy
heart? ‘Hold that fast, that no man take thy crown’ (Rev 3:11). Yea
‘grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ’ (2 Peter 3:18).
He that will retain and hold fast the doctrine of redemption, and so by
that have, through faith, an inlet into all the abounding mercy of God,
must not deal in God’s matters with a slack hand. It is not enough for
them that would do so, to be content with sermons, family duties, and
other public assemblies for worship, but there must be a continual
exercise of the mind about these matters, and a labour of the soul to
retain them in their glory and sweetness; else they will, first as to
their excellency, then as to the very notion of them, slip from the
heart and be gone (Heb 2:1-3). Not that there is treachery or deceit
therein, but the deceit lies in the heart about them. He that will keep
water in a sieve, must use more than ordinary diligence. Our heart is
the leaking vessel; and ‘therefore we ought to give the more earnest
heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let
them slip.’