make up what is wanting in his own, and cover all the defects of his doings and fufferings; that fo God, for Chrift's fake, may accept them, and thereupon be reconciled. Thus doing what he can to fulfil the law, and looking to Chrift to make up all his defects, he comes at length, again to fleep in a found skin. Many perfons are ruined this way. This was the error of the Galatians, which Paul, in his epiftle to them, difputes against. But the Spirit of God breaks off the finner from this hold alfo: by bearing in on his confcience that great truth, Gal. iii. 12. The law is not of faith; but the man that doth them, hall live in them. There is no mixing of the law and faith in this bufiefs; the finner muft hold by one of them, and let the other go: the way of the law, and the way of faith, are fo far different, that it is not poffible for a finner to walk in the one, but he must come off from the other and if he be for doing, he must do all alone; Chrift will not do a part for him, if he do not all. A garment pieced up of fundry forts of righteousness, is not a garment meet for the court of heaven. Thus the man, who was in a dream, and thought he was eating, is awakened by the stroke, and behold his foul is faint; his heart finks in him like a stone; while he finds he can neither bear his burden himself alone, nor can he get help under it.

Ninthly, What can one do, who muft needs pay, and yet neither has as much of his own as will bring him out of debt, nor can he get as much to borrow; and to beg he is afhamed? What can fuch a one do, I fay, but fell himfelf, as the man under the law, that was waxen poor? Lev. xxv. 47. Therefore the finner beat off from fo many holds, goes about to make a bargain with Chrift, and to fell himself to the Son of God, (if I may fo fpeak) folemnly promifing and yowing, that he will be a fervant to Christ, as long as he lives, if he will fave. his foul. And here oft-times the finner makes a perfonal covenant with Christ, refigning himself to him on the fe terms; yea, and takes the facrament, to make the bargain fure. Hereupon the man's great care is, how to obey Chrift, keep his commands, and fo fulfil his bargain. And, in this the foul finds a falfe, unfound peace, for a while; till the Spirit of the Lord fetch another stroke, to cut off the man from this refuge of lies likewife. And that happens in this manner: When he fails of the duties he engaged, to, and falls again into the fin he covenanted against; it is powerfully carried home on his confcience, that his covenant is broken: fo all his comfort goes, and terrors afresh feize on his foul, as one that has broken covenant with Chrift, and commonly the man, to help himself, renews his covenant, but breaks again as before. And how is it poffible it thould be otherwise, feeing he is still upon the old stock? Thus the work of many, all their days, as to their fouls, is nothing but a making and breaking fuch covenants, over and over again.

Object. Some, perhaps, will fay, "Who liveth and finneth not? "Who is there that faileth not of the duties he is engaged to? If "you reject this way as unfound, who then can be faved?"

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Anfi.

Anfw. True believers will be faved; namely, all who do, by faith, take hold of God's covenant. But this kind of covenant is men's own covenant, devifed of their own heart; not God's covenant revealed in the gospel of his grace: and the making of it is nothing else, but the making of a covenant of works with Chrift, confounding the law and the gofpel; a covenant he will never fubfcribe to, though we should fign it with our heart's blood: Rom. iv. 14. "For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promife made of "none effect. Ver. 16. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be "by grace, to the end the promife might be fure to all the feed. "Chap. xi. 6. And if by grace, then it is no more of works: other"wife grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no "more grace: otherwife work is no more work " God's covenant is everlafting: once in, never out of it again; and the mercies of it are fure mercies, Ifa. lv. 3. But that covenant of yours is a tottering covenant, never fure, but broken every day. It is a mere fervile covenant, giving Chrift fervice for falvation: but God's covenant is a filial covenant, in which the finner takes Chrift, and his falvation freely offered, and fo becomes a fon, John i. 12. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the fons of God: and being become a fon, he ferves his Father, not that the inheritance may become his, but because it is his, through Jefus Chrift. See Gal. iv. 24. and downward. To enter into that fpurious covenant, is to buy from Chrift with money; but to take hold of God's covenant is to buy of him without money, and without price, Ifa. lv. 1. that is to fay, to beg of him. In that covenant men work for life; in God's covenant they come to Chrift for life, and work from life. When a perfon under that covenant fails in his duty, all is gone: the covenant must be made over again. But under God's covenant, although the man fail in his duty, and for his failures fall under the difcipline of the covenant, and lies under the weight of it, till fuch time as he has recourse anew to the blood of Chrift for pardon, and renew his repentance : yet all that he trufted to for life and falvation, namely, the righteoufnefs of Chrift, ftill ftands entire, and the covenant remains firm. See Rom. vii. 24, 25. and viii. 1.

Now, though fome men spend their lives in making and breaking fuch covenants of their own; the terror upon the breaking of them wearing weaker and weaker by degrees, till at last it creates them little or no uneafinefs: yet the man, in whom the good work is carried on, till it be accomplished in cutting him off from the old stock, finds these covenants to be as rotten cords, broke at every touch; and the terror of God, being thereupon, redoubled on his fpirit, and the waters at every turn, getting in into his very foul, he is obliged to ceafe from catching hold of fuch covenants, and to feek help fome other way. Tenthly, Therefore the man comes at length to beg at Chrift's door for mercy but, yet he is a proud beggar, ftanding on his perfonal worth. For, as the Papift's have mediators to plead for them, with

the

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the one only Mediator; fo the branches of the old ftock, have always fomething to produce, which, they think may commend them to Chrift, and engage him to take their caufe in hand. They cannot think of coming to the fpiritual market, without money in their hand. They are like perfons, who have once had an estate of their own, but are reduced to extreme poverty, and forced to beg. When they come to beg, they still remember their former character; and though they have lost their fubftance, yet they retain much of their former fpirit; therefore they cannot think they ought to be treated as ordinary beggars; but deserve a particular regard; and, if that be not given them, their spirits rife against him to whom they addrefs themselves for fupply. Thus God gives the unhumbled finner many common mercies; and fhuts him not up in the pit, according to his deferving: but all this is nothing in his eyes. He must be fet down at the children's table, otherwife he reckons himself hardly dealt with, and wronged: for he is not yet brought fo low, as to think, God may be juftified when he speaketh, (against him) and clear from all iniquity, when he judgeth him, according to his real demerit, Pfal. li. 4 thinks, perhaps, that even before he was enlightned, he was better than many others; he confiders his reformation of life, his repentance, and grief and tears his fin has coft him, his earnest defires after Chrift, his prayers, and wrestlings for mercy; and ufeth all these now, as bribes for mercy, laying no fmall weight upon them, in his addreffes to the throne of grace. But here the Spirit of the Lord fhoots a fheaf of arrows into the man's heart, whereby his confidence in these things is funk and destroyed; and inftead of thinking himself better than many, he is made to fee himself worse than any. The naughtinefs of his reformation of life is difcovered. His repentance appears to him no better than the repentance of Judas; his tears like Efau's, and his defires after Chrift to be selfish and loathfome, like theirs who fought Chrift becaufe of the loaves, John vi. 26. His answer from God feems now to be, Away proud beggar, How Shall I put thee among the children? He feems to look fternly on him, for his flighting of Jefus Chrift by unbelief, which is a fin he fcarce difcerned before. But now, at length, he beholds it in its crimson colours; and is pierced to the heart, as with a thousand darts, while he sees how he has been going on blindly, finning against the remedy of fin, and in the whole courfe of his life, trampling on the blood of the Son of God. And now he is, in his own eyes, the miferable object of law-vengeance, yea, and gofpel-vengeance too.

Eleventhly, The man being thus far humbled, will no more plead, he is worthy for whom Chrift should do this thing: but, on the contrary, looks on' himself as unworthy of Chrift, and unworthy of the favour of God. We may compare him, in this cafe, to the young man who followed Chrift, having a linen cloth caft about his naked body on whom, when the young men laid hold, he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked, Mark xiv. 51, 52. Even fo the man had been

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following Chrift, in the thin and coldrife garment of his own perfonal worthiness; but by it, even by it, which he fo much trufted to, the law catcheth hold of him, to make him prisoner; and then he is fain to leave it, and flees away naked; yet not to Chrift, but from him. If fyou now tell him, he is welcome to Chrift, if he will come to him; he is apt to fay, Can fuch a vile and unworthy wretch as I, be welcome to the holy Jefus? If a plaifter be applied to his wounded foul, it will not flick He fays, Depart from me, for I am a finful man, O Lord, Luke v. 8. No man needs fpeak to him of his repentance, for his comfort; he can quickly efpy fuch faults in it as makes it naught: nor of his tears, for he is affured, they have never come into the Lord's bottle. He difputes himself away from Chrift; and concludes, now that he has been fuch a flighter of Chrift, and is fuch an unholy and vile creature, he cannot, he will not, he ought not, to come to Chrift; and that he muft either be in better cafe, or elfe he'll never believe. And hence, he now makes his ftrongest efforts, to amend what was amifs in his way before: He prays more earnestly than ever, mourns more bitterly, ftrives against fin in heart and life, more vigorously, and watcheth more diligently; if by any means he may, at length be fit to come to Chrift. One would think the man is well humbled now: But ah! devilish pride lurks under the veil of all this feeming humility. Like a kindly branch of the old ftock; he adheres ftill; and will not fubmit to the rightevufness of God, Rom. x. 3. He will not come to the market of free-grace, without money. He is bidden to the marriage of the King's Son, where the bridegroom himself furnisheth all the guests with wedding garments, ftripping them of their own: but he will not come, becaufe he wants a wedding-garment; howbeit he is very bufy making one ready. This is fad work; and therefore he must have a deeper ftroke yet; elfe he is ruined. This ftroke is reached him with the ax of the law, in its irritating power. Thus the law girding the foul with cords of death, and holding it in with the rigorous commands of obedience, under the pain of the curfe; and God, in his holy and wife conduct, withdrawing his restraining grace; corruption is irritated, lufts become violent, and the more they are ftriven againft, the more they rage, like a furious horfe checked with the bit. Then do corruptions fet up their heads, which he never 'faw in himself before. Here oft-times atheism, blafphemy, and, in one word, horrible things concerning God, terrible thoughts concerning the faith, arife in his breast: fo that his heart is a very hell within him. Thus, while he is fweeping the house of his heart, not yet watered with gospel-grace, thefe corruptions which lay quiet before in neglected corners, fly up and down in it like duft. He is as one who is mending a dam, and while he's repairing breaches in it, and ftrengthening every part of it, a mighty flood comes down, overturns his work, and drives all away before it, as well what was newly laid, as what was laid before. Read, Rom. vii. 8, 9, 10, 13. This

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is a stroke which goes to the heart: and, by it, his hope of getting himfelf more fit to come to Christ, is cut off.

Laftly, Now the time is come, when the man betwixt hope and defpair, refolves to go to Chrift as he is: and therefore, like a dying man ftretching himself, just before his breath goes out, he rallies the broken forces of his foul; tries to believe, and in fome fort lays hold on Jefus Chrift. And now the branch hangs on the old ftock, by one/ fingle tack of a natural faith, produced by the natural vigour of one's own fpirit, under a moft preffing neceffity, Pfal lxxxviii. 34, 35. "When he flew them, then they fought him, and they returned and "enquired early after God. And they remembred that God was "their rock, and the high God their Redeemer.", Hof. viii. 2. Ifrael fhall cry unto me, My God, we know thee. But the Lord minding to perfect his work, fetches yet another stroke, whereby the branch falls quite off. The Spirit of God convincingly discovers to the finner, his utter inability to do any thing that is good and fo he dieth, Rom. vii. 9. That voice powerfully ftrikes through his foul, How can ye believe? John v. 44. Thou canst no more believe, than thou canst reach up thine hand to heaven, and bring Chrift down from thence. And thus at length he fees, he can neither help himself by working, nor by believing: and having no more to hang by, on the old ftock, he therefore falls off. And while he is diftreffed thus, feeing himself like to be fwept away with the flood of God's wrath; and yet unable so much as to stretch forth a hand to lay hold of a twig of the tree of life, growing on the banks of the river; he is taken up, and ingrafted into the true Vine, the Lord Jefus Chrift giving him the Spirit of faith.

By what has been faid upon this head, I defign not to rack or diftrefs tender confciences; for, tho' there are but few fuch, at this day, yet, God forbid I should offend any of Christ's little ones. But, alas! a dead fleep is fallen upon this generation; they will not be awakened, let us go as near the quick as we will: and therefore, I fear there is another fort of awakening abiding this fermon-proof generation, which fhall make the ears of them that hear it to tingle. However, I would not have this to be looked upon as the fovereign God's ftinted method of breaking off finners from the old stock: but this I affert as a certain truth, that all who are in Christ, have been broken off from all these feveral confidences; and that they who were never broken off from them, are yet in their natural ftock. Nevertheless, if the house be pulled down, and the old foundation razed: it is all a cafe, whether it was taken down ftone by ftone, or whether it was undermined, and all fell down together.

Now it is, that the branch is ingrafted in Jefus Christ. And, as the law, in the hand of the Spirit of God, was the inftrument to cut off the branch from the natural ftock, fo the gospel, in the hand of the fame Spirit, is the inftrument used for ingrafting it in the fupernatural stock, 1 John i. 3. "That which we have feen and heard, declare

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