SECOND KIND OF PEACE-Peace of Conscience the blessing of the gospel

       

We come now to the second kind of peace, and that is peace of consolation, or peace of conscience. By the former—peace of reconciliation—the poor sinner is reconciled to God; by this, he becomes ani­ma pacata sibi—a soul reconciled to itself.  Since man fell out with God, he could never be truly friends with his own conscience.  This second peace is so necessary, that he cannot taste the sweetness of the first, nor indeed of any other mercy, without it.  This is to the soul what health is to the body, it sugars and sweetens all enjoyments.  A suit, though of cloth of gold, sits not easy on a sick man's back.  Nothing joy­ous to a distressed conscience.  

Moses brought good news to the distressed Israelites in Egypt, but it is said, ‘They hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit,’ Ex. 6:9.  Hannah, she went up to the festival at Jerusalem with her husband, but it is said, ‘She wept, and did not eat,’ I Sam. 1:7.  Truly, thus the wounded soul goes to the sermon, but doth not eat of the feast before it; hears many precious promises, but her ear is shut up from receiving the good news they bring.  Tell one in trouble of conscience, here is your dear husband, [your] sweet children, will you not rejoice with them; alas, the throes such a one feels are so amazing, that he regards these things no more than Phinehas' wife in her sore travail did the woman that joyed her with the birth of a son.  Set the most royal feast before such a soul that ever was on prince’s table, and, poor heart, it had rather go into a corner and weep, than sit and eat of those delicacies.  ‘A wounded spirit who can bear?’ yea, who can cure? 

Some diseases are, for their incurableness, called ludibrium medicorum—the physician’s shame and reproach.  To be sure this spiritual trouble of an ac­cusing conscience puts all the world to shame for their vain attempts.  Many have attempted to conjure this evil spirit out of their own bosoms and others’; but have found it at last to leap upon them, and prevail against them, as the ‘evil spirit’ did by the sons of Sceva, Acts 19:14.

           No, peace of conscience, I am now to show, is the blessing of the gospel, and only of the gospel.  Conscience knows Jesus, and the gospel of Jesus; these and none else it will obey.  Two particulars considered will demonstrate the truth of the point. First. If we consider what is the argument that pacifies and satisfies conscience.  Second. If we consider what the power is and strength required to apply this argument so close and home to the conscience as to quiet and fully satisfy it.  Both these will be found in the gospel, and only in the gospel.

Exhortations To Those Already at Peace With God 4/4

           Sixth.  Art thou at peace with God?  Knowing the goodness of God to thyself, then do thou woo in some others to embrace the same mercy.  The house is not so full, but ‘yet there is room,’ Luke 14:22.  Hast thou none thou lovest so well as to wish them thy happiness?  Haply, thou hast a carnal husband lying by thy side, children of thy womb or loins, neighbours in whose company thou art every day almost, and all these in an unreconciled state—who, should they die as now they live, their precious souls are lost for ever, and yet themselves think no more of this misery com­ing on them, than the silly sheep doth, as to what the butcher is doing, when he is whetting his knife to cut her throat.  Well, the less merciful they are to their own souls, the more need there is thou shouldst show thy compassion towards them.  We take most care of those that are least capable of taking care for themselves.  If thou hadst a friend sick in thy house, and of such a disease that he could not help himself, should he die rather than thou wouldst look after him?  If a child were condemned to die, though he did himself not mind the getting of a pardon, yet surely thou wouldst run and ride to obtain it, rather than see him end his days so shamefully.  In a word, didst thou but know thy next neighbour had an intention to foredo himself, and for that end had locked himself up in a room, wouldst thou not bestir thee to break up the door, rather than the man should thus miscarry?  But alas, where is the holy violence that is used to save poor souls? 

 Parents, husbands, neighbours, they can see their relations going to hell before their eyes, and who saith to them, Why do you so?  O, for the Lord’s sake, be more merciful to the souls of others.  Thou hast found a feast, let not any that are near thee starve for want of knowing where it is to be had.  Go and invite all thou canst see to God’s house.  So did David: ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good,’ Ps. 34:8.  Thou needst not fear a chiding from God for sending him more guests.  He complains he hath no more. ‘Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life,’ John 5:40.  He threatens those that keep sinners off from making their peace with him, by flattering them with a false one, called a ‘strengthening the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life,’ Eze. 13:22.  O how acceptable a work then must it needs be to woo souls to Christ! The merchant is not angry for sending a customer into his warehouse that will buy what he hath taken so much cost and travail to get that he may sell.  Nor will the physician blame any for bringing a patient to him, by whose cure he may let the world know his skill and art.  And this is the great design Christ hath long had in particular prayed for, viz. ‘that the world might believe he was sent of God,’ John 17:21.  What aims he at in the gathering in of souls by the grace of the gospel, but ‘to take out of them a peo­ple’ from the heap of sinners ‘for his name,’ Acts 15:14, that is, cull out a number, in showing mercy to whom he might exalt his own name gloriously.

Exhortations To Those Already at Peace With God 3/4

           Fourth.  Art thou at peace with God?  O show then no discontent at any cross or affliction that God visiteth thee withal!  If he hath visited thee first with his mercy, thou hast reason to bid him kindly wel­come when he comes to visit thee with his rod.  Thou hast sugar by thee now to sweeten thy bitter cup. When the Prophet Samuel came to Bethlehem, it is said, ‘The elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably?  And he said, Peaceably!’ I Sam. 16:4, 5.  Thus when God comes with some heavy affliction to us, it may make us tremble till we know what it comes for, whether peaceable or no.  Now, if thou beest at peace with God the fear is over, it cannot but come peaceably; thou mayest con­clude it comes on mercy’s errand.

           What condition canst thou, O pardoned soul, be in, that should part thee and the joy of thy peace with God?  Is it the wrath of man thou fearest?  Possibly thou hast many enemies, and those great ones, and their wrath as great as such can express.  Let it be so. Is God among them or no?  Doth God let out their wrath in his wrath against thee?  If not, thou exceed­ingly wrongest God, if overmuch troubled, and thyself also.  Thou wrongest God by not sanctifying his name in thy heart, whose mercy, I hope, is able to secure thee from their wrath: ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’ Rom. 8:31.  Thou needest not fear them though an army of them were about thee—no more than if they were so many wisps of straw.  And thou wrongest thyself also: for how, indeed, can we wrong God and not ourselves?  So long as thou art under the power of such a fear from man's wrath, thou canst never have the taste of God’s love in its true sweetness.

           Again, art thou sick, poor, and what not beside? May not God reasonably expect that reconciling mer­cy should stop thy mouth from whispering any word of discontent against him, and prevent all envious glances of thy eye at the prosperity of the wicked? Re­member, man, that thou canst say one great word which they cannot, in the midst of all their pomp and worldly glory.  ‘Though I lie here poor and sick, yet I am, through mercy, at peace with God.’  This, well thought on, would soon change both your notes—the joy of the prosperous sinner into bitter mourning, and thy sorrow, Christian, into joy.  The Lady Elizabeth —afterwards England’s gracious queen—hearing a simple milk-maid sing merrily in the field, when the poor princess, being then a sorrowful prisoner, had more mind to sigh than sing, though served at the same time in state as a princess, said, ‘That poor maid was happier than herself.’  And so would the sinner, how great and high soever in the world, think the poorest Christian, with his rags and penury, a better man, and happier in his liberty, and peace with God, than himself in all his grandeur and worldly gaieties, did he but consider that in the midst of all these he is a prisoner, not to man, but God, out of whose hands there is no escaping.

           Fifth.  Comfort thyself with this, that thou, who art at peace with God now on earth, shalt feast with God ere long in heaven.  ‘And whom he justified, them he also glorified,’ Rom. 8:30.  And do not think this news to be too good or great to be true.  Here is a word for it, you see.  Heaven's number of glorified saint’s is made up of justified sinners.  Neither more nor less of the one than of the other.  Art thou justified by faith, by which thou hast peace with God? Then, lose not thy privilege, but rejoice with thy fellow-saints, ‘in hope of the glory of God.’  It is be­fore thee.  Every day brings thee nearer to it, and nothing can hinder thee of it at last.  Not thy sins themselves, and I know thou fearest them most.  He that paid thy great score at thy conversion will find mercy enough in his heart, surely, to pass by thy drib­bling debts, which thy own infirmity, and Satan’s subtlety, have run thee into.  Thou wert an enemy when God thought of doing the first, but now thou art a friend; and this will oblige him to do the second, that he may not lose his disbursement in the first; yea, provision is made by God in this method of our salvation for the one, as strongly as for the other. Christ died to make us, of enemies to God, friends with him, and he lives now to bring God and us, being thus made friends, to meet in one heaven together. Yea, the apostle gives the advantage to this of the two for our faith to triumph in.  ‘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.  As if the apostle had said, ‘Can you believe that God hath taken you that were bloody enemies, into a state of peace and favour with himself?  Surely, then, you must needs find it easier for your faith to argue from reconciliation to salvation, than from hostility to enmity to pardon and peace.  Could Christ procure the one by his death, when he was weakest, as I may so say, and at the lowest descent of his humiliation; how much more shall he, in the height of his court-favour in heaven —when he hath all power given him, and in particular ‘the keys of the hell and death’ to open and shut as he pleaseth—to be able to save those whom he hath reconciled?’ Rev. 1:18.

Exhortations To Those Already at Peace With God 2/4

Second.  Is God reconciled to thee?  Be thou willing to be reconciled to any that have wronged thee.  Thy God expects it at thy hands.  Thou hast reason to pardon thy brother for God’s sake, who par­doned thee for his pure mercies’ sake.  Thou, in par­doning, dost no more than thou owest thy brother, but God pardoned thee when he did owe thee nothing but wrath.  Thou needest not, I hope, think that thou dishonourest thyself in the act, though it be to the veriest beggar in the town.  Know thou dost it after thy betters.  Thy God stooped lower when he reconciled himself to thee, yea, sought it at thy hands, and no dishonour, neither, to the high and lofty One. Nay, by implacableness and revenge, thou debasest thyself the most thou canst likely do; for, by these, thou stoopest not only beneath thy heaven-born nature, but beneath thy human nature.  It is the devil, and none but such as bear his image, that are implacable enemies.  Hell-fire it is that is unquenchable. ‘The wisdom from above’ is ‘easy to be entreated.’ Thou a Christian, and carry hell-fire about thee!  How can it be?  When we see a child, that comes of merciful parents, furious and revengeful, we use to say, ‘We wonder of whom he got his currish, churlish disposition, his father and mother were not so.’  Who learns thee, O Christian, to be so revengeful and un­merciful?  Thou hast it not of thy heavenly Father, I am sure.

           Third.  Is God at peace with thee?  Hath he par­doned thy sins?  Never, then, distrust his providence for anything thou wantest as to this life.  Two things, well weighed, would help thy faith in this particular.

1. When he pardoned thy sins he did more for thee than this comes to.And, did he give the greater, and will he grudge thee the less?  Thou hast Christ in thy pardon bestowed on thee.  ‘How shall he not with him also freely give thee all things?’ Rom. 8:32.  When the father gives his child the whole orchard, it were folly to question he gives him this apple or that in it —‘all things are yours,’ and ‘ye are Christ's,’ I Cor. 3:22.  The reconciled soul hath a right to all.  The whole world is his.  But, as a father who, though he settles a fair estate on his child, yet lets him hold no more in his own hand than he can well manage; so God gives believers a right to all the comforts of this life, but proportions so much out to them for their actual use, as his infinite wisdom sees meet, so that he that hath less than another in his present possession, ought to impute it not to any want of love or care in God, but to the wisdom both of his love and care, that gives stock as we have grace to work it out. We pour the wine accordingly as the cup is.  That which but fills one would half be lost if poured into a less. 

2. Consider how God gives these temporals to those he denies peace and pardon to.Though, within a while, they are to be tumbled into hell, yet while on earth his providence reacheth unto them.  And, doth God feed these ‘ravens,’ unclean birds?  Doth he cause his rain to drop fatness on their fields, and will he neglect thee, thinkest thou, that art a believer?  If the prince feeds the traitor in prison, surely the child in his house shall not starve.  In a word, to allude to that, Luke 12:28, if God in his providence so abounds to the to the ungodly, as we see he doth, if he ‘so clothe the grass,’ for to this the wicked may well be compared, ‘which is to-day in the field, and to- morrow is cast into hell’s burning oven, how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?’

Exhortations To Those Already at Peace With God 1/4

          

 A few words by way of improvement to you whose peace with God is concluded with Christ.

           First.  Hast thou peace with God?—look thou makest no peace with sin.  This broke thy peace with God; now let thy peace with God begin a war with that never to have end.  Thou canst not, sure, forget the inestimable wrong and damage thou hast suffered by it.  Every moment’s sweet enjoyment of God —whose bosom-love thou hast now happily recovered—will help to keep the fire of wrath and revenge burning in thy heart against that cursed enemy, that both threw and kept thee so long thence.  God hath now won thy heart, I hope, by his pardoning mercy, dearly to love him for his love to thee.  How then canst thou with patience see any lust come braving forth from its trench—thy heart I mean—defying thy God and his grace in thee?  Paul’s spirit was stirred in him at Athens to see God dishonoured by the superstition of others; and is not thine, to see him re­proached by the pride, unbelief, and other sins, that do it from under thy own soul’s roof?  O Christian, meditate some noble exploit against it.  Now, the more to steel thy heart, and harden it against all re­lenting towards it, carry the blood and wounds of thy Saviour into the field with thee, in the hand of thy faith.  The sight of those will certainly enrage thy heart against thy lusts, that stabbed and killed him, more than the bloody garments of Cæsar, held up by Antony, did the Roman citizens against his mur­derers.  

O see how cruelly they used the Lord of glory, and where they laid him in an ignominious grave —and that fastened with a seal, stronger than that which man set to it—the curse due to us sinners, never possible to have been broke up by any less than his own almighty arm!  And now, Christian, shall these murderers, not of man, but of God—for it was the blood of God that was shed—escape that vengeance which God would have done with thy hand upon them?  Wherefore else doth he leave thee any life in thy soul but that thou shouldst have the opportunity of showing thy love to Christ by running thy dagger of mortification into their heart?  Alexander got no more honour by his great victories in the field than by his piety to his dead father Philip, whose bloody death he avenged as soon as he came into the throne, slaying the murderers upon his father’s tomb. O, show thou, Christian, thy pity to thy dear Saviour by falling upon thy cursed lusts, and that speedily! Never rest till thou hast had their blood that shed his. Till thou dost this thou art consenting to all the cruelty that was executed on him.  This, this is the ‘honour’ which all ‘the saints shall have,’ and therefore the ‘two-edged sword’ of the Spirit is put into their hands that they may execute the vengeance written.

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  Indeed, God’s essential goodness is a powerful argument to persuade the poor soul to rely upon the promise in Christ for pardon—when he considers that God who promiseth peace to the believer, is a God whose very nature is forgiving, and mercy itself —but had there been no promise to engage this mercy to poor sinners through Christ, this would have been but cold comfort to have believed God was good.  He could have damned the whole stock of Adam, and not called his essential goodness the least in question.  It is no blot to the almightiness of his power that he doth not all he can.  He could make more worlds, if he was so pleased, than he hath done; but we have no ground to believe he will, neither is he the less almighty because he does not.  So he could have saved the fallen angels with the sons of lost man.  He is not scanted in mercy for such a design, if he had thought it fit.  But, having passed no promise for such a thing, the essential goodness of God affords the devils but little relief, or hope that he will do it.  And yet God continues good.  And, for aught I can find out of the word, they among the sons of men who, either throu gh simple ignorance of the gospel, or prejudice, which their proud reason hath taken up against the way it chalks out for making our peace with God, through Christ’s satisfaction for us, do neglect Christ, or scornfully reject his satisfaction, and betake themselves to the absolute goodness and mercy of God, as the plea which they will make at Christ’s bar for their pardon and salvation, shall find as little benefit from it as the devils themselves.

           Suppose, friends, a prince should freely make a law, by which he will govern his people, and takes a solemn oath to keep close to it, could a malefactor that is condemned by this law to die expect any relief by appealing from the law to the mercy and goodness of the prince's nature?  I confess some have sped and saved their lives by taking this course.  But it hath been, because either the prince was imprudent in making the law, or unfaithful in keeping his oath; neither of which can, without blasphemy, be imputed to God, infinitely wise and holy.  He hath enacted a law, called the law of faith, for the saving poor sinners through Christ, and is under an oath to make it good both in the salvation of every one that believes on Christ, and damnation on every one that doth not believe: and, to make all sure, hath given Christ an oath to be faithful in his office; who was trusted as priest to secure redemption, and shall sit judge to pronounce the sentence at the great day of absolution or condemnation.  Take heed, therefore, poor sinner, that thou beest not drawn from placing thy entire confidence on Christ the Son of God—both God and man in one person—who laid down his life upon agreement with his Father, to make an atonement for the sin of the world; and now offers thee that blood which then he shed, as a price to carry in the hand of thy faith to the Father, for pardon and peace.  No, though they should come and call thee from Christ to Christ—from a Christ without thee, to a Christ within thee.  As the Jesuit doth in the Quaker, into whom he is now got; as the friars of old were wont into their hollow images, viz. that they might deliver their lying doctrines out of the mouths of their reputed saints, and thereby cozen the multitude without any suspicion of their knavery.  Just so do the Jesuits nowadays deliver their popish stuff out of the mouths of the Quakers—a design so much more dangerous as it is more cunning than the other.  There is too much light shed abroad for that old puppet play to take. But, though men are too wise to lend an ear to a block or a stone, yet holiness in a living saint commands such reverence, that the devil hath ever found, and will, to the end of the world, that he may pass least suspected under this cloak.  Well, when he comes to call thee from a Christ without thee to a Christ within thee; strip the doctrine out of its pleasing phrase, and, in plain English, he calls thee from trusting in the righteousness of Christ wrought by him for thee, and by faith to be made thine for thy justification before God, to an inherent work of grace or righteousness wrought by the Spirit of God in thee for thy sanctification and renovation, called sometimes the ‘new creature,’ and ‘Christ within us.’

  Now, hadst thou not made a goodly change if thou hadst let go thy hold on Christ, who is thy righteousness, to rely on a creature, and that a weak one too, God knows, full of so many imperfections that thy conscience —except injudicious and given over to believe a lie —can tell it is but a vein of gold embased with much more earth and dross, which shall never be quite purged till thou beest put into the refining pot of the grave.  Look to thyself, Christian.  Here it is a matter of life and death.  Prize Christ’s grace within thee thou must; yea thou hast none in thee, if thou dost not value it above all the mountains of gold the world hath.  But trust not to this Christ or grace of Christ within thee for life and salvation; for now thou prizest the creature above God, and settest ‘Christ within thee’ to fight with ‘Christ without thee.’  The bride doth well highly to esteem her husband’s picture which he hath given her, especially if very like him, and most of all, if drawn by his own hand; but it were very ridiculous if she should dote on that so far as to slight her husband, and, when she wants money, clothes, or the like, to go, not to her husband, but to the picture he gave her, for all.  The saint’s grace is called ‘Christ within him,’ because it is his picture, and makes the saint so like Christ.  This, for the re­semblance it bears to the holiness of Christ, himself thy husband, who with the finger of his own Spirit, drew it on thy soul, deserves highly to be valued.  But, what a dotage were it for thee turn thy back on the Lord Jesus Christ himself, to whom by faith thou art married, and, when thou wantest pardon and comfort —wouldst have heaven and happiness—to expect these, not from Christ, but from thy grace?  O will Christ thank thee for honouring his creature to the dishonour of his person?

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(a) A deliberate choice in the soul; he does it freely.  Some men’s sins ‘forsake’ them.  The unclean spirit goes out, and is not driven out—occasions to sin cease, or bodily ability to execute the command of sin is wanting.  There is no forsaking sin, however, in all this.  But to break from it with a holy indignation and resolution, when temptation is most busy and strength most active—now as David said, when his enemy opposed him as bees, in the name of the Lord to repel and resist them—this is to forsake.  This is the encomium^[6] of Moses.  He forsook the court when he was grown up; not for age, as Barzillai, but when his blood was warm in his veins.  A man doth not for­sake his wife when he is detained from her in prison, but when he puts her away, and gives her a bill of divorce.

(b) To ‘forsake’ sin is to leave it without any thought reserved of returning to it again.  Every time a man takes a journey from home about business we do not say he hath forsaken his house, because he meant, when he went out, to come to it again.  No, but when we see a man leave his house, carry all his stuff away with him, lock up his doors, and take up his abode in another, never to dwell there more, here is a man hath indeed forsaken his house.  It were strange to find a drunkard so constant in the exercise of that sin, but some time you may find him sober, and yet a drunkard he is, as well as if he was then drunk.  Every one hath not forsaken his trade that we see now and then in their holiday suit.  Then the man forsakes his sin when he throws it from him, and bolts the door upon it with a purpose never to open more to it.  ‘Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?’ Hosea 14:8.

Again observe, before pardon can be sealed he must ‘forsake,’ not this sin or that, but the whole ‘way’ of sin.  ‘Let the wicked forsake his way.’  A trav­eller may step from one path to another, and still go on in the same way—leave a dirty, deep, rugged path, for one more smooth and even.  So many, finding some gross sins uneasy, and too toilsome to their awakened consciences, step into a more cleanly path of civility; but alas! poor creatures, all they get is to go a little  more easily and cleanly to hell than their beastly neighbours.  But he forsakes the way of sin that turns out of the whole road.  In a word, thou must forsake the blindest path of all in sin’s way —that which lies behind the hedge, as I may so say, in the thoughts of the heart—‘and the unrighteous man his thoughts;’ or else thou knockest in vain at God’s door for pardoning mercy; and therefore, poor soul, forsake all or none.  Save one lust and you lose one soul.  If men mean to go to hell, why are they so man­nerly?  This halving with sin is ridiculous.  Art thou afraid of this sin, and not of a less, which hinders thy peace, and procures thy damnation as sure, only not with so much distraction to thy drowsy conscience at present?  This is as ridiculous as it was with him, who, being to be hanged, desired that he might by no means go through such a street to the gallows, for fear of the plague that was there.  What wilt thou get, poor sinner, if thou goest to hell, though thou goest thither by thy ignorance, unbelief, spiritual pride, &c., yet led about so as to escape the plague of open profaneness? O sirs, consider but the equity, the honourableness of the terms that God offers peace upon.  What lust is so sweet or profitable that is worth burning in hell for?  Darius, when he fled before Alexander, that he might run the faster out of danger, threw away his massy crown from his head which hindered him; and is any lust so precious in thy eye that thou canst not leave it behind thee, rather than fall into the hands of God's justice?  But so sottish is foolish man, that a wise heathen could take notice of it^[7]—we think we only buy what we part with money for, and as for those things we pay ourselves our souls for, these we think we have for nothing, as if the man were not more worth than his money!  Having been faithful to follow the preceding directions, thou art now in a fair way to effect thy much desired enterprise.  Therefore,

4. Direction.  Hie thee, therefore, as soon as may be, to the throne of grace, and humbly present thy request to God that he would be at peace with thee, yea, carry with thee a faith that thou shalt find him more ready to embrace the motion than thou to make it.  Take heed only, what thou makest thy plea to move God, and where thou placest thy confidence. Not in thy repentance or reformation, this were to play the merchant with God; but know he expects not a chapman to truck with him, but a humble supplicant to be suitor to him.  Nor his absolute mercy, as ignorant souls do.  This is to take hold of the sword by the blade, and not by the hilt.  Such will find their death and damnation from that mercy which they might be saved by, if they did take hold of it as God offers it them, and that is ‘through Christ.’  ‘Let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me,’ Isa. 27:5. And where lies god's saving strength, but in Christ?  He hath, ‘laid strength’ upon this ‘mighty’ one, ‘able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God.’  It is not God’s absolute power or mercy will help thee, but his covenant strength and mercy, and this is in Christ.  Take hold of Christ and thou hast hold of God’s arm; he cannot strike the soul that holds thereby.

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 (2.) You must desire to be reconciled to God, that you may have fellowship with God.  Certainly a soul sensible what the loss of communion with God is, counts it hath not all her errand done when it hath naked peace given it.  Should God say, ‘Soul, I am friends with thee—I have ordered thou shalt never go to hell.  Here is a discharge under my hand that thou shalt never be arrested for my debt more; but, as for any fellowship with me, or fruition of me, thou canst expect none.  I have done with thee—for ever being acquainted more with thee.’  Certainly the soul, in such a case, would take little joy in her peace.  Were the fire out as to positive torments, yet a hell would be left in the dismal darkness which the soul would sit under for want of God's presence.  Absalom knew no middle condition that could please him betwixt seeing the king his father's face, and being killed.  ‘Let me see the king's face; and if there be any iniquity in me, let him kill me,’ II Sam. 14:32—‘if I be not worthy to enjoy my father’s love and presence, neither do I desire to live;’ whereas a naughty heart seeks reconciliation without any longing after any fellowship with God.  Like the traitor, if the king will but pardon and save him from the gallows, he is ready to promise him never to trouble him at court.  It is his own life, not the king's favour, he desires.

3. Direction.  Throw down thy rebellious arms and hum­bly submit to his mercy.  God will not so much as treat with thee so long as thy sword is in thy hand—‘Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord,’ Isa. 1:18.  Mark when the parley begins: ‘put away the evil of your doings,’ ver. 16.  Now come and treat with God about a peace.

           (1.) God is a great God, and it doth not become his sov­ereignty to treat with his sorry creature on equal terms, as a king doth with his fellow-prince, who, if he cannot have peace on his own terms, is able probably to revenge himself by force of arms; but, as a mighty king with his rebel subject, whom he hath fast bound with chains in prison, and can at pleasure hang up for his treason.  The great God will have thee know that.  Let those capitulate who can retire to their strength and live without peace.  But as for thee, poor sinner, thou dost not, I hope, think thou art in a capacity to meet with God in the field, or to thrive by this trade of war against God.  No, thy only way is to conquer him upon thy knee, to lay thy neck at his foot and say, ‘Lord, I put my life in thy hands, thy true prisoner I will be, choosing rather to die by the hand of thy justice, than to continue fighting against thy mercy.’  Now, poor soul, thou art got into the right path, that leads to peace.  ‘Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up,’ James 4:10.  That soul shall not long be out of his arms that is prostrate at his foot.  But, though ‘the high and lof­ty One’ can stoop to take up a penitent sinner into the arms of his pardoning mercy, yet he will not de­base his sovereignty to treat with a wretch that stands to his arms and stouts it out with him.  There is one red letter in God's name—‘he will by no means clear the guilty,’ Exodus 34:7.

           (2.) The holy nature of God requires this.  Sin is that which made the breach, and caused God to take arms against his creature; how canst thou rationally think to make thy peace with him, and keep this makebate^[5] in thy bosom?  God is willing to be reconciled with thee, but wilt thou have him be at peace with thy sin also?  Is it not enough to be justified from thy sin? but wouldst thou have God betray his own honour by justifying thee in thy sin?  Did you ever hear a prince give a patent to another to cut his own throat?  What security canst thou give to God of thy love to him if thou wilt not renounce that which is the only thing that seeks his life?  Peccatum est deicidium—sin is deicide.  As long as the traitor is in favour within, God will not raise his siege, or hear of peace without.  They cannot reign together; choose which you will have of them.  And be not so far de­luded as to think it is enough to send thy lust out of the way for a while, as princes use to do their favourites in a popular commotion, to please the people, and then call for them home when the hubbub is over.  No, God will not be thus dodged and mocked. See how the promise runs, and this he will stand to. ‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon,’ Isa. 55:7.  See how cau­tious God is in the terms; no corner left for the least sin to skulk and save its life in—he must ‘forsake all.’  That implies,

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2. Direction.  Look thou propoundest right ends in thy desire of reconciliation with God.  Nothing more hateful to God or man than falsehood and treachery in treaties of peace; and yet some men can have words as smooth as butter in their mouths, and war be in their hearts at the same time, Ps. 55:21.  O take heed of any hollowness of heart in thy inquiry for peace!  When found out—as it must needs be, except God's eye fails him, which is impossible—it will ex­ceedingly harden the heart of God against thee.  God never repented of any he pardoned or took up into the chariot of peace with him, because he was never deceived by any, as men are, who make often peace with those that prove at last false brethren, and give them cause to wish they had never known them.  Joab killed Amasa, but he took no heed to the sword in Joab's hand.  God looks to the heart, and sees what is in its hand; be sure thou therefore stand clear in thy own thoughts as to the ends thou aimest at.  It is lawful for thee to look to thy own safety.  God will give thee leave to look to thyself.  This thou mayest, and yet not neglect him.  But never was any peace true or sure where only self-love made it, whether it be with God, or between man and man.  Thou seest thou art undone if thou keepest thy old side, and therefore thou seekest peace with God, as the kings that served Hadarezer. When they saw he was ‘smit­ten before Israel, they made peace with Israel’ them­selves, II Sam. 10:19.  Well, this may be allowed thee to come over to God, because his is the surer side. Never any made peace with God, but this argument weighed much with them.  If Jacob could have been safe at home, he had never fled to Laban.  All are fired out of their holds before they yield to God.  But take heed this be not all thou aimest at, or the chief thou aimest at.  This thou mayest do, and hate God as much as ever, like those who are said to yield ‘feign­edly’ to David’s victorious arms, because no help for it.  A man taken in a storm may be forced under the pent-house of his greatest enemy for shelter, without any change of his heart, or better thoughts of him than before he was wont.  Two things, therefore, thou mayest look to have in thy eye, above thy own self-preservation.

           (1.) You must desire to be reconciled to God with an eye to the honour of God.  Hence, oft the saints’ prayers are pressed with an argument from God, as well as them­selves and their own misery: ‘Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name's sake,’ Ps. 79:9.  Certainly, if God could not be more glorified in our peace and reconciliation, than in our death and damnation, it were a wicked thing to desire it.  But God hath cleared this up to us, that he is no loser by acts of mercy.  In this lies the greatest revenue of his crown, or else he could not love ‘mercy rather than sacrifice.’  God is free to choose what suits his own heart best, and most conduceth to the exalting of his great name; and he delights more in the mercy shown to one, than in the blood of all the damned that are made a sacrifice to his justice.  And, indeed, he had a higher end in their damnation than their suffering, and that was the enhancing of the glory of his mercy in his saved ones.  This is the beau­tiful piece God takes delight in, and the other but the shadow to it.  Then thou art in a fit disposition to pray for peace, and mayest go with encouragement, when thy heart is deeply affected with the honour that will accrue to God by it.  It is an argument God will not deny.  ‘This,’ said Abigail to David, ‘shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my lord,’ I Sam. 25:31.  She meant he should never have cause to repent that he was kept from shedding blood.  Thus mayest thou plead with God and say, ‘O Lord, when I shall with saints and angels be praising thy pardoning grace in heaven, it will not grieve thee that thy mercy kept thee from shedding my blood, damning my soul to hell.’  But now it is evident that many who seem to seek peace, and pursue it too, very strongly, yet do not take overmuch care for God’s honour in the thing, because they are earnest with God to par­don them in a way that were to him dishonourable. Pardoned they would be, though wholly ignorant of God and Christ.  They would have God to be at peace with them while they were enemies to him.  Like a thief at the bar, he would have the judge spare his life, right or wrong, legally or illegally, what cares he? Doth this wretch consider the honour of the judge? or that sinner, who, so he be saved, how unrighteous God is in the act of mercy?  O deceive not yourselves, poor souls, God will not make war between his own attributes to make peace with you!

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1. Direction.See and be sensible of the feud and enmity that at present stands betwixt God and thee.

(1.) As to the reality of the thing, that there is indeed a quarrel, which God hath against thee. Wher­ever thou goest, an angry God is at thy back, and his wrath, like a big-bellied cloud, hangs full of curses over thy head, ready every moment to empty them upon thy head.  There is need of pressing this.  For, though it is ordinary for men to confess themselves sinners, yet most are loath to disparage their state so far as to rank themselves among the enemies of God. No, they hope God and they are good friends for all this.  Like thieves they will confess some little matter, but they have a care of letting fall anything that may hazard their necks.  ‘Sinner’ is a favourable word.  Who lives and sins not?  That they will grant.  But, to be in a state of enmity, and under the wrath of God, this scares them too much, and brings them too near the sight of the gallows—the seat of hell—which are due to that state; and therefore, when pressed thus far—as the Jews desired Rabshakeh, when he scared them with the dreadful things that would befall them if they stood out against the king his master, ‘that he would not speak in the Jews’ language in the ears of the people,’ Isa. 36:11, for fear of affrighting them, but in a foreign tongue—so sinners desire those that deal plainly with them, that they should not speak so broad in the hearing of their conscience, which they are afraid should know the worst.  But, if thou lovest thy own soul, make a true representation of thy state to thyself.  O what folly is it for a man to lose his cause by concealing the badness of it!

(2.) Labour to bring thyself under the sense of thy miserable condition as thou art.  Hadst thou the empire of the world, and all nations creeping to thy foot, as once the beasts did to Adam, and a lease as long as Methuselah’s life twice told to enjoy it in, without the interposition of one cloud all the while, to darken the glory of this thy royalty, yet, supposing thee to be one to whom God is an enemy, I would choose to be the worm under thy foot, the toad in the ditch, sooner than thy miserable self in thy palace. One thought of thy approaching death, and eternal misery in store for thee, will let out all the joy of thy present happiness.  This, this makes the great ones of the world—indeed all unreconciled sinners, high and low—to go to their graves as bears down a hill—back­wards.  Alas! if they should but look forward whither they were going, their hearts would soon be at their mouths, for want of this breastplate—a comfortable persuasion of their peace made with God.  Go, there­fore, as a poor malefactor condemned to die would do, shut thyself up from all thy old flattering companions, that would still lullaby thy miserable soul in a senseless security—the cradle which the devil rocks souls in, to their utter destruction; let none of them come to thee, but send for those that dare be faithful to thee, and, like Samuel, dare tell thee every word that God saith against thee, and conceal nothing; yea, read thy doom with thy own eyes in the word, and take thy condemnation from God’s own mouth, and not man’s.  ‘There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.’  Muse on it till it cleaves to thy soul like a drawing-plaster to a sore, and brings out the very core of thy pride and carnal confidence, which hardened thy heart from all sense of thy condition; by which time, the anguish of thy own spirit, seeing the straits thou art brought into, will prompt thee to desire peace with God, and this is that which God waits for to hear drop from thee, as much as Benhadad’s servants did for a word from Ahab’s mouth.

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 Fourth. Consider what thou doest when thou re­fusest peace with God.  Determinations of war or peace use to be the result of the most grave counsels and mature deliberation possible.  Think and think again, what thou doest, before thou breakest off the treaty of peace, lest thou makest work for repentance when it will be bootless.  But, lest thou shouldst not be so faithful to God and thy own soul as to give thy conscience liberty to speak freely in this matter, I shall do it for thee, and tell thee what thou doest when thou rejectest peace.  Thou justifiest thy former hostilities against God, and declarest that thou wilt vouch what thou hast done, let God right himself as well as he can.  He that refuseth a pardon, either denieth he hath done wrong, or, which is worse, stands to defend it.  Thou hadst as good say thou de­sirest not to be friends with God, but hast a mind to perpetuate the feud betwixt God and thee, like Amil­car, who was such an enemy to Rome, that, when he died, he made his son Hannibal heir to his hatred against them.  Is it not enough that thou hast fought so many battles on earth against thy Maker, but wilt thou keep the quarrel up in another world also, where there is no more possibility to put an end to it than to eternity itself?  Thou throwest the greatest scorn up­on God that it is possible for a creature to do.  As if God’s love and hatred were such inconsiderable things that they need not, when cast into the scale of thy thoughts, preponderate^[3] thee either way—the one to move thy desire, or the other thy fear!  In a word, thou consentest to thy own damnation, and desperately flingest thyself into the mouth of God’s flaming wrath, which gapes in the threatening upon thee. God is under an oath to procure thy destruction, if thou diest in this mind, which God forbid!  Death is the trap-door which will let thee down to hell’s dungeon; and when once thou art there, thou art where thou wilt have space enough to weep over thy past folly, though here thou hast neither mind nor leisure to make God thy friend.  The very thoughts of those offers of peace which once thou hadst, but no heart to embrace them, will be like so much salt and vinegar, with which thy accusing conscience will be continually basting thee, as thou liest roasting in hell-fire, to make thy torment the more intolerable.  I know this language grates on the sinners’ ears, but not so ill as the gnashing of the sinner’s own teeth will in hell.

           I have read of a foolish, I may say cruel, law among the Lacedemonians^[4], that none should tell his neighbour any ill news befallen him, but every one should be left, in process of time, to find it out them­selves.  Many among us, I think, would be content if there were such a law, that might tie up ministers’ mouths from scaring them with their sins, and the miseries that attend their unreconciled state.  The most are more careful to run from the discourse of their misery, than to get out of the danger of it—are more offended with the talk of hell, than troubled for that sinful state that shall bring them thither.  But alas! when, then, shall we show our love to the souls of sinners if not now, seeing that in hell there remains no more offices of love to be done for them?  Hell is a pest-house, that we may not write so much on the door of it as ‘Lord, have mercy on them that are in it.’ Nay, they who now pray for their salvation, and weep over their condition, must then with Christ vote for their damnation, and rejoice in it, though they be their own fathers, husbands, and wives they see there. O, now bethink yourselves, before the heart of God and man be hardened against you!

           Question.  But how may a poor sinner be at peace with God?

1. See and be sensible of the feud and enmity that at present stands betwixt God and thee.  2. Look thou propoundest right ends in thy desire of reconciliation with God.  3. Throw down thy rebellious arms, and humbly submit to his mercy.  4. Hie thee, as soon as may be, to the throne of grace, and humbly present thy request to God to be at peace with thee through Christ.

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           (c) Look into the commission God gives his am­bassadors, and still his heart appears in the business, whether you consider the largeness of it, on the one hand, or the strictness of it on the other.  First, the largeness of it—‘Go and preach,’ saith Christ, ‘the gospel to every creature.’  Make no difference—rich or poor, great sinners or little, old sinners or young.  Offer peace to all that will but repent and believe.  Bid as many come as will; here is room for all that come.  Again, the strictness of it on the other hand. O what a solemn charge have they of delivering their message faithfully!  Paul trembles at the thoughts of loitering—‘Woe is me if I preach not.’  What an argument doth Christ use—fetched from his very heart—to persuade Peter to be careful, ‘If thou lovest me, feed my sheep.’  As if he had said, ‘Peter, thou now art in tears for thy cowardice in denying me, but thou hast yet one way left, for all that unkindness, to demonstrate thy love to me, and that is by feeding my sheep; do this, and trouble not thyself for that.’ Christ shows more care of his sheep than of himself.

           (d) The joy God expresseth when poor sinners come into the offer of peace.  Joy is the highest testi­mony that can be given to our complacency in any thing or person.  Love to joy is as fuel to the fire.  If love lay little fuel of desires on the heart, then the flame of joy that comes thence will not be great.  Now God's joy is great in pardoning poor sinners that come in; therefore his affection great in the offer thereof. It is made the very motive that prevails with God to pardon sinners, ‘because he delighteth in mercy,’ Micah 7:18.  ‘Who is a God like unto thee, that pardon­eth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.’  God doth all this, ‘because he delighteth in mercy.’  Ask why the fisher stands all night with his angle in the river.  He will tell you, ‘because he delights in the sport.’  Well, you now know the reason why God stands so long waiting on  sinners, months, years, preaching to them; it is that he may be  gracious in pardoning them, and in that act delight himself.  Princes very oft pardon traitors to please others more than themselves, or else it would never be done, but God doth it chiefly to delight and gladden his own merciful heart. 

 Hence the business Christ came about—which was no other but to reconcile sinners to God—is called ‘the pleasure of the Lord,’ Isa. 53:10.  The Lord takes such joy and pleasure in this, that, whereas other fathers —whose love to their  children sinks infinitely beneath any comparison with the love of God to Christ —mourn at the death of their children, and most of all when violent and bloody, God takes content in his Son's death; yea, had the chief hand in the procuring of it, and that with infinite complacency: ‘It pleased the Lord to bruise him.’  And what joy could God take in his Son’s death, but as it made way for him and his poor creature that were fallen out, and at open war one against another, to fall in again by a happy accord?  And now, speak, O sinner! if God doth so affectionately desire to be reconciled with thee, doth it not much more behove thee to embrace the peace, than it doth him to offer it?  There is but one thing more I would desire thee, sinner, to consider, and then I leave thee to thy own choice.

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(1.) In his contriving a way for reconciling sinners to himself.  What men strongly desire, they stretch their wits to the utmost how to accomplish. ‘The liberal man deviseth liberal things,’ Isa. 32:8.  It shows the heart exceeding large in charity, when a man shall sit down and study how he may find out ways for the exercise of his charity; whereas, most men, alas! beat their brains how they may save their purses and escape with giving as little as may be to the poor.  O what a rare invention hath God found out for showing mercy, which hath so many mysterious passages in it, that angels themselves are put hither to school, that by studying this mystery of God’s reconciling sinners to himself by Christ, they might know ‘the manifold wisdom of God!’ Eph. 3:10.

           (2.) By the early discovery he made of this to the sons of men.  He would go among us, for no sooner had man broken the peace, and taken up rebellious arms against his Maker, but the Lord's heart relented towards him, and could not let the sun go down on his wrath against him, but must, in the very same day that he sinned, let him hear of a Saviour, by preaching peace to him, in ‘the seed of the woman,’ Gen 3:15. Little did Adam think that God had such a message in his mouth for him, when he first heard him coming towards him, and for fear ran his head into a bush, meditating a flight from him, if he had known whither to have gone.  O, that ‘Adam, where art thou?’ sounded, no doubt, in his guilty ears, like the voice of an avenging God calling him, a malefactor, to execution!  But it proved the voice of a gracious God, com­ing, not to meet man in his way returning to him, but to seek him out, who had lost all thoughts of him, that he might give some ease to his own gracious heart, now full of mercy to his poor creature, by dis­closing to him the purposes of grace which he had there conceived towards him.  Surely his heart was very full, or else this would not have burst out so soon.

           (3.) The great ordinance of the gospel-ministry, which God hath set up in the church, on purpose to treat with sinners upon a peace, speaks his deep affection to the work, II Cor. 5:18.  One would have thought it had been enough to print his thoughts and purposes of mercy in the Scripture, though he had done no more.  Princes, when they put out a statute or law, expect all their subjects should inquire after it, and do not send one to every town, whose office shall be to give notice thereof, and persuade people to sub­mit to it.  Yet this the great God doth.  The minister’s work from one end of the year to the other, what is it but to beseech sinners to be reconciled to God?  And in this observe,

           (a) The persons he sends to preach.  Not angels, foreigners to our nature, who, though they wish us well, yet are not so intimately concerned in man’s fall, as to give them the advantage of preaching with those melting bowels, that God would have them filled with who go on his errand.  No, he sends men, with whom he may converse familiarly, creatures of like passions—whose nature puts them under the same depravation, temptation, condemnation with ourselves—who can, from the acquaintance they have with their own hearts, tells us the baseness of ours —from the fire of God’s wrath, which hath scorched them for their sins, [can] tell us the desert of ours, and the danger we are in by reason of them—as also, from the sweet sense that the taste of God’s love in Christ hath left on their souls, can commend the cheer and feast they invite us to upon their own knowledge.  Did not God, think you, desire good speed to his embassage when he chose such to carry it?

           (b) Observe the qualifications required in those he employs as ambassadors to offer peace to sinners.  ‘The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves,’ II Tim. 2:24, 25.  O how careful is God that nothing should be in the preacher to prejudice the sinner’s judgment, or harden his heart, against the offer of his grace.  If the servant be proud and hasty, how shall they know the master is meek and patient?  God would have them do nothing to make the breach wider, or hinder a happy close betwixt him and them.  Indeed, he that will take the bird must not scare it.  A froward peevish messenger is no friend to him that sends him.  Sinners are not pelted into Christ with stones of hard provoking language, but wooed into Christ by heart-melting exhortations.

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Second. Consider who it is that offers peace to thee—the great God.  It is hard to say which speaks the greatest wonder—for God to offer, or thee to de­ny what he offers.  We marvel not to see the undutiful child on his knee, labouring to soften his father’s heart with his tears, which he hath hardened against him with his rebellions; nor a condemned traitor prostrate at his prince’s foot, begging for his life, now forfeited to the justice of the law; but it is something strange to see the father become suppliant to his child, more, for the traitor to open his dungeon door and find his prince standing there, and that upon no other errand than to desire him to accept of a pardon. And yet self-love may be the great motive for this seeming self-denial.  The parent doth but love himself when he steps below his place to gain his child, that carries so much of its parent’s life about him. And such necessity of state there is sometimes, that great princes are forced to stoop to the meanest, yea worst of his subjects.  A prince’s safety may be so intimately concerned in a traitor’s life that he cannot cut off his head without imminent danger to the crown that stands upon his own.  But none of these straits forced God to take up thoughts of peace to his poor creature; no, they are the birth of free condescending love.  And now, think again, sinner, before the great God hath a denial from thee.  If a neighbour, the poorest in the town, and he one that hath done thee wrong, and not received it from thee, comes to thee and desires peace, shouldst thou reject the motion?  Would not thy conscience reproach thee to thy dying day?  How then wilt thou endure to look God or conscience in the face, if thou refusest peace at God’s hands that thou doth not treat, like men, when their sword is broke, and they cannot fight, but when he hath absolute power over thy life—which is ever in his hands—yea, a God that hath ever received the wrong—never did thee any—yea, should have done thee none, if he had long before this hanged thee up in chains of darkness among the damned.

           Third. Consider how God offers thee peace.

1. He offers peace sincerely.He covers not fraud under a treaty of peace.  Among men there hath been horrible juggling in this case.  The flag of peace is oft hung out at lip only, to draw them within the reach of their dagger, which is ready to smite them, as Joab did Abner, ‘under the fifth rib.’  In all the civil wars of France the poor Protestants found peace more costly to them than war; they beat the Papists in the field, when open enemies, but were betrayed by them in the chamber, when false friends.  But for thy com­fort know it is, ‘a God of truth’ thou treatest with.  Never did he shed the blood of war in peace, or give a soul to the sword of his wrath, after quarter taken and peace given.  ‘If we confess,....he is just and faithful to forgive.’  His promises are not ‘yea and nay,’ like the devil’s, who lays them so that he may have the credit both ways.  No, the very heart of God may be seen as through a crystal window in the promise; they are all ‘yea and amen’ in Christ, II Cor. 1:20.
2. He offers peace affectionately,his heart deep­ly engaged in the tenders of mercy to poor sinners; which will appear,

         

Exhortations To The Sinner To Embrace This Peace With God, Offered In The Gospel 1/5

First. Consider what it is that is offered thee —peace with God.  A thing so indispensable—thou canst not have less, and so comprehensive—thou needest have no more than this, and what cometh with it, to make thee truly, fully happy.  Of all the variety of enjoyments with which it is possible thy table can be spread, this is a dish can least be spared. Take away peace, and that but of an inferior nature —outward peace—and the feast is spoiled, though it be on a prince’s table.  David’s children had little stomach to their royal dinner when one of them was slain that sat at the board with them.  And what taste can you have in all your junkets while God is in array against you; many sinners slain before your eye by God's judgments; and the same sword that hath let out their blood, at thy throat, while the meat is in thy mouth?  Methinks your sweet morsels should stick in your throat, and hardly get down, and hardly get down, while you muse on these things.  O sinner! is not this as a toad swelling at the bottom of thy most sweetly sugared cup—that the controversy yet depends betwixt God and thee?  Thy sins are unpar­doned, and thou a dead damned creature, however thou dost frolic it for the present in thy prison. Would you not wonder to see a man at his sport, hunting or hawking, and one should tell you that that man is to be hanged tomorrow?  Truly God is more merciful to thee than thou canst promise thyself, if he stay the execution till another day.  I confess, when I meet a man whose life proclaims him an unreconciled sinner, and see him spruce up himself with the joy of his children, estate, honour, or the like, in this life, it administers matter of admiration [amazement] to me, what such a one thinks of God or himself.  Canst thou think it is long thou shalt sit at this fire of thorns thou hast kindled, and not God for thee?  Must it needs provoke a creditor to see his debtor live high, and go brave, all at his cost, and all the while never think of getting out of his debt, or of making his peace with him?  Much more then doth it provoke God to see sinners spend upon his bounty—lead joyful jovial lives in the abundance of outward enjoyments he lends them, but take no thought of making peace with him in whose debt‑book they are so deep in arrears.

           What folly had it been for the Jews, when Ahasu­erus had sealed the warrant for their destruction, to have gone and painted their houses, planted their fields, and let out their hearts in the enjoyment of their estates, without taking care, in the first place, of getting that bloody decree reversed?  A worse sot art thou, that doest all these, while thou carriest the sen­tence of death from God’s mouth, about thee in thy own conscience.  Sir Thomas More, when in the Tower, would not so much as trim himself, saying, ‘There was a controversy betwixt the king and him for his head, and till that was at a happy end, he would be at no cost about it.’  Scum but off the froth of his wit and you may make a solemn use of it.  Certainly all the cost you bestow on yourselves to make your lives pleasurable and joyous to you is mere folly, till it be decided what will become of the suit betwixt God and you, not for your heads, but souls, yea soul and body, whether for heaven or hell.  O were it not thy wisest choice to begin with making thy peace, and then thou mayest soon lead a happy life!  We say, ‘He that gets out of debt grows rich.’  I am sure the recon­ciled soul cannot be poor.  As soon as the peace is concluded a free trade is opened betwixt God and the soul. 

If once pardoned, thou mayest then sail to any port that lies in God’s dominions, and be welcome. All the promises stand open with their rich treasure. Take, poor soul, full lading in of all the precious things they afford, even as much as thy faith can bear, and none shall hinder thee.  As a man may draw the wine of a whole vessel through one tap, so faith may draw the comfort of all the covenant out of this one promise of reconciliation.  If reconciled, then the door is open to let thee into communion with God in all his ordinances.  God and thou being agreed may now walk together, whereas before thou couldst not look into God’s presence but his heart rose against thee, as one at the sight of his enemy, ready to draw upon thee with his judgments.  ‘The smith,’ we say, ‘and his penny, both are black.’  So wert thou with all thy duties and performances, while unreconciled in his eye.  But now thy ‘voice is sweet, and countenance comely.’  All the attributes of God, thy ally, are thine: his horses and chariots thine, as Jehoshaphat told Ahab.  Whenever any enemy puts thee in fear, you know where to have a friend that will take part with thee.  All his providences, though like bees, they fly some this way, and some that, yea, one contrary to another, as, thou thinkest, impossible to trace them, are yet all at work for thee; and thy soul is the hive wherein they will unlade the sweet fruit of all their labour, though possibly it may be night—the evening of thy days—before thou findest it.  In a word, if reconciled, thou standest next step to heaven; ‘whom he justifies, them he glorifies,’ Rom. 8:30.  Thou art sure to be there as soon as death rends the veil of thy flesh, which is all that interposeth between thee and it.

Application

        

   

Let it provoke everyone to labour to get an inter­est in this peace of reconciliation with God which the gospel brings.  Peace with God!  Sure it is worth the sinner’s having, or else the angels were ill employed when they welcomed the tidings thereof into the world at our Saviour’s birth with such acclamation of joy.  ‘Glory to God,....on earth peace,’ Luke 2:14.  Yea otherwise Christ himself was deceived in his purchase, who, if a sinner's peace with God be not of high praise and value, hath little to show for the effusion of his heart-blood, which he thought well spent to gain this.  But this we cannot believe.  And yet to see how freely God offers peace and pardon to the sons of men through Christ, and how coy, yea sullen and cross they are to the motion:—one that does not well know them both—God's infinite goodness, and wretched man's horrible baseness—might be ready to think it some low prized ware which lay upon God’s hands, and this to be the cause why God is so earnest to put it off, and man so loath to take it off his hands. 

Ah poor deluded wretches! who is the wicked counsellor that hardens your hearts from embracing your own mercies?  None, sure, but a devil can hate God and you so much.  And hath he sped so well in his own quarrel against God, that he should be hearkened to by thee, poor sinner?  Can he give thee armour that will quench God's bullets?  How then is it that he is so unkind to himself as to let them lie burning in his own bosom to his unspeakable torment?  Or will he lend thee any pity when thou hast by his advice undone thyself?  Alas! no more than the cruel wolf doth the silly sheep, when he hath sucked her blood and torn her in pieces.  Think, and think again, poor sinner, what answer thou meanest to send to heaven before God calls his ambassadors home, and the treaty break up, never to be renewed again. And that thou mayest not want some seasonable mat­ter for thy musing thoughts to enlarge upon on this subject, let me desire thee to treat with thy own heart upon these four heads.  First. Consider what it is that is offered thee.  Second. Who it is that offers it. Third. How he offers it.  Fourth. What thou dost when thou refusest it.

Superiority Of Our Nature In Christ To Its State In Adam

1. The reconciled sinner hath the advantage of Adam in his union to God.  2. The reconciled sinner hath the advantage of Adam in his communion with God.
2. The reconciled sinner hath the advantage of Adam in his union to God.  And that,

(1.) As it is nearer.  The union is nearer, because God and man make one person in Christ.  This is such a mystery as was not heard of by Adam in all his glory.  He, indeed, was in league of love and friend­ship with God—and that was the best flower in his crown—but he could lay no claim to such kindred and consanguinity as now—with reverence be it spoken—the reconciled soul can with God.  This comes in by the marriage of the divine nature with the human, in the person of Christ, which personal union is the foundation of another, a mystical union betwixt Christ and the person  of every believer; and this is so near a union, that, as by the union of the divine nature and human, there is one person, so also by this mystical union, the saints and their head make one Christ, ‘for as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ,’ I Cor. 12:12.  Ecclesia est Christus explicatus—the church is nothing but Christ displayed.  Who can speak what an advance this is to the human nature in general, and to the persons of believers in especial?—such a one, as it leaves not only Adam, but angels, beneath a reconciled sinner in this respect.  Adam, at first, was made but ‘little lower than the angels;’ but, by this pair of unions, God hath set the reconciled soul more than a little above them both, for Christ, by taking on him, not ‘the nature of angels’—though the more an­cient and noble house—but the seed of Abraham,’ made ‘the elder serve the younger.’  Even angels themselves minister to the meanest saint, as unto their Master’s heir, Heb. 1:14.

(2.) As it is stronger.  Therefore stronger, because nearer.  The closer stones stand together the stronger the building.  The union betwixt God and Adam in the first covenant, was not so near but Adam might fall, and yet God’s glory stand entire and un­shaken; but the union now is so close and strong be­twixt Christ and his saints, that Christ cannot be Christ without his members.  ‘Because I live,’ saith Christ, ‘ye shall live also,’ John 14:19—implying that their life was bound up in his, and [that] it was as easy for him to be turned out of heaven as for them to be kept out.  The church is called Christ's ‘body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all,’ Eph. 1:23.  A body is not full if it hath not every member and joint, though never so little, and them in their fullness too. The saints’ graces is Christ's glory, II Cor. 8:23; and, though his essential glory as God receives no filling from his saints, or their graces, yet consider him in his mediatorship as head of his church, so Christ’s glory is daily filling, as the elect are called in daily, and as those that are called in grow up to their ap­pointed stature.  Christ hath not his fullness till the saints have their perfection and complement of grace in heaven’s glory.

2. The reconciled sinner hath the advantage of Adam in his communion with God.The nearer, we use to say, the dearer.  Communion results from un­ion.  If the union be nearer and stronger between a reconciled soul and God than Adam’s was, his communion must needs be sweeter and fuller.  Why else is the communion between husband and wife fuller than of friend and friend, but because the union is closer?  God converseth with Adam as a friend with his friend and ally, but with the reconciled soul as a husband with his wife.  ‘For thy Maker is thy husband,’ Isa. 54:5.  There is a double sweetness peculiar to the reconciled sinner’s communion with God.

(1.) There is, in Christ, a foundation laid for greater familiarity with God, than Adam was at first capable of.  He, indeed, was the son of God, yet he was kept at a further distance, and treated with more state and majesty, from God, than now the reconciled soul is; for, though he was the son of God, by crea­tion, yet ‘the Son of God’ was not then ‘the Son of man’ by incarnation; and at this door comes in the believer's sweetest familiarity with God.  The Christian cannot now lift up an eye of faith to God, but sees his own nature standing upon the throne by him, in the person of Christ.  And, if the sight of Joseph at Pharaoh's right hand, in court favour and honour, sent the patriarchs home with such joyful news to their aged father, what a ravishing message of joy must faith carry then to the soul of a reconciled sin­ner, when it comes in after some vision of love in an ordinance and saith, ‘Cheer up, O my soul, I see Jesus Christ, thy near kinsman, at God’s right hand in glory, to whom ‘all power is given in heaven and earth;’ fear not, he is so nigh in blood to thee that he cannot be unmindful of thee, except he should do what is unnatural in thyself, that is, hide himself from his own flesh.’  The lower a prince stoops to the meanest of his subjects, the more familiar he makes himself to his subjects.

It was a wonderful condescension in the great God, who can have no compeer, first to make man, and then to strike so friendly a league and covenant with him.  This God doth now with every reconciled soul, and that too enriched with so many astonishing circumstances of condescending grace as must needs speak the way of the believer’s access to God more familiar.  God, in this second and new alliance with the poor creature, descend from his throne—exc­hanges his majestic robes of glory for the rags of man’s frail flesh.  He leaves his palace to live for a time in his creature’s humble cottage, and there not only familiarly converses with him, but, which is stranger, ministers to him, yea, which is more than all these, he surrenders himself up to endure all manner of indignities from his sorry creature’s hand; and when this, his coarse entertainment is done, back he posts to heaven, not to complain to his Father how he hath been abused here below, and to raise heaven’s power against those that had so ill-entreated him, but to make ready heaven’s palace for the reception of those who had thus abused him, and now will but accept of his grace; and lest these yet left on earth  should fear his re-assumed royalty and majesty in heaven's glory would make some alteration in their affairs in his heart—to give them therefore a constant demonstration that he would be the same in the height of his honour that he was in the depth of his abasement—he goes back in the same clothes he had borrowed of their nature, to wear them on the throne in all his glory—only some princely cost bestowed, to put them into the fashion of that heavenly kingdom, and make them suit with his glorified state—giving them a pattern by this, what their own vile bodies, which are now so dishonourable, shall be made another day.  Now none of all those circumstances were found in God’s first administration to Adam, and therefore this is the more familiar.

(2.) There is the sweetness of pardoning mercy, and the bleeding love of Christ—who, by his death, purchased it for him—to be tasted in the reconciled soul’s communion with God.  This lump of sugar Adam had not in his cup.  He knew what the love of a giving God meant, but was stranger to the mercy of a forgiving God.  The reconciled soul experiments both.  The love of a father, more than ordinary kind, is a great comfort to a dutiful child—one that never displeased his father; but it carries no such wonder in it to our thoughts as the compassion and melting bowels of a father towards a rebellious child doth. And certainly the prodigal child, that is received again into his father's embraces, hath the advantage for loving his father more than his brother that never came under his father’s displeasure.  O this pardoning mercy, and the love of Christ that procured it! —they are the most spacious and fruitful heads for a gracious soul to enlarge his sweetest meditations up­on, here on earth.  But who can conceive what ravishing music glorified saints will make in running division on this sweet note?  I am sure the song their harps are tuned unto is ‘the song of the Lamb,’ Rev. 15:2, 3.  The saints’ finished happiness in heaven’s glory is a composition of all the rare ingredients pos­sible—so tempered by the wise hand of God, that, as none could well be spared, so not the taste of any one shall be lost in another.  But this ingredient of pardoning mercy, and of the stupendous love and wisdom of God through Christ therein, shall, as I may so say, give a sweet relish to all, and be tasted above all the rest.

Particular reasons why God adopts the method of reconciliation by the gospel 2/2

           Reason Second. God effected our peace by Christ, that he might for ever hide pride from his saints’ eyes.  Pride was the stone on which both angels and men stumbled and fell.  In man’s recovery, there­fore, he will roll that stone, as far as may be, out of the way—he will lay that knife aside with which man did himself the mischief.  And that he may do this, he transacts the whole business by Christ for them. Man’s project was to cut off the entail of his obedience to God, and set up for himself as a free and absolute prince, without holding upon his Maker.  A strange plot! for to effect this he must first have thrown away that being which God gave him, and, by self-creation—if such a thing had been possible —have bestowed a new one upon himself; then, indeed, and not till then, he might have had his will.

But alas! his pride to be what he could not, lost him what he had, and still might have, enjoyed.  Yet how foolish soever it now appears and infeasible, that was the plot pride had sprung into man’s heart.  Now, God, to preserve his children from all future assaults and batteries of hell at this door, chose such a way of reconciling and saving them, that, when the prince of the world comes to tempt them to pride, he should find nothing in them to give the least countenance or colour to such a motion; so that, of all sins, pride is such a one as we may wonder how it should grow, for it hath no other root to bear it up but what is found in man's dreaming fancy or imagination.  It grows, as sometimes we shall see a mushroom or moss, among stones, where little or no soil is for its root to take hold of.  God, in this gospel way reconciling sinners by Christ, makes him fetch all from without doors. Wilt thou, poor soul, have peace with God?  Thou must not have it from thine own penance for thy sins. ‘The chastisement of our peace was upon him;,’ Isa. 53:5.  O know thou art not thy own peacemaker!  That is Christ’s name, who did that work: ‘for he is our peace, who hath made both one,’ Eph. 2:14—Jew and Gentile one with God, and one with one another.

Wouldst thou be righteous?  Then thou must not ap­pear before God in thy own clothes.  It is another’s righteousness, not thy own, that is provided for thee. ‘Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness,’ Isa. 45:24.  In a word, wouldst thou ever have a right in heaven’s glory?  Thy penny is not good silver to purchase it with.  The price must not come out of thy purse, but Christ’s heart; and therefore, as it is called the ‘purchased posses­sion,’ in regard of Christ —because he obtained it for us with a great sum, not ‘silver and gold,’ but his ‘precious blood’— so ‘an in­heritance’ in regard of us, because it descends upon us as freely as the father’s estate on his child, Eph. 1:14.  And why all this, but that the ‘lofty looks’ of man may be ‘humbled,’ and the ‘haughtiness of man’ should be ‘bowed down, and the Lord alone exalted’ in the day of our salvation?  

The manna is expounded by Christ himself in a type of him: ‘The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world,’ John 6:33.  Now observe wherefore God chose that way of feeding them in the wilderness: ‘Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee,’ Deut. 8:16.  But wherein lay this great humbling of them?  Were they not shrewdly humbled think you, to be fed with such a dainty dish, which had God for its cook, and is called ‘angels’ food’ for its delicacy? Ps. 78:25—such, that if they needed any repast, might well suit their table.  I answer, it was not the meanness of the fare, but the manner of having it, which God intended should humble them.  Man is proud, and loves to be his own pro­vider, and not stand to another’s allowance.  The same feast sent in by the charity and bounty of another, will not go down so well with his high stomach as when it is provided at his own cost and charges; he had rather have the honour of keeping his own house, though mean, than to live higher upon the alms and allowance of an­other’s charity.  This made them wish themselves at their onions in their own gardens in Egypt, and their flesh-pots there, which though they were grosser diet, they liked better, because bought with their own penny.

           Reason Third.  God lays this method of reconciling sinners to himself by Christ, that it might be a peace with the greatest advantage possible—that God and man might meet again on better terms by this pa­cification, than when Adam stood in all his primitive glory.  God, no doubt, would not have let the beauty of his first workmanship to be so defaced by sin, had he not meant to have reared a more magnificent structure out of its ruins.  Now, God intending to print man’s happiness in the second edition with a fairer character than at the first, he employs Christ in the work, as the only fit instrument to accomplish so great a design.  Christ himself tells us as much: ‘I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly,’ John 10:10.  His coming was not to give those who were dead and damned bare peace, naked life, but ‘more abundantly’ than ever man had before the breach.  It was Christ in the sec­ond temple who filled it with a glory superlative to the first—Christ in the second creation of man, that lifts his head above the first state in happiness.  

As Adam was a pattern to all his seed—what he was in his innocent state, that should they all have been, if sin had not altered the scene, and turned the tables —so Christ is a pattern to all his seed of that glory which they shall be clothed with, I John 3:2.  ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet ap­pear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him’—that is, ‘our vile bodies like his glorious body.’ as the apostle hath it, Php. 3.21, and our souls also, like his glorious soul. Now, by how much our nature in Christ is more glor­ious than it was in Adam, by so much the state of a reconciled sinner surpasseth Adam’s first condition. Some little discovery whereof, take in two particulars.