Directions To Sinners As To How They May Be At Peace With God 4/5

(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.