Five particulars to be observed in praying against guilt 2/3

   (c) Take heed thou prayest not with a reserva­tion.  Be sure thou renouncest what thou wouldst have God remit.  God will never remove the guilt so long as thou entertainest the sin.  What prince will pardon his treason that means to continue a traitor? It is desperate folly to desire God to forgive what thou intendest to commit.  Thou hadst as good speak out and ask leave to sin with impunity, for God knows the language of thy heart, and needs not thy tongue to be an interpreter. Some princes have misplaced their high favours to their heavy cost, as the emperor Leo Armenius, who pardoned that monster of ingratitude Michael Balbus, and was in the same night in which he was delivered out of prison murdered by him.  But the great God is subject to no mistake in his govern­ment.  Never got a hypocrite pardon in the disguise of a saint.  He will call thee by thy own name, though thou comest to him in the semblance of a penitent.  ‘Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam,’ said the prophet. Hypocrisy is too thin a veil to blind the eyes of the Al­mighty.  Thou mayest put thy own eyes out, so as not to see him; but thou canst never blind his eyes that he should not see thee.  And as long as God loves himself, he must needs hate the hypocrite; and if he hates him, surely he will not pardon him.  The par­doned soul and the sincere are all one.  ‘Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile,’ Ps. 32:2.

           (d) Make Christ thy plea.  Pardon of sin is a fa­vour not known in the first covenant.  Do, and live; sin, and die, were all its contents.  No room left for an after-game by that law.  The gospel covenant is our tabula post naufragium—the only plank by which we may recover the shore after our miserable wreck. This covenant is founded in Christ, who, upon agreement with his Father, undertook to answer the demands of the law, and happily performed what he undertook; upon which the gospel is preached, and pardon prom­ised to all that repent and believe on him.  ‘Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour,’ Acts 5:31.  Him hath God ‘set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood,’ Rom. 3:25.  As therefore, when Christ intercedes for poor sinners, he carries his blood with him and presents it to God, for the price of that forgiveness he desires for them; so thou mayest bring the same blood in the hand of thy faith when thou prayest for the pardon of thy sins, for ‘without shedding of blood is no remission,’ Heb. 9:22. This is the more to be heeded, because many, out of ignorance, and some from a corrupt principle, apply themselves to their prayers to the absolute goodness and mercy of God for pardon.  Ask them why they hope to be forgiven, and they will tell you, ‘God is good, and they hope he will be merciful to them, see­ing his nature is so gracious.’  But, alas! they forget he is just as well as merciful, and mercy will not act but with the consent of his justice.  Now the only salve for the justice of God is the satisfaction of Christ.  ‘Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteous­ness;...that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus,’ Rom. 3:25, 26.  So that, to de­sire God to forgive thee thy sin without the interven­ing of Christ’s satisfaction, is to desire God to be un­just, and pardon thee with the loss of his own honour; and how welcome thou art like to be that comest to him on such an errand, is easy to think.

           (e)  Lastly, take no denial in this thy request, but, pray for it with unwearied importunity.  It is a mercy thou canst not want; it is more necessary than thy very being.  Better never to be than ever be unpar­doned.  Think but a little on thy dismal condition while guilt is not taken off and thy pardon not obtained, and it is impossible that thou shouldst e a cold faint suitor for this mercy of mercies.  Know, then, while unpardoned thou art God’s prisoner.  All the plagues written in the law cleave as close to thee as thy girdle to thy loins.  Every moment thou mayest fear they should take hold upon thee as thou walkest in thy house, sittest at thy table, or liest on thy bed. Where canst thou be safe who hast God {for} thine enemy?  Can the bread resist him that eats it? or the tree withstand the axe of the feller? truly no more canst thou the wrath of an avenging God.  Is it not he that holds the stoutest devils in chains?—he who can kindle a fire in thy own bones and bosom, and make thee consume like lime with the inward burning of thy self‑tormenting thoughts?  Is he not a righteous God, whose justice binds him, in the distributions of justice, to be exact according to the sinner’s demerit? Is he not the everlasting God?—not a sorry creature, who may threaten thee to‑day, and be dead himself to‑morrow; but eternity itself, who ever lives to take vengeance on sinners, out of whose hands thou canst not escape by dying?