It is also killed to its own faith, its notion of the Gospel, its own hope, its own repentings, its own promises and resolutions, its own strength, its own virtue, or whatever it had before. Now, saith the soul, that faith I thought I had, it is but fancy; that hope I thought I had, I see it is by hypocritical, but vain and groundless hope. [These things would be too tedious to enlarge upon]. Now the soul sees it hath no saving faith, hope, or grace by nature, by the first covenant. Now it turns out, how many promises have I broken! How many times have I resolved in vain when I was sick at such a time and in such a strait at such a place! Indeed, I once thought of myself as a wise man, but I now see myself as a very fool. O, how ignorant am I of the Gospel now and of the blessed experience of the work of God on a Christian heart! It sees itself beset by nature with all evil and destitute of all good, which is enough to kill the stoutest, hardest-hearted sinner ever lived on the earth. O, friends, should you be plainly dealt withal by this discovery of the dealing of God with a sinner when He makes him a saint, and would seriously try yourselves thereby, as God will try you one day, how few would there be found of you to be so much as acquainted with the work of God in the notion, much less in the experimental knowledge of the same! And indeed, God is fain to take this way with sinners, thus to kill them with the old covenant to all things below a crucified Christ.
Six reasons of this discourse.
1. Otherwise, there would be none in the world looking after this sweet Jesus Christ. There are but a few that go to Heaven in all, comparatively, and those few God is fain to deal with them in this manner, or else His Heaven, His Christ, His glory, and everlasting happiness must abide by themselves, for all sinners. Do you think that Manasseh would have regarded the Lord had He not suffered his enemies to have prevailed against him? (2 Chron 33:1-16). Do you believe that Ephraim would have looked after salvation had not God first confounded him with the guilt of the sins of his youth? (Jer 31:18). What do you think of Paul? (Acts 9:4-6). What do you think of the jailer? (Acts 16:30-32). What do you think of the three thousand? (Acts 2:36,37). Was not this the way that the Lord was fain to take to make them close in with Jesus Christ? Was He not fain to kill them to everything below a Christ, that were driven to their wits' ends, insomuch that they were forced to cry out, "What shall we do to be saved?" I say God might have kept Heaven and happiness to Himself if He had not gone this way to work with sinners. O stout-hearted rebels! O, tender-hearted God!
2. Because then, and not till then, will sinners accept of Jesus Christ on God's terms. So long as sinners can make a life out of anything below Christ, so long they will not close with Christ without indenting; 15
But when the God of Heaven hath killed them to everything below Himself and His Son, then Christ will down on any terms in the world. And, indeed, this is the very reason why sinners, when they hear of Christ, yet will not close in with Him; there is something that they can take content in besides Him. The prodigal, so long as he could content himself with the husks that the swine did eat, so long he did keep him away from his father's house; but when he could get no nourishment anywhere on this side of his father's house, then saith he, and not till then, "I will arise, and go to my father," etc.
I say, this is the reason, therefore, why men come no faster, and close no more readily, with the Son of God, but stand halting and indenting 16 about the terms they must have Christ upon; for, saith the drunkard, I look on Christ to be worth the having; but yet I am not willing to lose ALL for him; all but my pot, saith the drunkard; and all but the world, saith the covetous. I will part with anything but lust and pride, saith the wanton. But if Christ will not be had without I forsake all, cast away all, then it must be with me as it was with the young man in the Gospel; such news will make me sorry at the very heart.
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