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.

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

 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.

Exhortations To The Sinner To Embrace This Peace With God Offered, In The Gospel 4/5

           (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.

Exhortations To The Sinner To Embrace This Peace With God Offered, In The Gospel 3/5

(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.