20, 23, 24,) but is willing all should come to the knowledge and obedience of the Truth, and be saved, he hath set forth his Son a propitiation, and given him as a Saviour to take away the sins of the whole world, that those that believe and follow him may feel the righteousness of God in the remission of their sins, and blotting out their transgressions for ever. (Matt. i. 21; Luke i. 77; Rom. iii. 25; Heb. ix. 24 to 28; 1 John ii. 1, 2.) Now, behold the remedy! an infallible cure, one of God's appointing; a precious elixir, indeed, that never fails; and that universal medicine which no malady could ever escape.
III. But thou wilt say, What is Christ? and where is he to be found? and how received and applied, in order to this mighty cure? I tell thee then, first, he is the great spiritual light of the world that enlightens every one that comes into the world; by which he manifests to them their deeds of darkness and wickedness, and reproves them for committing them. Secondly, he is not far away from thee, (Acts, xvii. 27.) as the apostle Paul said of God to the Athenians. "Behold," says Christ himself, "I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me." (Rev. iii. 20.) What door can this be but that of the heart of man?
IV. Thou, like the inn of old, hast been full of guests; thy affections have entertained other lovers; there has been no room for thy Saviour in thy soul. Wherefore salvation is not yet come into thy house, though it is come to thy door, and thou hast been often proffered it, and hast professed it long. But if he calls, if he knocks still, that is, if his light yet shines, if it reproves thee still, there is hope thy day is not over, and that repentance is not yet hid from thine eyes; but his love is after thee still, and his holy invitation continues to save thee.
Wherefore, O Christendom! believe, receive, and apply him rightly; this is of absolute necessity, that thy soul may live for ever with him. He told the Jews, "If you believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins; and whither I go ye cannot come." (John, viii. 21, 24.) And because they believed him not, they did not receive him, nor any benefit by him. But they that believed him received him; and as many as received him, his own beloved disciple tells us, "to them gave he power to become the sons of God, which are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John, i. 12, 13.) That is, who are not children of God after the fashions, prescriptions, and traditions of men, that call themselves his church and people, which is not after the will of flesh and blood, and the invention of carnal man, unacquainted with the regeneration and power of the Holy Ghost, but of God; that is, according to his will and the working and sanctification of his Spirit and word of life in them. And such were ever well versed in the right application of Christ, for he was made to them indeed propitiation, reconciliation, salvation, righteousness, redemption, and justification.
So I say to thee, unless thou believest that he that stands at the door of thy heart and knocks, and sets thy sins in order before thee, and calls thee to repentance, be the Saviour of the world, thou wilt die in thy sins, and where he is gone thou wilt never come. For, if thou believest not in him, it is impossible that he should do thee good, or effect thy salvation: Christ works not against faith, but by it. It is said of old, "He did not many mighty works in some places, because the people believed not in him." (John, i. 12, 13.) So that, if thou truly believest in him, thine ear will be attentive to his voice in thee, and the door of thine heart open to his knocks. Thou wilt yield to the discoveries of his light, and the teachings of his grace will be very dear to thee.
V. It is the nature of true faith to beget a holy fear of offending God, a deep reverence to his precepts, and a most tender regard to the inward testimony of his Spirit, as that by which his children in all ages have been safely led to glory. For, as they that truly believe receive Christ in all his tenders to the soul, so as true it is that those who receive him thus, with him receive power to become the sons of God: that is, an inward force and ability to do whatever he requires; strength to mortify their lusts, controul their affections, resist evil motions, deny themselves, and overcome the world in its most enticing appearances. This is the life of the blessed Cross of Christ, which is the subject of the following discourse, and what thou, O man, must take up, if thou intendest to be the disciple of Jesus. Nor canst thou be said to receive Christ, or to believe in him, whilst thou rejectest his cross. For, as receiving of Christ is the means appointed of God to salvation, so bearing the daily cross after him is the only true testimony of receiving him, and therefore it is enjoined by him as the great token of discipleship, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." (Matt. xvi. 24.)
This, Christendom, is that thou hast so much wanted, and the want of which has proved the only cause of thy miserable declension from pure Christianity. To consider which well, as it is thy duty, so it is of great use to thy restoration.
For as the knowledge of the cause of any distemper guides the physician to make a right and safe judgment in the application of his medicine, so it will much enlighten thee in the way of thy recovery, to know and weigh the first cause of this spiritual lapse and malady that has befallen thee. To do which, a general view of thy primitive estate, and consequently of their work that first laboured in the Christian vineyard, will be needful; and if therein something be repeated, the weight and dignity of the subject will bear it, without the need of an apology.
VI. The work of apostleship, we are told by a prime labourer in it, was to turn people "from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." (Acts, xxvi. 18.) That is, instead of yielding to the temptations and motions of Satan, who is the prince of darkness or wickedness, the one being a metaphor to the other, by whose power their understandings were obscured, and their souls held in the service of sin, they should turn their minds to the appearance of Christ, the Light and Saviour of the world; who by his light shines in their souls, and thereby gives them a sight of their sins, and discovers every temptation and motion in them unto evil, and reproves them when they give way thereunto; that so they might become the children of light, and walk in the path of righteousness. And for this blessed work of reformation did Christ endue his apostles with his spirit and power, that so men might not longer sleep in a security of sin and ignorance of God, but awake to righteousness, that the Lord Jesus might give them life; that is, that they might leave off sinning, deny themselves the pleasure of wickedness, and, by true repentance, turn their hearts to God in well doing, in which is peace. And truly God so blessed the faithful labours of these poor mechanics, yet his great ambassadors to mankind, that in a few years many thousands that had lived without God in the world, without a sense or fear of him, lawlessly, very strangers to the work of his Spirit in their hearts, being captivated by fleshly lusts, were inwardly struck and quickened by the word of life, and made sensible of the coming and power of the Lord Jesus Christ as a judge and lawgiver in their souls, by whose holy light and spirit the hidden things of darkness were brought to light and condemned, and pure repentance from those dead works begotten in them, that they might serve the living God in newness of spirit. So that thenceforward they lived not to themselves, neither were they carried away of those former divers lusts, by which they had been seduced from the true fear of God; but "the law of the spirit of life," (Rom. viii. 2,) by which they overcame the law of sin and death, was their delight, and therein did they meditate day and night. Their regard towards God was not taught by the precepts of men any longer, (Isaiah, xxix. 13,) but from the knowledge they had received by his own work and impressions in their souls. They had quitted their old masters, the world, the flesh, and the devil, and delivered up themselves to the holy guidance of the grace of Christ, that taught them to "deny ungodliness and the world's lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present life:" (Tit. ii. 11, 12:) this is the cross of Christ indeed, and here is the victory it gives to them that take it up; by this cross they died daily to the old life they had lived, and by holy watchfulness against the secret motions of evil in their hearts they crushed sin in its conceptions, yea in its temptations. So that they, as the apostle John advised them, "kept themselves, that the evil one touched them not." (1 John, v. 18.)
For the light, which Satan cannot endure, and with which Christ had enlightened them, discovered him in all his approaches and assaults upon the mind; and the power they received through their inward obedience to the manifestations of that
