than many others; he considers his reformation of life, his repentance, the grief and tears his sin has cost him, his earnest desires after Christ, his prayers, and wrestlings for mercy; and useth all these now, as bribes for mercy, laying no small weight on them, in his addresses to the throne of grace. But here the Spirit of the Lord shoots a sheaf of arrows into the man's heart, whereby his confidence in these things is sunk and destroyed; and, instead of thinking himself better than many, he is made to see himself worse than any. The naughtiness of his reformation of life is discovered. His repentance appears to him no better than the repentance of Judas; his tears like Esau's; and his desires after Christ to be selfish and loathsome; like theirs who sought Christ because of the loaves, John vi. 26. His answer from God seems now to be, Away proud beggar, "How shall I put thee among the children?" He seems to look sternly on him, for his slighting of Jesus Christ by unbelief, which is a sin he scarce discerned before. But now, at length, he beholds it in its crimson colours; and is pierced to the heart as with a thousand darts, while he sees how he has been going on blindly, sinning against the remedy of sin, and in the whole course of his life, trampling on the blood of the Son of God. And now he is, in his own eyes, the miserable object of law vengeance, yea, and gospel vengeance too.

Eleventhly, The man being thus far humbled, will no more plead, he is worthy for whom Christ should do this thing; but, on the contrary, looks on himself as unworthy of Christ, and unworthy of the favour of God. We may compare him, in this case, to the young man who followed Christ, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; on whom, when the young men laid hold, he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked, Mark xiv. 51, 52. Even so the man had been following Christ, in the thin and coldrife garment of his own personal worthiness; but by it, even by it, which he so much trusted to, the law catcheth hold of him, to make him prisoner; and then he is fain to leave it, and flees away naked; yet not to Christ, but from him. If you now tell him, he is welcome to come to Christ, if he will come to him, he is apt to say, Can such a vile and unworthy wretch as I be welcome to the holy Jesus? If a plaister be applied to his wounded soul, it will not stick.

He says, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord,” Luke v. 8. No man needs speak to him of his repentance for his comfort; he can quickly espy such faults in it, as makes it naught; nor of his tears, for he is assured, they have never come into the Lord's bottle. He disputes himself away from Christ, and concludes, now that he has been such a slighter of Christ, and is such an unholy and vile creature, he cannot, he will not, he ought not to come to Christ; and that he must either be in better case, or else he will never believe. And hence, he now makes his strongest efforts, to amend what was amiss in his way before: He prays more earnestly than ever, mourns more bitterly, strives against sin, in heart and life, more vigourously, and watcheth more diligently; if by any means he may, at length, be fit to come to Christ. One would think the man is well humbled now: But, ah ! devilish pride lurks under the veil of all this seeming humility. Like a kindly branch of the old stock, he adheres still, and will not submit to the righteousness of God, Rom. x. S. He will not come to the market of free grace, without money. He is bidden to the marriage of the King's Son, where the bridegroom himself furnisheth all the guests with wedding garments, stripping them of their own; but he will not come, because he wants a wedding garment, howbeit he is very busy making one ready. This is sad work; and, therefore, he must have a deeper stroke yet, else he is ruined. This stroke is reached him with the axe of the law, in its irritating power. Thus the law girding the soul with cords of death, and holding it in with the rigorous commands of obedience, under the pain of the curse; and God, in his holy and wise conduct, withdrawing his restraining grace; corruption is irritated; lusts become violent; and the more they are strived against, the more they rage, like a furious horse checked with the bit. Then do corruptions set up their heads, which he never saw in himself before. Here oft-times atheism, blasphemy, and, in one word, horrible things concerning God, terrible thoughts concerning the faith, arise in his breast; so that his heart is a very hell within him. Thus while he is sweeping the house of his heart, not yet watered with gospel grace, these corrup tions, which lay quiet before in neglected corners, fly up and down in it like dust. He is as one who is mending a

dam, and while he is repairing breaches in it, and strengthening every part of it, a mighty flood comes down, overturns his work, and drives all away before it, as well what was newly laid, as what was laid before. Read Rom. vii. 8, 9, 10, 13. This is a stroke which goes to the heart; and by it his hope of getting himself more fit to come to Christ is cut off.

Lastly, Now the time is come, when the man, betwixt hope and despair, resolves to go to Christ as he is; and, therefore, like a dying man stretching himself, just before his breath goes out, he rallies the broken forces of his soul; tries to believe, and, in some sort, lays hold on Jesus Christ. And now the branch hangs on the old stock, by one single tack of a natural faith, produced by the natural vigour of one's own spirit, under a most pressing necessity, Psal. lxxviii. 34, 35. "When he slew them, then they sought him; and they returned and enquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer." Hos. viii. 2. "Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee." But the Lord minding to perfect his work, fetches yet another stroke, whereby the branch falls quite off. The Spirit of God convincingly discovers to the sinner his utter inability to do any thing that is good; and so he dieth, Rom. vii. 9. That voice powerfully strikes through his soul, "How can ye believe?" John v. 44. Thou canst no more believe, than thou canst reach up thine hand to heaven, and bring Christ down from thence. And thus, at length, he sees he can neither help himself, by working nor believing; and having no more to hang by, on the old stock, he therefore falls off. And while he is thus distressed, seeing himself like to be swept away with the flood of God's wrath; and yet unable so much as to stretch forth a hand, to lay hold of a twig of the tree of life, growing on the banks of the river; he is taken up and ingrafted into the true Vine, the Lord Jesus Christ giving him the Spirit of

faith.

By what has been said on this head, I design not to rack or distress tender consciences; for though there are but few such, at this day, yet God forbid I should offend any of Christ's little ones. But, alas! a dead sleep is fallen upon this generation; they will not be awakened, let us

go as near the quick as we will; and, therefore, I fear there is another sort of awakening abiding this sermorproof generation, which shall make the ears of them that hear it to tingle. However, I would not have this to be looked upon as the sovereign God's stinted method of breaking off sinners from the old stock; but this I assert, as a certain truth, that all who are in Christ have been broken off from all these several confidences; and that they who were never broken off from them are yet in their natural stock. Nevertheless, if the house be pulled down, and the old foundation razed, it is all one, whether it was taken down stone by stone, or undermined, and all fell down together.

Now it is, that the branch is ingrafted in Jesus Christ. And, as the law, in the hand of the Spirit of God, was the instrument to cut off the branch from the natural stock, so the gospel, in the hand of the same Spirit, is the instrument used for ingrafting it into the supernatural stock, 1 John i. S. "That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you; that ye also may have fellowship with us: And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ." See Isaiah Ixi. 1, 2, 3. The gospel is a silver cord let down from heaven, to draw perishing sinners to land. And, though the preaching of the law prepares the way of the Lord, yet it is in the word of the gospel that Christ and a sinner meet. Now, as in the natural grafting, the branch being taken up, is put into the stock, and being put into it, takes with it; and so they are united; even so in the spiritual ingrafting, Christ apprehends the sinner; and the sinner being apprehended of Christ, apprehends him; and so they become one, Phil. iii. 12.

First, Christ apprehends the sinner by his Spirit, and draws him to himself, 1 Cor. xii. 13. "For by one Spirit, we are all baptized into one body." The same Spirit which is in the Mediator himself, he communicates to his elect in due time; never to depart from them, but to abide in them, as a principle of life. Thus he takes hold of them, by his own Spirit put into them; and so the withered branch gets life. The soul is now in the hands of the Lord of life, and possessed by the Spirit of life; how then can it but live? The man gets a ravish

The

ing sight of Christ's excellency, in the glass of the gospel: He sees him a full, suitable, and willing Saviour; and gets a heart to take him for, and instead of all. Spirit of faith furnisheth him with feet to come to Christ, and hands to receive him. What by nature he could not do, by grace he can; the Holy Spirit working in him the work of faith with power.

Secondly, The sinner thus apprehended, apprehends Christ by faith, and so takes with the blessed stock, Eph. iii. 17.That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." The soul that before tried many ways of escape, but all in vain, doth now look again, with the eye of faith, which proves the healing look. As Aaron's rod, laid up in the tabernacle, budded and brought forth buds, (Num. xvii. 8.) so the dead branch, apprehended by the Lord of life, put into, and bound up with, the glorious quickening stock, by the Spirit of life, buds forth in actual believing on Jesus Christ, whereby this union is completed: "We having the same spirit of faith, believe," 2 Cor. iv. 13. Thus the stock and the graft are united, Christ and the Christian are married; faith being the soul's consent to the spiritual marriage-covenant, which, as it is proposed in the gospel to mankind sinners indefinitely, so it is demonstrated, attested, and brought home, to the man in particular, by the Holy Spirit; and so he, being joined to the Lord, is one spirit with him. Hereby a believer lives in and for Christ, and Christ lives in and for the believer, Gal. ii. 20. "I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Hos. iii. 3." Thou shalt not be for another man, so will I also be for thee." The bonds then of this blessing union are, the Spirit on Christ's part, and faith on the believer's part.

Now, both the souls and bodies of believers are united to Christ: "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit," 1 Cor. vi. 17. The very bodies of believers have this honour put upon them, that they are the temples of the Holy Ghost, ver. 19. And the members of Christ, ver. 15. When they sleep in the dust, they sleep in Jesus, I Thes. iv. 14. And it is in virtue of this union, they shall be raised up out of the dust again, Rom. viii. 11. He shall quicken your mortal bodies, by his Spirit, that dwelleth in you.' In token of this mystical union, the church of believers is called