J more be without, than you can ceafe to be men This will give no affistance unto the receiving of for givenefs But it may be you will fay, you have proceeded farther than fo; and these things have had an improvement in you. Let us then a little try whether your procefs hath been according to the mind of God; and fo whether this invincible bar in your way be removed or no: For altho' every convinced perfon doth not believe forgiveness; yet no one who is not convinced doth fo. Have you then been made fenfible of your condition by nature; what it is to be alienated from the life of God, and to be obnoxious to his wrath? Have you been convinced of the univerfal enmity that is in your hearts to the mind of God; and what it is to be at enmity against God? Hath the unspeakable multitude of the fins of our lives been fet in order by the law before you? And have you confidered what it is for finners, fuch finners as you are, to have to deal with a righteous and holy God? Hath the Holy Ghoft wrought a ferious recognition in your hearts of all these things, and caufed them to abide with you and upon you? If you will answer truly, you must fay, many of you, that indeed you have not been fo exercifed. You have heard of these things many times, but to Lay that you have gone through with this work, and have had experience of them, that you cannot do. Then I fay, you are ftrangers to forgiveness, because you are ftrangers unto fin: But and if you fhall fay, that you have had thoughts to this purpofe; and are perfwaded that you have been throughly convinced of fin, 1 fhall yet afk you one queftion more; What effects hath your conviction produced your hearts and lives? Have you been filled with perplexities and confternation of spirit thereupon? Have you had fears, dreads or terrors to wrestle withal? It may be you will fay, No; Nor will I infift enquiry; but this I deal with you in. you with felf loathing and abhorrency, demnation, and abafement? If it will do it will do. If you come fhort here, it is juftly to be in upon that Hath it filled with felf-conany thing, this feared feared that all your other pretences are of no value; now, where there is no work of conviction, there is no faith of forgiveness, whatever is pretended. And how many vain boafters this fword will cut off, is evident. 7. We have yet a greater evidence than all these. Men live in fin, and therefore they do not believe forgiveness of fin. Faith in general purifies the heart, Acts xv. 19. Our fouls are purified in obeying the truth. 1 Pet. i. 22. and the life is made fruitful by it, James. ii. 22. Faith worketh by works, and makes itself perfect by them. And the doctrine concerning forgivenefs hath a fpecial influence into all holinefs, Tit. ii. 11, 12. The grace of God which bringeth falvation, teacbeth us to deny all unrighteousness, and worldly lufts, to live foberly, righteously, and godly in this prefent world: And that is the grace whereof we Ipeak. No man can then believe forgiveness of fin, without a deteftation and relinquishment of it. The ground of this might be farther manifefted, and the way of the efficacy of faith of forgiveness unto a forfaking of fin, if need were: But all that own the gospel must acknowledge this principle. The real belief of the pardon of fin, is prevalent with men not to live longer in fin. But now, what are the greatest number of those who pretend to receive this truth? Are their hearts purified by it? Are their confciences purged? Are their lives changed? Do they deny all ungodliness and worldly lufts? Doth forgivenefs teach them fo to do? Have they found it effectual to thefe purposes? Whence is it then that there is fuch a bleating and bellowing to the contrary amongst them? Some of you are drunkards, fome of you are swearers, fome of you unclean perfons, fome of you liars, fome of you worldly, fome of you haters of all the ways of Chrift, and all his concernments upon the earth; proud, covetous, boafters, felf-feekers, envious, wrathful, backbiters, malicious praters, flanderers, and the like: And fhall we think that fuch as thefe believe forgiveness of fin? God forbid. Again, fome fome of you are dark, ignorant, blind, utterly unacquainted with the mystery of the gospel, nor do at all make it your bufinefs to enquire into it. Either you hear it not at all, or negligently, flothfully, cuftomarily, to no purpofe. Let not fuch perfons deceive their own fouls; to live in fin, and yet to believe the forgivenefs of fin, is utterly impoffible. Chrift will not be a minifter of fin, nor give his gofpel to be a doctrine of licentioufnefs for your fakes: Nor fhall you be forgiven, that you may be delivered to do more abominati ons. God forbid, If any fhall fay, that they thank God, they are no fuch publicans as those mentioned; they are no drunkards, no fwearers, no unclean perfons, nor the like; fo that they are not concerned in this confideration: Their lives and their duties give another account of them. Then yet confider further. That the Pharifees were all that you fay of yourfelves; and yet the greateft defpifers of forgiveness that were ever in the world, and that because they hated the light, on this account, that their deeds were evil. And for your duties you mention, what I pray is the root and fpring of them? Are they influenced from this faith of forgiveness you boast of, or no? May it not be feared that it is utterly otherwife? You do not perform them because you love the gofpel, but because you fear the law. If the truth were known, I doubt it would appear, that you get nothing by your believing of pardon, but an encouragement unto fit. Your goodnefs, fuch as it is, fprings from another root. Ir may be also that you ward yourselves by it against the strokes of conscience, or the guilt of particular fins, this is as bad as the other. It is as good be encouraged unto fin to commit it, as be encouraged under fin, fo as to be kept from humiliation for it. None under heaven are more remote from the belief of grace and pardon, than fuch persons are: All their righteoufnefs is from the law, and their fin. in a great meafure from the gofpel. 8. They, that believe forgivenefs in a due manner, believe believe it for the ends and purposes for which it is revealed of God. This will further improve and carry on the farther confideration. If God reveals any thing for one end and purpose, and men ufe it quite unto another; they do not receive the word of God, nor believe the thing revealed, but steal the word, and delude their own fouls. Let us then weigh to what end and purposes this forgiveness was first revealed by God; for which alfo its manifestation is ftill continued in the gofpel. We have fhewed before who it was to whom this revelation was first made, and what condition he was in when it was fo made unto him. A loft wretched creature, without hope or help he was; how he fhould come to obtain acceptance with God, he knew not. God reveals forgiveness unto him by Chrift to be his All. The intention of God in it was, that a finner's All should be of grace, Rom xi. 6. If any thing be added unto it for the fame end and purpose, then grace is no more grace. Again, God intended it as a new foundation of obedience, of love and thankfulness. That men fhould love because forgiven, and be holy, becaufe pardoned; as I have fhewed before, that it might be the righteoufnefs of a finner, and a spring of new obedience in him, all to the praise of Grace, were God's ends in its revelation. Our enquiry then is, whether men do receive this revelation as unto these ends, and ufe it for thefe purpofes, and thefe only. I might evince the contrary, by paffing through the general abuses of the doctrine of grace, which are mentioned in the fcripture, and common in the world; but it will not be needful. Instead of believing, the most of men feem to put a ftudied defpight on the gospel. They either proclaim it to be an unholy and polluted way, by turning its grace into las civioufnefs, or a weak and infufficient way, by ftriving to twist it in with their own righteoufnefs, both which are an abomination unto the Lord. From these, and fuch other confiderations of the like importance, as might be added, it is evident that our word is not in vain; nor the exhortation which is to be built upon it. It appears, that notwithstanding the great noife and pretences to this purpose that are in the world, they are but few who seriously receive this fundamental truth of the gofpel; namely that there is forgivenefs with God. Poor creatures fport themfelves with their own deceivings, and perish by their own delufions. Exhortation unto the belief of the forgiveness that is with God.----Reafons for it, and the neceffity of it. We fhall now proceed unto the direct ufes of this great truth: For having laid our foundation in the word that will not fail, and having given, as we hope, fufficient evidence unto the truth of it, our laft work is to make this improvement of it unto the good of the fouls of men, which all along was aimed at. The perfons concerned in this truth are all finners whatever; no fort of finners are unconcerned in it, none are excluded from it: And we may caft them all under two heads. FIRST, Such as never fincerely clofed with the promife of grace; nor have ever yet received forgiveness from God, in a way of believing. Thele we have already endeavoured to undeceive; and to difcover those falfe prefumptions whereby they are apt to ruin and deftroy their own fouls: These we would guide now into fafe and pleafant paths, wherein they may find affured rest and peace. 1 SECONDLY, Others there are, who have received it, but being again entangled by fia, or clouded by darknefs and temptations, or weakened by unbelief, know not how to improve it to their peace and comfort. This is the condition of the foul reprefented in this pfaim, Kk and |