Soul-troubles are spending, wasting troubles ; the pains of a dis- tressed conscience are the most acute pains. A poor soul would fain be at rest, but knows not where; he tries this duty and that, but finds none. At last, in a way of believing, he casts himself, with his burden of guilt and fear, upon Christ, and there is the rest his soul desired. Christ and rest come together ; till faith bring you to the bosom of Jesus, you can find no true rest : The soul is rolling and tossing, sick and weary, upon the billows of its own guilt and fears. Now the soul is come like a ship tossed with storms and tempests, out of a raging ocean into the quiet harbour ! or like a lost sheep that hath been wandering in weariness, hunger, and dan- ger, into the fold. Is a soft bed in a quiet chamber sweet to one that is spent and tired with travel ? Is the sight of a shore sweet to the shipwrecked mariner, who looked for nothing but death ? Much more sweet is Christ to a soul that comes to him pressed in conscience, and broken in spirit under the sinking weight of sin.
How did the Italians rejoice, after a long and dangerous voyage, to see Italy again ! crying, with loud and united voices which made the very heavens ring again, * Italy ! Italy ! But no shore is so sweet to the weather-beaten passenger, as Christ is to a broken- hearted sinner : This brings the soul to a sweet repose. Heb. iv. 3. " We, which have believed, do enter into rest." And this en- dears the way of faith to their souls ever after.
Inf. 6. Learn hence the usefulness of the law to bring souls to Jesus Christ. It is utterly useless, as a covenant, to justify us ; but exceeding useful to convince and humble us ; it cannot relieve nor ease
Italiam, Italiam, Iceto clamorc sahttant. Virg.
SERM. IX. T'HE METHOD OF GRACE. ISl
us, but it can and doth awaken and rouse us. It is a fair glass to shew us the face of sin, and till we have seen that we cannot see the face of Jesus Christ.
The law, like the fiery serpent, smites, stings, and torments the conscience ; this drives us to the Lord Jesus, lifted up in the gos- pel, like the brazen serpent in the wilderness, to heal us. The use of the law is to make us feel our sickness ; this makes us look out for a Physician : " I was alive once, without the law, (saith Paul) " but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died," Rom. vii. 9> The hard, vain, proud hearts of men require such an hammer to break them to pieces.
Inf. 7. It is the immediate duty of weary and heavy-laden sinners to come to Christ by faith, and not stand off from Christ, or delay to accept him upon any terms whatsoever.
Christ invites and commands such to come unto him ; it is there- fore your sin to neglect, draw back, or defer whatever seeming rea- sons and pretences there may be to the contrary. When the gaoler was brought (where I suppose thee now to be) to a pinching distress, that made him cry, " Sirs, what must I do to be saved ?" The very next counsel the apostles gave him was, " Believe on the Lord Jesus " Christ, and thou shalt be saved," Acts xvi. 30, 31. And, for your encouragement, know, that he who calleth you to come, knows your burden, what your sins have been and troubles are, yet he calls you : if your sin hinder not Christ from calling, neither should it hinder you from coming. He that calls you, is able to ease you, " to " save to the uttermost, all that come to God by him," Heb. vii. 25. Whatever fulness of sin be in you, there is a greater fulness of saving power in Christ. Moreover, he that calls you to come, never yet rejected any poor burdened soul that came to him ; and hath said he never will. John vi. 37. " Him that cometh unto me, I will in " no wise cast out." Fear not, therefore, he will not begin with thee, or make thee the first instance and example of the feared rejection.
And, Lastly, Bethink thyself, what wilt thou do, and whither wilt thou go, in this case, if not to Jesus Christ ? Nothing shall ease or relieve thee till thou dost come to him. Thou art under an happy necessity to go to him ; with him only is found rest for the weary soul ; which brings us to the third and last observation,
Doct. 3. That there is rest in Christ, for all that come unto hhu under the heavy burden of sin.
Rest is a sweet word to a weary soul ; all seek it, but none but believers find it. We which have believed, (saiih the apostle) * do
Nun dicit s/^/Oo/xa, ingressi sumvs, scd U<fBf>%pfie§ai ingredimur, signi/icans, '.\it a quietis fideles nunc habere t- plenum rpiietem siio tempore comrcuturos. JPareus in )os,
1S~ THE METHOD OF GRACE. SERM. IX.
enter into rest, Heb. iv. 3. " He doth not say, they shall, but they " do enter into rest ; noting their spiritual rest to be already begun " by faith on earth in the tranquillity of conscience, and shall be " consummated in heaven, in the full enjoyment of God." There is a sweet calm upon the troubled soul after believing, an ease, or rest of the mind, which is an unspeakable mercy to a poor weary soul. Christ is to it as the ark was to the dove, when she wandered over the watery world, and found no place to rest the sole of her foot. Faith centres the unquiet spirit of man in Christ, brings it to repose itself and its burden on him. It is the soufs dropping anchor in a storm, which stays and settles it.
The great debate which cost so many anxious thoughts is now issued into this resolution ; I will venture my all upon Christ, let him do with me as seemeth him good. It was impossible for the soul to find rest, whilst it knew not where to bestow itself, or bow to be secured from the wrath to come ; but when all is embarked in Christ for eternity, and the soul fully resolved to lean upon him, and to trust to him, now it feels the very initials of eter- nal rest in itself : it finds an heavy burden unloaded from its shoulders ; it is come, as it were, into a new world ; the case is strangely altered. The word rest, in this place, notes *, (and is so rendered by some) a recreation ; it is restored, renewed, and re- created, as it '/ere, by that sweet repose it hath upon Christ. Believers, know that faith is the sweetest recreation you can take. Others seek to divert and Jose their troubles, by sinful recreations, vain company, and the like; but they little know what the re- creation and sweet restoring rest that faith gives the soul is. You find, in Christ, what they seek in vain among the creatures. Be- lieving is the highest recreation known in this world. But to pre- vent mistakes, three Cautions need to be premised, lest we do, in ipso limine impingere, stumble at the threshold, and so lose our way all along afterward.