[4.] When men do what they can to divert all care and minding of their condition : this is like a few stolen waters, when they can get con- science asleep. As it is said, Pro v. ix. 17, ' Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.' They lull the soul asleep by pleasures, or distract it by business. They never keep the heart empty that they may enter into themselves. As Cain built cities, so carnal men drown themselves in business or pleasures.
Use 2. Is direction, to teach us what to do if we would have peace when our consciences are enraged. Go to Christ ; the chastisement of our peace was upon him. Get an interest in Christ, and you have an interest in God. God is not to be had as a friend without Christ. Get him and you are presently interested in God's favour. For ' he that has the Son hath the Father also.'
But, you will say, how shall I get an interest in Christ ? I answer in one word — By faith ; that is the way to get Christ to you with all his benefits ; and, therefore, faith is expressed by receiving Christ : John i. 12, ' To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God ; ' and Eph. iii. 17, Christ is said to ' dwell in our hearts by faith.' You must say, in the language of faith here, ' The chastisement of our peace was upon him.' Those that offered a peace-offering were to lay their hands upon the head of the sacrifice, which implieth a kind of joining. So Christ is the peace-offering, and you must lay your hands upon his head. When Thomas believed, he cried, ' My Lord and my God.' That gives your souls the possession of Christ ; and if of Christ, of God. But briefly I might from this speak to two sorts of persons : —
1. To secure sinners.
2. To poor broken-hearted sinners that labour under the sense of wrath. But having spoken from several passages of Christ's suffer- ings for them, and more remaining to be insisted on from other verses, I shall now only speak a little to secure sinners. I shall press them to two things : —
284 A PRACTICAL EXPOSITION UPON [ISA. LIII. 5.
1.] To consider their condition ; and, 2.J The danger of their condition.
1.] Consider your condition. You are in a state of enmity with God ; God is at war with you. That this may appear to you, weigh these things following : —
(1.) That your condition is not to be measured by your present feeling and apprehension. A man may be in danger, though he be not sensible of it: Isa. Ivii. 21, ' There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked : they are like a troubled sea when it cannot rest.' The wicked do not think so, but my God saith so. It is what God speaketh to you, not what you think of yourselves. Wicked men's lives slide away in pastimes, and pomp, and pleasure ; but still they are under continual danger, though they mind it not. Mark that expression; 2 Peter ii. 3, it is said, 'Their damnation slumbereth not.' Though they slumber, their damnation doth not slumber. If men could make their condemnation sleep as well as themselves, it were well. Do not measure your estate by your own thoughts, but by God's heart towards you, how he looketh upon you in Christ. God may be angry with j'ou and you not know it.
(2.) Remember that God is angry with every man in his natural condition. Till you get an interest in Christ, you have not God for a Father. There is a war between God and every natural man. Those that think themselves at peace with God from their cradles upwards, never were at peace with him. You are at peace with God, you say, when you are at M-ar with him. The scripture speaks otherwise of you : Eph. ii. 2, You are ' children of wrath, even as others.' And, John iii. 36, ' The wrath of God abideth on them.' This you must take for granted. There was a time when you were fallen out with God and God with you, even as well as others — those that embraced the Christian profession, as well as Turks and pagans. We are indeed estranged from the womb, but we are not reconciled from the womb, Ps. Iviii. 3 ; therefore, whatever you think, you must conclude that God is angry till you can get him pacified in Christ.
(3.) There are expressions of this anger and enmity that pass between God and the soul, though we do not take notice of it.
(1st.) On our part there are a great many expres.sions of our enmity to God ; as hatred of his being, wishing he were not, slighting of his ordinances, rebellion against his laws, a rising of heart against his servants; a rancorous tumult, and rebellious storming in our affections against his providence ; a vexing that he doth so thwart us in our ways and courses. This is our war. Then vexing and grieving his blessed Spirit. God hath told us what will grieve him, and yet, con- trary to all the motions of his blessed Spirit, and the checks of our own consciences, we will go on our own way. As E.^^au took a wife from the daughters of Heth, which was a grief of mind to Isaac and Eebekah, Gen. xxvi. 3.5.