[2.] On our part, it is delightful to converse with God — • (1.) In holy duties : Isa. xxvi. 16, ' Lord, in trouble have they visited thee ; they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them ; ' Job xxii. 21, ' Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace ; thereby good shall come unto thee.' We have no reason to be strange to God, for if we were acquainted with ourselves, we should find daily and hourly some errand to the throne of grace. To forget him days without number showeth we have little knowledge of God or of ourselves. Be sure to look after a desire to enjoy God in the duty : ' My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of my God ; my flesh and my heart crieth out for the living God,' Ps. lxxxiv. 2, 3.
VEE. 151.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 109
To rest in an empty ordinance showeth we do what we do rather to pacify conscience than satisfy spiritual desires. God is to be our end and object, whom we are to seek and serve ; abs te sine te non recedam.
(2.) In a course of holiness : ' How can two walk together except they be agreed ? ' Amos iii. 3. Loveth what he loveth, hateth what he hateth. Suitableness of disposition is the ground of intimacy : 1 John i. 7, ' If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.' God saith, I will dwell in them, and walk in them. Walk as ever before God : Gen. xvii. 1, ' I am the Almighty God ; walk before me, and be thou perfect.5
Secondly, How we come to be brought into this nearness ? The reason of doubting is because every man is born a stranger to God : Ps. lviii. 3, ' The wicked are estranged from the womb ; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.' Sin causes a distance between God and us : Isa. lix. 2, ' But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.' Man is averse from God, without God, Christ, covenant, or hope of any good from him. Christ represents our apostate nature by the prodigal's going into a far country ; the breach groweth wider every day, and the distance is increased by actual sin. The wicked are far from God : Hosea vii. 13, ' Woe unto them, for they have fled from me ; destruction unto them, for they have transgressed against me.' While matters stand thus between us and God, there is no hope ; the rigour of divine justice and the terror of a guilty conscience will not give us leave to look for any communion with God.
Ans. In this hopeless and helpless estate the Lord Jesus had pity on us. The great end of the mediator is to bring us to God : 1 Peter iii. 18, ' For Christ hath once suffered for sins ; the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.' And therefore he is said to be the way to the Father : John xvii. 6, ' I am the way, the truth, and the life ; no man cometh unto the Father but by me.' He hath taken our case into his own hands, and doth, partly by his merit and partly by his Spirit, bring about this nearness and fellowship between God and us.
1. By his merit he bringeth us into a state of favour ; he opened the door by his death : Eph. ii. 13, ' But now in Christ Jesus we who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ/ To go to God offended, and appeased by no satisfaction, is terrible to the guilty creature ; but Christ hath made our peace, so that we have access into this grace wherein we stand : Eom. v. 1, 2, ' Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. through our Lord Jesus Christ : by whom also we have access by faith into the grace wherein we stand.' This door which he hath opened by his death, he keepeth open by his constant intercession : Heb. vii. 25, ' Wherefore he is able to save unto the uttermost all those that come unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us ; ' which our repeated provocations would otherwise daily and hourly shut and close again : 1 John ii. 1, ' These things I write unto you, that you sin not : and if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous ; ' and so all distance is removed, and poor creatures may comfortably come to God.
110 SERMONS UPON PSAIJH CXIX. [SeR. CLXIX.
2. There is a great averseness in our hearts, and we need not only leave to come to God, but a heart to come to God. We are fugitives as well as exiles ; we hang off from God, and are loath to make use of the offered opportunity ; therefore the imprecation of our liberty is not only to be considered, but also the application of this grace to our souls, which is done by the Spirit of Christ. Certainly, as to God, he considereth us as united to Christ before he will be near to us : Eph. ii. 13, ' But now in Christ Jesus ye, who were sometimes afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ.' It was purchased by the blood of Christ, but it is not actually bestowed and applied to the elect until they be united to Christ, and in him by saving faith, as branches in the root ; not only through Christ, but in Christ : something for us, and something in us as to ourselves ; overcome our averseness to set our hearts to seek the Lord. Nemo te qucerere potest nisi qui prius invenerit ; vis igitur inveniri ut quceraris ? qucvre, ut inveniaris ; potes quidem inveniri, non tamen prceveniri. None can be aforehand with God ; we cannot seek him till we have found him. He will be sought that he may be found ; and found that he may be sought. He draweth nigh to us by his preventing grace, that he may draw nigh to us by further grace ; and inclineth us to do what he requireth, that he may crown his own work.