Use 2. To awaken our consciences to consider upon what terms we stand with God, and by what covenant we can plead with him, by the covenant of works, or by the covenant of grace. If we be yet under the covenant of works, and have not got the sentence of the law repealed, 0 miserable creatures ! there is no hope : Ps. cxxx. 3, 4, ' If thou. Lord, shouldest mark iniquity, 0 Lord, who shall stand ? but there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.' If God should deal with us in a way of strict justice, according to the tenor of the law and the covenant of works, no man can escape condemnation and the curse. There is another covenant, but how will you decline judgment according to the first covenant ?
1. There is no hope of your pleading another covenant till you own the first covenant to be just, and with brokenness of heart you look upon yourselves as shut up under the curse, and you acknowledge your- selves lost and undone sinners. The great thing that this young man wanted was bickenness of heart, and therefore Christ would have him ^^ee himself in the law. The heirs of promise are described to be those ' that have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before them,' Heb. vi. 18. It is an allusion to those that fled for their life. If one had killed a man by chance, and not out of malice prepense, there was a city of refuge appointed ; and if he fled there before the avenger of blood, the next of kin, seized upon him, the man was safe. None are brought in to Christ, but they come as those that have the avenger of blood following them : they are driven, and must away from the first covenant by a deep sense of their misery. Men that are heart-
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whole, and have only doctrinal notions about the two covenants, with- out feeling the force of either, and being driven out of themselves to lie at God's feet for mercy, they as yet remain under the old covenant, and need be prepared by this breaking work. Indeed, degrees are different, but all feel some trouble, some great horror and despair, but others with anxiousness and solicitude ; the curse is at their heels, therefore they desire to be found in Christ. Now have you felt any- thing of the spirit of bondage ? The deepness of the wound is not to be looked after, but the soundness of the cure ; but yet some wound there will be. And therefore, till there be some grief, and shame, and sorrow, and bitter remorse because of sin, a smiting upon the thigh because of the indignation of the Lord, and humbling ourselves before God, we are not fit for mercy. We are not heirs of the promise if we do not hasten to the hope set before us.
2. They that do as yet trust to their good meanings and endeavours, and seek salvation by their own doing, must yield perfect obedience to the law of God, or else they cannot obtain eternal life ; we make this to be our covenant, by sticking to any one work of ours : Gal. v. 2, 3, * Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing ; for I testify again to every one that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.' If another man had spoken this, possibly you would have judged him rash and uncircumspect ; but ' I Paul say unto you ; ' I that have an apostolical authority, I that; know the mind of Christ, I testify this again and again, that observ- ing any one ceremony, as part of a man's righteousness necessary to salvation, cuts off the observer from all benefit by Christ ; he is a debtor to the duty of the whole law, he obligelh himself to perfect obedience, without which the law cannot justify any ; he saitli it again and again, that man might take heed. This trust in his own right- eousness in efiect is a renouncing the gospel covenant. Christ must be our whole righteousness, and a complete Saviour, or not at all. If we rely upon anything besides him, or jointly with him as a meritorious cause of salvation, we lose all hope and comfort by Christ. This is the great concernment of the soul, therefore to be inculcated with such seriousness and earnestness.
3. By living in any known, allowed, reigning sin, shows we have no claim to the second covenant. Saith David, Ps. xix. 13, ' Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins ; let them not have dominion over me ; so shall I be upright, and shall be innocent from the great transgression.' Our qualification under the second covenant is not a soul exactly perfect, but a soul sincere. Now, if any sin hath dominion over us, our sincerity is gone : Eom. vi. 14; ' Sin shall not have dom- inion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace.' There were no cogency in the argument if men under grace could live under the dominion of any one sin ; they are shut up by the curse. We must look to Christ, and give up ourselves to him. This man in the text had the love of the world reigning in his heart, and Christ turns him away, arid afterwards it is said, ' He went away sad.'