(2.) Positively and affirmatively, ' But sinners.' Those that are really so, and so in their own opinion and estimation ; these Christ calleth for ; these have work for him to do.
[2.] The way which he taketh for their cure, ' He calleth ; ' as a teacher from heaven he thus acquainteth them with the way of their recovery. Christ hath a double relation, for the discharge of which he came into the world — as an high priest and apostle, Heb. iii. 1. Both agree in this, that they concern our recovery, or the remedying of our lapsed estate ; and that for the discharge of both these offices he came into the world. Both are the highest officer in both churches : Luke xix. 10, ' The Son of man is come to seek and save that which was lost ; ' 1 Tim. i. 15, ' This is a true and faithful saying, that Jesus Christ came to save sinners, of whom I am chief But they differ that the work of the one office lieth with God, the other with man. The one respects the reconciling God to us ; so as an high priest he made our peace with God by the merit of his sacrifice : Col. i. 20, ' By the blood of his cross making peace.' The other concerneth the reconciling us to God by the change of our hearts. This he manageth by a call and invitation ; partly by himself in person, as a teacher from heaven dis- covering the way how we may get again into the favour of God, and be restored to his service ; partly by his ministers, whom he employeth in his stead : 2 Cor. v. 18-20, ' And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given unto us the ministry of reconciliation ; to wit, that God Avas in Christ, re- conciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them ; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ's stead, be reconciled to God.' The function and office, /cX^jo-eco? ei? fierdvocav, of calling men to repent- ance, belonged to his apostolical office, as a messenger sent from the bosom of God to acquaint us with his iieart, how he standeth affected to our recovery. This latter is here spoken of. This he doth by calling.
[3.] The work, or means of cure which he prescribeth, is ' Eepent- ance.' Our misery lay in sin, and we begin our happiness by repent- ance. Christ did not come to give liberty to any to live in sin ; this is to turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, Jude 4. As he came to die for sinners and to save sinners, so he came to call sinners to
SERMON UPON MARK II. 17. 5
repentance; the one as a priest, the other as a king, the last as a prophet.
Doct. That the special business for which Christ was sent into the world as the great teacher of the church, was tO' remedy the collapsed state of sinners by calling them to repentance.
I shall prove three things — (1.) That we are all sinners in a lapsed estate ; (2.) That he recovereth us out of this lapsed estate by calling us ; (3.) The way or means is by repentance.
I. That his work lieth with sinners, when he interposed as a mediator between God and men. This I shall discover in three considerations —
1. That man is now in a lapsed or fallen estate from his primitive integrity, and none are righteous till Christ calleth them. That men are fallen from their primitive integrity, and become sinners, is a truth evidenced by scripture and experience. Scripture : Rom. iii. 2^, ' We have all sinned, and are come short of the glory of God ; ' that is, his glorious image : 1 Cor. xi. 8, ' He is the image and glory of God, as the woman i& the glory of the man ; ' 2 Cor. iii. 18-, ' But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord ; ' that for the term glory. So Eccles. vii. 29, ' God made man upright, but he sought out many inventions.' Man, as he came out of God's hands, was an holy and happy creature, created with a disposition which did enable and incline him to love, please, and obey God; but Adam had his inventions, and his posterity theirs. They would not be at God's finding, but their own, and so plunged themselves in all manner of sin and misery. Thus the sun that shone in the dawning of our creation was soon eclipsed. But experience showeth us this as well as scripture : there is a greater proneness in us to evil than to good, and a mani- fest disproportion in our faculties to things carnal and spiritual, and this both universal and very early, which is a plain evidence of the degeneration of mankind ;; and from thence results, as all disorders in conversation, so misery and death. Certainly if we did often and seriously consider what a sinful womb we came from, how deformed and ugly in the sight of God we came from it, how we began our life with crying and weeping, and are all our days obnoxious to wrath and condemnation, and, whatever hath been our portion in the world, yet shortly we must die, and sink into the pit eternally, it would more awaken us. In the general, this is enough to our purpose, that man is in a lapsed estate, under the guilt of sin and desert of punishment.