[3.] If the first attempt succeed not, yet afterwards sin may be subdued and broken. In natural things we do not sit down with one trial and one endeavour ; a man that will be rich pierceth himself through with many sorrows, 1 Tim. iv. 10; and after many miscarriages pursues his designs till he complete them ; and shall we give over our waiting and striving because we cannot presently find success ? That showeth our will is not fully bent and set upon the thing we seem to desi4.*e. In the face of discouragements we must venture again : Luke V. 5, ' Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothmg ; nevertheless at thy command I will let down the net.' God's grace is free, and his holy leisure must be waited for. It was long ere God got us to this pass, to be sensible of our burden, or anxiously solicitous about our soul distempers. We must lie at the pool for cure. The Spirit bloweth when and where it listeth : John iii. 8, ' The wind blow- eth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth ; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.' He that began the work to make us serious will carry it on to a further degree if we be not impatient : Mat. xii. 20, ' A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax^ shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.' He is not wont to be strange to such as bemoan themselves to him: Jer. xxxi. 18, 'I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself.' It may be he will not do it so sensibly by ordinances as by or not without sharp pro- vidences, which usually subtract the fuel of our lusts, and awaken seriousness : Isa. xxvii. 9, ' By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away his sin ; ' and 2 Cor. xii. 7, ' There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of
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Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.' We must leave God to his own way.
Use 3. Let it put us on thankfulness to our Eedeemer. Sin is a great mischief. Now that he should fetch us up from the gates of hell, and recover us, when the sentence of condemnation was passed upon us, and there was nothing but the slender thread of a frail life between us and execution, and was content to do it at so dear a rate, as to be made sin, and to be made a curse for us, and that he should put us into the way of salvation to obtain eternal life, how should our hearts be enlarged in thanksgiving to such a Eedeemer ?
END OF VOL. XVIII.
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