5. Eemember it in your last agonies. When you are summoned into God's presence, when every moment you look to come immediately before him : Let me with confidence go to him, and say, I have been a sinner ; but the blood of Christ speaks better things, and I expect the full fruit of it ; that it shall indeed cleanse me from all sin : 1 John i. 7, ' The blood of his Son Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin.'
Use 2. If the blood of Christ speaketh better things than the blood of Abel, it exhorteth us to many duties.
First, To enter ourselves into the gospel state, and to qualify our- selves to receive this benefit. The apostle saith, ' Ye are come to the blood of sprinkling.' Who are come? Penitent believers. The more you exercise faith and repentance — towards God, repentance ; towards Christ, faith — or come to God by him, Heb. xi. 15, the more experience you will have of the virtue and efiicacy of Christ's blood. Because these two are intermixed in the soul's return to God, and it would be too long to speak of the whole nature of them, I shall give you a few considerations.
1. Know yourselves to be sinners, condemned by the law. Till this be there is no work either for repentance or faith ; for what need of turning to God till we know that we are turned from him ? And the Eedeemer hath nothing to do for stupid and senseless souls, that know not their misery, and regard not their remedy. There is a great deal of difference between our condition and our qualification. Our con- dition, when Christ cometli to bring us to God, is sinful and miserable ; our qualification is lively faith. Tlie being of faith is enough, though we have not the knowledge of it ; but the being in misery is not enough ; that must be known and lamented. It is enough for our safety that we have faith, though we know it not ; but it is not enough that we are in misery, though we know it not. The covenant of God runneth thus : He that believeth shall be saved ; not, He that knoweth
118 SERMON UPON HEBREWS XII. 24.
he believeth shall be saved ; for many have faith though they doubt of their sincerity. Ay ! but it is not enough that I am a sinner ; but I must know myself a sinner, be deeply sensible that I am a sinner ; for the offers of the gospel are made to the sensible, the broken-hearted, the weary and heavy-laden. A man never thinketh of returning to God, doth not lie humbly at the feet of grace, cannot be thankful for a redeemer, till he knoweth his misery and bewaileth it. Many have been welcome to Christ, that knew not themselves penitent believers, but never were any welcome that knew not themselves condemned sinners. Therefore there the work beginneth. The first awakening of the soul is by a sense of our misery and lostness ; and this sense must be often renewed, for without Christ we are still in hazard to perish for ever, because of the continual failings in our duty.
2. A resolved will and purpose to devote ourselves to the Lord, to please him, and enjoy him : 1 Chron. xxii. 19, ' Now set your hearts to seek the Lord ; ' Acts xxvi. 20, ' He exhorted them that they should repent and turn to the Lord, and do works meet for repentance ; ' Ueb. X. 22, ' Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faitu.' The heart is bent and set towards the Lord, put into a fitness and capacity of pleasing and enjoying him, which we have lost by our folly and sin. By the fall we lost the favour of God and the image of God, and so were unfit both for service and fruition. The penitent soul findeth both.
3. It is Christ only taketh away sin, reconcileth us unto his Father, puts us into a capacity to please and enjoy God. Through him we may turn to God, and perform service and obedience acceptable unto eternal life : John xiv. 6, ' I am the way, the truth, and the life : no man cometh unto the Father but by me ; ' 1 Peter iii. 18, ' For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God ; ' Heb. ix. 14, ' How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God ? ' 1 Peter ii. 24, ' Who himself bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness.' He died to weaken the love of sin in our hearts, and to advance the life and power of grace and righteousness. We usually make use of Jesus Christ for re- conciliation with God, but not so often for service and obedience. No ; we do by Christ come to God, that we may walk before him in all new- ness of life. In short, when we turn from the creature to God, from self to Christ, from sin to holiness, we come under the gospel state ; and true gospel faith is a faith that beginneth in brokenness of heart : Mat. ix. 13, ' I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' And it is carried with an earnest appetite to the gospel : Heb. vi. 18, ' That we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.' Thus are the heirs of promise described. And then it endeth in newness of life : Eom. vii. 6, ' But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held ; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter ; ' for Christ died, not only to free us from that sin and misery whereunto we had brought ourselves. Gal. iii. 13, but ' we are married to him, that we may bring forth fruit unto God,' Bom. vii. 4.