Let me then, I beseech you, como again to re-enforce this exhortation. Take heed you refuse not Christ. Consider with what authority he comes. ' He is sealed.' It is no presumption therefore to receive him, though you be never such sinners, to receive him ; I mean not only to be a priest to reconcile you to God, but to be a king to rule you, and a prophet to instruct you by his Spirit ; to receive him on this manner is no presumption. To receive him indeed as a Saviour, but to neglect him as king, to refuse to come under his government, is great presumption ; but to receive whole Christ is obedience and faith, and no presumption ; nay, if you do not receive him you sin damnably, you commit the greatest sin that can be. He came to save all that will come under his blessed government, that will kiss the Son. ' Whosoever will, let him como and drink of the waters of life,' Rev. xxii. 17. All the good promised by Christ is promised upon our receiving of him, upon the obedience of our faith. Thei-e is nothing required but a will to embrace him, and to be under his government. There
378 TUE FRUITFUL LABOUB
is no exception made of sins, or persons, or times. * At what time soever a sinner repent,' 1 Kings viii. 30, scq., whatsoever sinner, whatsoever time, or whatsoever the sins be, if he repents, Christ is ready to receive him.
If you pretend your unworthincss and want of excellencies, he takes away that objection. ' Come unto mc, all that are weary and heavy laden,' Mat. xi. 28; ' Come, buy without money,' Isa. Iv. 1 ; and here in the text, ' The Son of man shall give ;' and what so free as gift ?
If you pretend you have sinned since your calling, and that you have sinned against conscience and knowledge, and therefore now you have no further hope of Christ, remember that Paul, 2 Cor. v. 20, speaks to the Corinthians that were in the state of grace, ' I beseech you to bo recon- ciled to God ;' and in Jer. iii. G, scq., * Keturn again, you backsliding Israel, and I will heal your backsliding ;' and again, ' Will a man receive a wife that hath played the harlot, and broken the band of marriage ? Yet return, O house of Israel, and I will receive you.' Therefore run not away from God. Though thou hast sinned after thou art in the state of grace, come again, I beseech you. Still Chi-ist is to be received ; the door of grace is always held open, and the golden sceptre continually held out as long as we " live in this world.
But yet it is not good to neglect the time of grace. Receive Christ pre- sently ; defer not to come under his government ; and receive him wholly, or else there is no receiving of him at all.
And to press this a little further ; I beseech you, consider that if you leave not your sinful courses, and come under the blessed government of Christ, if you receive not this ' sealed ' king, this ' sealed ' priest and prophet, this ' sealed ' mediator, whom God hath ' sealed ' and sent unto you for salva- tion, there is not anything in the world that will one day more torment you than your refusal of him. Oh that we should ever live to hear of salvation so freely offered, and of a Saviour so authorised, yet notwithstanding that we should respect our sins more than our souls ! and because we could not have him to be our Saviour except we came under his government and be ruled by him as a king, we refused him wholly altogether. Indeed, if we might have had salvation by him and the forgiveness of sins, and withal have remained under the rule and sway of our ov/n lusts, and been led by them, we would have been contented to have had him ; but rather than we would leave our blasphemous, our unclean, injurious, and covetous courses of life, we were content to let Christ go if he would. Oh that we should reject this ' sealed ' Saviour ! Oh that we should refuse salvation offered on such loving terms, when God was so loving as to seal and authorise his Son ; when the Son was so loving as to give himself when he was ' sealed ;' to refuse this and that for such base respects, will certainly one day, when the conscience is wakened, prove the greatest torment that can be !
See how the apostle notably enforccth this in the second of the Hebrews, ver. 3 : ' If so be they did not escape that despised Moses' law, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation ?' He doth not say, How shall we escape if we oppose Christ, if we rail on him, if we despise his image in his children, as many cursed wretches do ? but. How shall we escape if we do but ' neglect so great salvation,' so witnessed and authorised with all the signs, so offered and tendered with all the terms of love that may be ?