(1.) It is selfish. The great design of faith is to " give glory to God," Rom. iv. 20. The end of God's giving out forgiveness is the " praise of his glorious grace," Eph. i. 6. But let a soul in this frame have peace in itself, it is very little solicitous about giving glory unto God. He cries like Rachel, " Give me children, or I die;" — " Give me peace, or I perish." That God may be honoured, and the forgiveness he seeks after be rendered glorious, it is cared for in the second place, if at all. This selfish earnestness, at first to be thrusting our hand in the side of Christ, is that which he will pardon in many, but accepts in none.
(2.) It is impatient. Men do thus deport themselves because they will not wait. They do not care for standing afar off for any season with the publican. They love not to submit their souls to lie at the foot of God, to give him the glory of his goodness, mercy, wisdom, and love, in the disposal of them and their concernments. This waiting compriseth the universal subjection of the soul unto God, with a resolved judgment that it is meet and right that Ave, and all we desire and aim at, should be at his sovereign disposal. This gives glory to God, — a duty which the impatience of these poor souls will not admit them to tlie performance of. And both these arise, —
(3.) Fiom weakness. It is weak. It is weakness in any condition, that makes men restless and weary. The state of adherence is as safe a condition as the state of assurance; only, it hath more combats and wrestling attending it. It is not, then, fear of the event, but weakness and weariness of the combat, that makes men anxiously solicitous about a deliverance from that state before tliey are well entered into it.
Let, then, the sin-entangled soul remember always this way, method, and order of the gospel, that we have under consideration. First, exercise faith on forgiveness in God; and when tlic soul is fixed
Ver.4.] EVIDENCE OF FORGIVENESS WITH GOD. 427
therein, it will have a ground and foundation whereon it may stand securely in making application of it unto itself. Drive this principle, in the first place, unto a stable issue upon gospel evidences, answer the objections that lie against it, and then you may proceed. In believmg, the soul makes a conquest upon Satan's territories. Do, then, as they do who are entering on an enemy's country, — secure the passages, fortify the strongholds as you go on, that you be not cut off ui your progress. Be not as a ship at sea, which passeth on, and is no more possessed or master of the water it hath gone through than of that whereunto it is not yet arrived. But so it is with a soul that fixeth not on these foundation principles: he jDresseth forwards, and the ground crumbles away under his feet, and so he wilders away all his days in uncertainties. Would men but lay this principle well in their souls, and secure it against assaults, they might proceed, though not with so much speed as some do, yet with more safety. Some pretend at once to fall into full assurance; I wish it prove not a broad presumption in the most. It is to no purpose for him to strive to fly who cannot yet go, — to labour to come to assurance in himself who never well believed forgiveness in God.
Thirdly.^ Now, that we may be enabled to fix this persuasion against all opposition, that which in the next place I shall do is, to give out such unquestionable evidences of this gospel truth as the soul may safely build and rest upon ; and these contain the confirma- tion of the principal proposition before laid down.
Evidences of forgiveness in God — No inbred notions of any free acts of God's will — Forgiveness not revealed by the works of nature nor the law.
First, The things that are spoken or to be known of God are of two sorts: —
1. natural and necessary; such as are his essential properties, or the attributes of his nature, his goodness, hohness, righteousness, omnipotency, eternity, and the like. These are called, To yvojgrov Tou &io\J, Rom. i. 19, — "That which may be known of God." And there are two ways, as the apostle there declares, whereby that which he there intimates of God may be known, — (1.) Bij the in- bred light of nature: (bccvipov Igtiv h avroTg, verse 19, — " It is mani- fest in themselves," in their own hearts; they are taught it by the common conceptions and presumptions which they have of God by the light of nature. From hence do all mankind know concerning ' See note on page 412.
428 AN EXPOSITION UPON PSALM CXXX. [Ver. 4'.
God that he is, that he is eternal, infinitely powerful, good, righte- ous, holy, omnipotent. There needs no special revelation of these things, that men may know them. That, indeed, they may be known savingly, there is; and, therefore, they that know these things by nature do also believe them on revelation : Heb. xi. 6, " He that Cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder." Though men know God by the light of nature, yet they cannot come to God by that knowledge. (2.) These essential properties of the nature of God are revealed by his works. So the apostle in the same place, Rom. i. 20, " The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." See also Ps. xix. 1-3. And tliis is the first sort of things that may be known of God.