If any shall say that they thank God they are no such publicans as those mentioned, they are no drunkards, no swearers, no unclean persons, nor the like, so that they are not concerned in this consi- deration (their lives and their duties give another account of them), then yet consider farther, that the Pharisees were all that you say of yourselves, and yet the greatest despisers of forgiveness that ever were in the world ; and that because they hated the light, on this account, that their deeds were evil. And for your duties you men- tion, what, I pray, is the root and spring of them? Are they influ- enced from this faith of forgiveness you boast of or no ? May it not be feared that it is utterly otherwise? You do not perform them because you love the gospel, but because you fear the law. If the truth were knovm, I doubt it would appear that you get nothing by
VOL. VL S3
514 AN EXPOSITION UPON PSALM CXXX. [Ver.4.
your believing of pardon but an encouragement unto sin. Your goodness, such as it is, springs from another root. It may be, also, that you ward yourtelvos by it against the strokes of conscience or the guilt of particular sins ; this is as bad as the other. It is as good be encouraged unto sin to commit it, as be encouraged under sin so as to be kept from humiliation for it. None under heaven are more remote from the belief of grace and pardon than such persons are ; all their righteousness is from the law, and their sin in a great measure from the gospel.
8. They that believe forgiveness in a due manner, believe it for the ends and liurposes for ivhicJi it is revealed of God. This will farther improve and carry on the former consideration. If God reveals any thing for one end and purpose, and men use it quite unto another, they do not receive the word of God, nor believe the thing revealed, but steal the word and delude their own souls.
Let us, then, weigh to what ends and jDurposes this forgiveness was first revealed by God, for which also its manifestation is still con- tinued in the gospel. We have showed before who it was to whom this revelation was first made, and what condition he was in when it was so made unto him. A lost, wretched creature, without hope or help he was; how he should come to obtain acceptance with God he knew not. God reveals forgiveness unto him by Christ to be his all. The intention of God in it was, that a sinner's all should be of grace, Rom. xi. 6. If any thing be added unto it for the same end and purpose, then " grace is no more grace." Again; God intended it as a new foundation of obedience, of love, and thankfulness. That men should love because forgiven, and be holy because pardoned, as I have showed before, — that it might be the righteousness of a sinner, and a spring of new obedience in him, all to the praise of grace, — were God's ends in its revelation.
Our inquiry, then, is, Whether men do receive this revelation as imto these ends, and use it for these pui-poses, and these only? I might evince the contrary, by passing through the general abuses of the doctrine of grace which are mentioned in the Scripture and common in the world; but it will not be needful. Instead of be- lieving, the most of men seem to put a studied desjiite on the gospel. They either proclaim it to be an unholy and polluted way, by turn- ing its grace into lasciviousness, or a lueak and insufficient way, by striving to twist it in with their own righteousness ; both which are an aljumiuation luito the Lord.
From these and such other considerations of the like importance as might be added, it is evident that our word is not in vain, nor the exhortation which is to be built upon it. It appears that notwith- standing the gTcat noise and pretences to this purpose that are iu
Yer. 4'.] exhoetations unto believing forgiveness. 5.1 5
the world, they are but few who seriously receive this fundamental truth of the gospel, — namely, that there is forgiveness with God. Poor- creatures sjsort themselves with their own . deceivings, and perish by their own delusions.
Exhortation unto the beUef of the forgiveness that is with God — Reasons for it, and the necessity of it.
We shall now proceed unto the direct uses of this great truth ; for having laid our foundation in the word that will not fail, and having given, as we hope, sufficient evidence unto the truth of it, our last work is to make that improvement of it unto the good of the souls of men which all along was aimed at. The persons concerned in this truth are all sinnei^s whatever. No sort of sinners are un- concerned in it, none are excluded from it. And we may cast them all under two heads : —
First, Such as never yet sincerely closed with the promise of grace, nor have ever yet received forgiveness from God in a way of be- lieving. These we have already endeavoured to undeceive, and to discover those false presumptions whereby they are apt to ruin and destroy their own souls. These we Avould guide now into safe and pleasant paths, wherein they may find assured rest and peace.