2. Secondly, the more vehemently he assaults your peace with that suggestion, “God is holy, you are unholy. You are immensely distant from that holiness, without which you cannot see God: how then can you be in the favour of God? How can you fancy you are justified?” Take the more earnest heed to hold fast, that, _Not by works of righteousness which I have done_. I am _found in him_: I am _accepted in the beloved; not having my own righteousness_ (as the cause either in whole or in part of our justification before God) _but that which is by faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith_. O bind this about your neck: write it upon the table of thy heart. Wear it as a bracelet upon thy arm, as frontlets between thine eyes: I am _justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ_. Value and esteem more and more that precious truth, _By grace we are saved through faith_. Admire more and more the free grace of God, in so loving the world as to give _his only Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish but have everlasting life_. So shall the sense of the sinfulness you feel on the one hand, and of the holiness you expect on the other, both contribute to establish your peace and to make it flow as a river. So shall that peace flow on with an even stream, in spite of all those mountains of ungodliness, which shall become a plain in the day when the Lord cometh, to take full possession of your heart. Neither will sickness or pain, or the approach of death, occasion any doubt or fear. You know a day, an hour, a moment with God is as a thousand years. He cannot be streightened for time, wherein to work whatever remains to be done in your soul. And God’s time is always the best time. Therefore be thou _careful for nothing_. Only _make_ thy _request known unto him_, and that not with doubt or fear, but _thanksgiving_: as being previously assured, he cannot ♦withhold from thee any manner of thing that is good.
3. Thirdly, the more you are tempted to give up your shield, to cast away your faith, your confidence in his love, so much the more take heed that you hold fast that, whereunto you have attained. So much the more labour to _stir up the gift of God which is in you_. Never let that slip, I have _an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous_: and _the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me_. Be this thy glory and crown of rejoicing. And see that no one take thy crown. Hold that fast, _I know that my Redeemer liveth, and shall stand at the latter day upon the earth_. And I now _have redemption in his blood, even the forgiveness of sins_. Thus, being filled with all peace and joy in believing, press on in the peace and joy of faith to the renewal of thy whole soul, in the image of him that created thee. Mean while cry continually to God, that thou mayst see that prize of thy high calling, not as Satan represents it, in a horrid dreadful shape, but in its genuine native beauty: not as something that _must_ be, or thou wilt go to hell, but as what _may_ be, to lead thee to heaven. Look upon it as the most _desirable_ gift, which is in all the stores of the rich mercies of God. Beholding it in the true point of light, thou wilt hunger after it more and more: thy whole soul will be athirst for God, and for this glorious conformity to his likeness. And having received a good hope of this, and strong consolation through grace, thou wilt no more be weary or faint in this mind, but wilt follow on till thou attainest.
4. *In the same power of faith, press on to glory. Indeed this is the same prospect still. God hath joined from the beginning pardon, holiness, heaven. And why should man put them asunder? O beware of this. Let not one link of the golden chain be broken. God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven me. He is now renewing me in his own image. Shortly he will make me meet for himself, and take me to stand before his face. I whom he hath justified thro’ the blood of his Son, being throughly sanctified by his Spirit, shall quickly ascend to the _New Jerusalem, the city of the living God_. Yet a little while and I shall _come to the general assembly and church of the first-born, and to God the judge of all, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant_. How soon will these shadows flee away, and the day of eternity dawn upon me! How soon shall I drink of _the river of the water of life, going out of the throne of God and of the Lamb? There all his servants shall praise him and shall see his face, and his name shall be upon their foreheads. And no night shall be there; and they have no need of a candle or the light of the sun. For the Lord God enlighteneth them, and they shall reign for ever and ever._