Fifthly, Upon this he goes further, even to inside religion; sets to work more vigorously than ever; mourns over the evils of his heart, and strives to bear down the weeds he finds growing in that neglected garden. He labours to curb his pride and passion, and to banish speculative impurities; prays more fervently, hears attentively, and strives to get his heart affected in every religious duty he performs; and thus he comes to think himself not only an outside, but an inside Christian. Wonder not at this; for there is nothing in it beyond the power of nature, or what one may attain to under a vigorous influence of the covenant of works. Therefore, another stroke yet deeper is reached: The law chargeth home on the man's conscience, that he was a transgressor from the womb; that he came into the world a guilty creature ; and that, in the time of his ignorance, and even since his eyes were opened, he has been guilty of many actual sins, either altogether overlooked by him, or not sufficiently mourned over: (For spiritual sores, not healed by the blood of Christ, but skinned over some other way, are easily ruffled, and as soon break out again.) And, there fore, the law takes him by the throat, saying, Pay what

thou owest.

Sixthly, Then the sinner says in his heart, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all; and so falls to work to pacify an offended God, and to atone for these sins. He renews his repentance, such as it is; bears patiently the afflictions laid upon him; yea, he afflicts himself, denies himself the use of his lawful comforts, sighs deeply, mourns bitterly, cries with tears for a pardon, till he hath wrought up his heart to a conceit of having obtained it; having thus done penance for what is past, and resolving to be a good servant to God, and to hold on in outward and inward obedience, for the time to come. But the stroke must go nearer the heart yet, ere the branch fall off. The Lord discovers to him, in the glass of the law, how he sinneth in all he does, even when he does the best he can; and, therefore, the dreadful sound returns to his ears, Gal. iii. 10. "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things," &c. "When ye fasted and mourned," saith the Lord," did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?" Will muddy water.

make clean clothes? Will you satisfy for one sin with another? Did not your thoughts wander in such a duty? Were not your affections flat in another? Did not your heart give a whorish look to such an idol? And did it not rise in a fit of impatience under such an affliction ? "Should I accept this of your hands? Cursed be the deceiver, which sacrificeth to the Lord a corrupt thing," Mal. i. 13, 14. And thus he becomes so far broke off, that he sees he is not able to satisfy the demands of the law.

Seventhly, Hence, like a broken man, who finds he is not able to pay all his debts, he goes about to compound with his creditor. And being in pursuit of ease and comfort, he does what he can to fulfil the law; and wherein he fails, he looks that God will accept the will for the deed. Thus doing his duty, and having a will to do better, he cheats himself into a persuasion of the goodness of his state; and hereby thousands are ruined. But the elect get another stroke, which looseth their hold in this case. The doctrine of the law is born in on their consciences; demonstrating to them, that exact and perfect obedience is required by it, under pain of the curse; and that it is doing, and not wishing to do, which will avail. Wishing to do better will not answer the law's demands; and, therefore, the curse sounds again, Cursed is every one that continueth not to do them; that is, actually to do them. In vain is wishing then.

Eighthly, Being broken off from hopes of compounding with the law, he falls a-borrowing. He sees that all he can do to obey the law, and all his desires to be, and to do better, will not save his soul; therefore, he goes to Christ, intreating, that his righteousness may make up what is wanting in his own, and cover all the defects of his doings and sufferings; that so God, for Christ's sake, may accept them, and thereupon be reconciled. Thus doing what he can to fulfil the law, and looking to Christ to make up all his defects, he comes at length again to sleep in a sound skin: Many persons are ruined this way. This was the error of the Galatians, which Paul, in his epistle to them, disputes against. But the Spirit of God breaks off the sinner from this hold also, by bearing in on his conscience that great truth, Gal, iii. 12. «The law

is not of faith; but the man that doth them shall live in them." There is no mixing of the law and faith in this business; the sinner must hold by one of them, and let the other go; the way of the law and the way of faith are so far different, that it is not possible for a sinner to walk in the one, but he must come off from the other; and if he be for doing, he must do all alone; Christ will not do a part for him, if he do not all. A garment, pieced up of sundry sorts of righteousness, is not a garment meet for the court of heaven. Thus the man, who was in a dream, and thought he was eating, is awakened by the stroke, and behold his soul is faint; his heart sinks in him like a stone, while he finds he can neither bear his burden himself alone, nor can he get help under it.

Ninthly, What can one do, who must needs pay, and yet neither has as much of his own as will bring him out of debt, nor can he get as much to borrow; and to beg he is ashamed? What can such a one do, I say, but sell himself as the man under the law, that was waxen poor? Lev. xxv. 47. Therefore the sinner, beat off from so many holds, goes about to make a bargain with Christ,' and to sell himself to the Son of God, (if I may so speak,) solemnly promising and vowing, that he will be a servant to Christ, as long as he lives, if he will save his soul. And here oft-times the sinner makes a personal covenar with Christ, resigning himself to him on these terms; yea, and takes the sacrament to make the bargain sure. Hereupon the man's great care is, how to obey Christ, keep his commands, and so fulfil his bargain. In this the soul finds a false, unsound peace, for a while; till the Spirit of the Lord fetch another stroke, to cut off the man from this refuge of lies likewise. And that happens in this manner: When he fails of the duties he engaged to, and falls again into the sin he covenanted against; it is powerfully carried home on his conscience, that his covenant is broken; so all his comfort goes, and terrors afresh seize on his soul, as one that has broken covenant with Christ; and commonly the man, to help himself, renews his covenant, but breaks again as before. And how is it possible it should be otherwise, seeing he is still upon the old stock? Thus the work of many, all their

days, as to their souls, is nothing but a making and breaking such covenants, over and over again.

Object. Some perhaps will say, Who liveth and sinneth not? Who is there that faileth not of the duties he is engaged to? If you reject this way as unsound, who then can be saved?-Ans. True believers will be saved; namely, all who do by faith take hold of God's covenant. But this kind of covenant is men's own covenant, devised of their own heart; not God's covenant revealed in the gospel of his grace; and the making of it is nothing else, but the making of a covenant of works with Christ, confounding the law and the gospel; a covenant he will never subscribe to, though we should sign it with our hearts blood, Rom. iv. 14, 16. "For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace, to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed." Chap. xi. 6. "And if by grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace; otherwise work is no more work." God's covenant is everlasting; once in, never out of it again; and the mercies of it are sure mercies, Isa. lv. 3. But that covenant of yours i is a tottering covenant, never sure, but broken every day. It is a mere servile covenant, giving Christ service for salvation; but God's covenant is a filial covenant, in which the sinner takes Christ, and his salvation freely offered, and so becomes a son, John i. 12. "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God;" and being become a son, he serves his Father, not that the inheritance may be his, but because it is his, through Jesus Christ. See Gal. iv. 24. and downward. To enter into that spurious covenant, is to buy Christ with money; but to take hold of God's covenant, is to buy of him without money and without price, Isa. Iv. 1. that is to say, to beg of him. In that covenant men work for life; in God's covenant they come to Christ for life, and work from life. When a person under that covenant fails in his duty, all is gone; the covenant must be made over again; but under God's covenant although the man fail in his duty, and for his failures fall ander the discipline of the covenant, and lies under the

weight of it, till such time as he has recourse to the blood of Christ for pardon, and renew his repentance, yet all that he trusted to for life and salvation, namely, the righteousness of Christ, still stands entire, and the cove nant remains firm. See Rom. vii. 24, 25. and viii. 1.

Now, though some men spend their lives in making and breaking such covenants of their own, the terror upon the breaking of them wearing weaker and weaker by degrees, till at last it creates them little or no uneasiness; yet the man, in whom the good work is carried on, till it be accomplished in cutting him off from the old stock, finds these covenants to be as rotten cords, broke at every touch; and the terror of God, being thereupon redoubled on his spirit, and the waters at every turn getting into his very soul, he is obliged to cease from catching hold of such covenants, and to seek help some other way.

Tenthly, Therefore, the man comes at length to beg at Christ's door for mercy; but yet he is a proud beggar, standing on his personal worth. For, as the Papists have mediators to plead for them, with the one only Mediator; so the branches of the old stock have always something to produce, which they think may commend them to Christ, and engage him to take their cause in hand. They cannot think of coming to the spiritual market, without money in their hand. They are like persons, who have once had an estate of their own, but are reduced to extreme poverty, and forced to beg. When they come to beg, they still remember their former character; and though they have lost their substance, yet they retain much of their former spirit; therefore, they cannot think they ought to be treated as ordinary beggars, but deserve a particular regard; and, if that be not given them, their spirits rise against him to whom they address themselves for supply. Thus God gives the unhumbled sinner many common mercies, and shuts him not up in the pit, according to his deserving; but all this is nothing in his eyes. He must be set down at the children's table, otherwise he reckons himself hardly dealt with, and wronged; for he is not yet brought so low, as to think, God may be justified when he speaketh, (against him,) and clear from all iniquity, when he judgeth him according to his real demerit, Psal. li. 4. He thinks, perhaps, that even before he was enlightened, he was better,