1. The Lord brings home the threatening of the law, and applies it to their confcience, in a work of conviction. The confcience is naturally feared as with a hot iron; like thefe that have a part of their flefh burnt with an iron, though it be touched, yet they do not feel; this hard fkin muft be pierced; and therefore God makes the knife of conviction to go to the quick; makes the man fee that he is a child of the devil, a child of wrath, puts him in fear of hell, and fhews him that there is a ftanding quarrel betwixt God and him, and that this must be removed: hence a concern will be raifed in the heart, "What fhall I do to be faved?" Acts xvi. 30. They that are actual children of the promife, have found themfelves actually under the dif penfation of threatenings from Sinai; for the law is the fchoolmafter, to awaken the finner, and let him fee his need of Chrift.

2. The Lord imbitters fin, which gave force to the threatening, in a work of compunction. Both the fpirituality of the law, in its command; and the feverity of the law, in its threatening, are fet before the man; in the confideration whereof, the foul not only cries out, Oh! unclean, unclean! but, Oh! undone, undone! The infinite majefty of God appears; the infinite malignity of fin appears; and the man is pricked in his heart, Acts ii. 37. The commandment comes, fin revives, and he dies, who before was alive without the law, Rom. vii. 9. Hence,

3. He difcovers the abfolute need of the promise of the gospel in a work of humiliation, and his undone ftate without it. A holy God flares the man in the face; the unholy foul fees this holy God, and is afraid, and afhamed, and humbled; humbled fo far, as to take with the whole charge of God and his law against him. When minifters charge people with fins, they will either deny them, or caft a cloak over them, by manifold excufes; and perhaps fay, I was mistaken, or in a paffion, or under fuch and fuch temptation; but that is a plain evidence they are not humbled before God; for, when God humbles the man, he is more exer

cifed in condemning himself, than any minifter can be capable to do: he takes with the law-charge, faying, as Nathan to David, I am the man, I am the devil, I am the monster. Indeed, this and other fteps of humiliation may, perhaps, run along with him in his whole Chriftian courfe, after his firft believing, as well as before; but I speak now of the common and natural order.——He is humbled, likewife, to a clearing of God's equity and righteoufnefs, in fentencing him by the law, to the pit of perdition, and is made to clear and jufiify God, though he fhould condemn them.— Some will fay, We cannot think God will be fo cruel, as to damn the moft part of the world for their fin: why, that is an evidence your foul was never humbled under a fenfe of fin. But, Oh! fays the humbled foul, death and damnation is the true wages of fin; and if God should send me to hell, he is juft; I might preach his righteoufnefs there, and declare that he never wronged me; yea, it is my wonder that I have been fo long out of the bottomlefs pit. Again, he is humbled to fee, that as his damnation would be an act of juftice, infinite juftice; fo his falvation, if ever he share thereof, will be an act of fovereignty, glorious fovereignty and pure grace. He is humbled to fee, that he cannot fave himself; that he is neither able to fave himfelf, nor worthy that God fhould fave him; and that he is fo far from having any righteousnefs of his own to plead, that his best righteoufnefs is filthy rags; and that God may juftly damn him for his duties, as well as for his fins.

4. He difcovers to the man, in this cafe, the excellency of the promise, and of the new-covenant way of falvation; the excellency of Chrift, and the glory of his righteoufnefs in a work of faving illumination: and now the good work, the faving work begins, when the Spirit of wifdom and revelation in the knowledge of Chrift is given, Eph. i. 17.; and Chrift is revealed in the man, Gal. i. 16.: and this light is the light of life, whereby the foul is quickened to embrace the promise, to believe in Chrift, and hope in his word.

The

The promife is opened up and applied to the begetting of faith. As Chrift manifefted forth his glory, and his difciples believed in him, John ii. 11.; fo, when he manifefts his glory in a word of grace or promife, then the foul believes; for then, "The righteoufnefs of God is revealed from faith to faith," Rom. i. 16. Power accompanies the revelation for the working of faith; for the faith of God's elect is the faith of God's operation, Col. ii. 12. Then the man believes, now he credits the truth and goodnefs of the promise, 1 Tim. i. 15. He cordially accepts, and receives, appropriates, and applies the great and good things promifed to himfelf, with a confident perfuafion of the accomplishment of the promife, refting upon the faithfulnefs, power, and grace of the promiser for the fame, according to the measure of the communication of the Spirit of faith, Rom. x. 10. Heb. xi. 13. Rom. iv. 20, 21. Heb. xi. 11. And now, the man is actually a child of the promife; for the promife hath taken hold of him; and he hath, thro' grace, taken hold of it: the promife hath embraced him, and he hath embraced it; the embracement is mutual: now he is gracioufly inclined and engaged.

Let me tell you, in order to the further clearing of this method or manner of their becoming actually the children of promife, the miniftry of the gofpel is a kind of fishery; minifters are called Fifhers of men, and fo men and women are the fifh. Now, God hath hung a bundle of promifes together, as fo many hooks upon a line, for taking all forts of fifhes, to take them afhore to himfelf; here are large hooks for taking large fishes, were they as large as a leviathan; here are little hooks. for taking little fishes, were they as little as a mennon. -Oh! fays one, I am a great finner, and my fins are mountaneous: well there is a hook for you: "Who art thou, O great mountain before our Zerubbabel? Thou fhalt become a plain : and he fhall bring forth the headftone thereof with fhouting, crying, Grace, grace unto it," Zech. iv. 7.-Oh! fays another, I am a poor infignificant worm, a worthlefs, mean, impotent creature: well, there is a hook for you; "Fear not, worm

Jacob,

Jacob, I will help thee," Ifa. xiv. 14.-Are you poor and needy? There is a hook for you; "When the poor and needy feek water, and there is none, and their tongues fail for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Jacob will not forfake them," Ifa. xli. 17, 18.— Are you a poor blind creature, that knows not what way to go? There is a hook for you, Ifa. xlii. 16. "I will bring the blind by a way they know not, I will lead them in paths that they have not known."-Are you a piece of parched ground, like a parched wildernefs? There is a hook for you, Ifa. xliv. 3. "I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.”—Are you troubled that you cannot get a heart to pray? Well, there is a hook for taking you, Zech. xii. 10. “I will pour out upon the houfe of David, the Spirit of grace and fupplication.”—Are you unable to believe and repent? There is a hook for catching you, in the following words, They fhall look on him whom they have pierced, and they fhall mourn for him;" where both faith and repentance are promifed.-Are you a loft and undone creature? There is a hook for you; "Jefus Chrift came to feek and fave that which was loft," Luke xix. 10.Are you a plagued wretch, oppreffed with the plague of atheism and unbelief, with the plague of blafphemy and enmity, faying, Oh! there are devilish plagues, and hellifh difeafes in my heart? Well, there is a hook for you, Rev. xxii. 2. "The leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of all nations ;" and Mal. iv. 2. “To you that fear my name, fhall the Sun of righteousness arife with healing under his wings."-Oh! but fay you, there is a conditional promife, it is to them that fear his name: I will tell you, man, there is no conditional form put upon any promife in the Bible, to keep back a foul from applying and taking hold of the promise, but to draw it in to embrace the condition, either by taking Chrift for the condition, or running to an abfolute promife, where that condition is promised: for inftance, are you apprehensive that you are deflitute of that fear of God? Then there is a hock for you to fwallow down, that you may be taken by it, Jer. xxxii. 40. "I will put my fear in your hearts, that you fhall not depart from

me."

me." And thus you are to do with all the promises that feem to run in a conditional form. Let not the condition fright you from opening your mouth wide, to catch the hook of the promife; or, if ftill you dare not meddle with it, then run to the abfolute promife, where the condition itself is promised; if you cannot find out that, then run to Chrift himself in whom all fulness is, and in whom all the promises are yea and amen: having him, you will have the condition of all the promifes. If you ftand aback from the promife, and will not open your mouth to receive it, or if you reject it for want of this condition or qualification, you mistake the nature of the gofpel, and are ignorant of the free covenant of promife. There is no evil, you would have removed, no want you would have fupplied, but you may get a promife for it; and if one cannot make for you (as none of them but will, if rightly understood) go to another: if one hook be too large for you to fwallow down, you may get another, more meet for you; therefore, go about, and feek thy meat, and take faft hold of the promise that makes belt for thee. And, O happy foul, if you be taken! For the hook will not hurt you, but only hale you to the fame happy fhore with all the children of promife.

Perhaps there is a fecret thought in fome body's breast, Alas! Sir, but I do not find the promise taking hold of me; and therefore, how fhall I take hold of it? You have been faying, none embraces the promife, till' the promise embrace them; now, I do not find, I do not feel the promise taking hold of me.

ANSW. I fear, by this way of fpeaking, you are making fenfe and feeling the ground of your faith, and not the promise this is not believing, but feeling; like Thomas, that would not believe till he felt and faw Chrift: but, "Blessed is he that believeth, and hath not feen."

QUEST. But, fay you, Muft I not feel the power of God making me believe, before I can believe?

ANSW. Yea, it is the power of God only that can make you believe: but make not your feeling of that power to be your warrant to believe; for the word of promife is your warrant, and alfo the immediate object

and