fulfil the law, and looking to Christ to make up all his defects, he comes at length, again to fleep in a found skin. Many perfons are ruined this way. This was the error of the Galatians, which Paul in his epiftle to them, difputes againít. But the Spirit of God breaks off the finner from this hold alfo: by bearing in on his confcience 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 bufinefs; the finner must hold by one of them, and let the other go: the way of the law and the way of faith, are fo far different, that it is not poffible for a finner 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 fundry forts 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 ftroke, and behold his foul is faint; his heart links in him like a ftone; while he finds he can neither bear his burden himself alone, nor can he get help under it.

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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 albumed? What can fuch a one do, I fay, but fell himself as the man under the law, that was waxen poor? Lev. xxv 47. Therefore the finner beat off from fo many holds, goes about to make a bargain with Chrift, and to fell himself to the Son of God, (if I may fo fpeek) folemnly promising and vowing, that he will be a fervant to Chrift, as long as he lives, if he will fave his foul. And here oft times the finner makes a perfonal covenant with Chrift, refigning himfef to him on the e terms; yea, and takes the facrament to make the bargain fure. Hereupon the man's great care is, how to obey Chrift, keep his commands, and fo fulfil his bargain And in this the foul finds a falfe, unfound peace, for a while: till the Spirit of the Lord fetch another stroke, 10 cut off the man from this refuge of lies likewife. And that happens in this manner: When he fails of the duties he engaged to, and falls again into the fin he covenanted against; it is power fully carried home on his confcience, that his covenant is broken: so all his comfort goes, and terrors afresh seize on

his foul, as one that has broken covenant with Christ, commonly the man, to help himself, renews his coven but breaks again as before. And how is it poffible it h be other wife, feeing he is still upon the old flock? T the work of many, all their days, as to their fouls, is thing but a making and breaking fuch covenants, over over agaio.

Object. Some perhaps will fay, Who liveth and fin not? Who is there that faileth not of the duties he is eng to? If you reject this way as unfound, who then can be ed? in True believers will be faved; namely, all do by faith take hold of God's covenant. But this kin covenant is mens own covenant, devifed of their own he not God's covenant revealed in the gofpel of his grace : the making of it is nothing elfe, but the making of a cove of works with Chrift, confounding the law and the go a covenant he will never fubfcribe to, though we th fign it with our heart's blood. Rom. iv. 14. For if which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and ⚫ promife made of none effect. Ver, 16. Therefore it faith, that it might be by grace, to the end the pro might be fure to all the feed. Chap. xi. 6. And if by gr ⚫ then it is no more of works: otherwife grace is no n grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace therwife work is no more work.' God's covenant is lafling; once in, never out of it again; and the mercie it are fure mercies, Ifa. lv. 3. But that covenant of you a tottering covenant, never fure. but broken every day. a mere fervile covenant, giving Chrift fervice for falvati but God's covenant is a filial covenant, in which the fi takes Chrift, and his falvation freely offered, and fo beco a fon, John i. 22. But as many as received him, to th gave he power to become the fons of God;' and being come a fon, he ferves his Father, not that the inheritance become his, but because it is his, through Jefus Chrift. Gal. iv. 24. and downward. To enter into that fpurious venant, is to buy from Chrift with money; but to take hol God's covenant is to buy of him without money and w sut price, Ifa. Ix. 1. that is to fay, to beg of him. In t Covenant men work for life; in God's covenant they com

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 under the difcipline of the covenant; and lies under the weight of it, till fuch times as he has recourfe anew to the blood of Chrift for pardon, and renew his repentance: yet all that he trusted to for life and falvation, namely, the righteoufnefs of Chrift, ftill flands entire, and the covenant remains firm. See Rom. vii. 24 25 and viii 1.

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

Tenthly, Therefore the man comes at length to beg at Chrift's door for mercy: but, yet he is a proud beggar, ftanding on his perfonal worth. For, as the Papifts have mediators to plead for them, with the one only Mediator; fo the branches of the old ftock, have always fomething to. produce, which, they think may commend them to Chrift, and engage him to take their caufe in hand. They cannot think of coming to the spiritual market, without money in their hand. They are like perfons, who have once had an eftate of their own, but are reduced to extreme poverty, and forced to beg. When they come to beg, they fill remember their former character; and though they have loft their fubftance, yet they tetain much of their former spirit; therefore they cannot think they ought to be treated as ordinary beggars; but deferve a particular regard; and, if that be not given them, their fpirits rife against him to whom they address themselves for fupply. Thus God gives the unhumbled finner many common merçics; and fhuts him not up in the pit, according to his deferving: but all this is nothing in his eyes. He must be fet down at the childrens table; otherwife he reckons himself hardly dealt

with, and wronged: for he is not yet brought fo low, as to think, God may be juftified when he speaketh, (against him) and clear from all iniquity, when he judgeth him, according to his real demerit, Pfal li. 4. He thinks, perhaps, that even before he was enlightned, he was better than many others; he confiders his reformation of life, his repentance, the grief and tears his fin has coft him, his earnest defires after Chrift, his prayers, and wrestlings for mercy; and ufeth all these now, as bribes for mercy, laying no fmall weight upon them, in his addresses to the throne of grace. But here the Spirit of the Lord fhoots a fheaf of arrows into the man's heart, whereby his confidence in thefe things is funk and destroyed; and instead of thinking himself better than many, he is made to see himself worse than any. The naughtiness of his reformation of life is difcovered. His repentance appears to him no better than the repentance of Judas; his tears like Efan's, and his defires after Christ to be felfish and lothfome, like theirs who fought Chrift be cause of the loaves, John vi. 26. His answer from God feems now to be, Away proud beggar, How shall I put thee among the children? He feems to look, fternly on him, før his flighting of Jefus Chrift by unbelief, which is a fin he fcarce difcerned before. But now, at length, he beholds it in its crimion colours; and is pierced to the heart as with a thousand darts, while he fees how he has been going on blindly, finning against the remedy of fin, and in the whole courfe of his life, trampling on the blood of the Son of God. And now he is, in his own eyes, the miserable object of law vengeance, yea, and gospel-vengeance too.

Eleventhly, The man being thus far humbled, will no more plead, he is worthy for whom Chrift should do this thing: but, on the contrary, looks on himself as unworthy of Chrift, and unworthy of the favour of God. We may compare him, in this cafe, to the young man who followed Chrift, having a linen cloth caft about his naked body: on whom, when the young men laid hold, he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked, Mark xiv. 51, 52. fo the man had been following Chrift, in the thin and coldrife garment of his own perfonal worthiness; but by it, even by it, which he fo much trufted to, the law catcheth hold of him, to make him prifoner; and then he is fain to

Even

V. 8.

leave it, and flees away naked; yet not to Chrift, but from him. If you now tell him, he is welcome to Chrift, if he will come to him; he is apt to fay, Can fuch a vile and unworthy wretch as I, be welcome to the holy Jefus ? If a plaister be applied to his wounded foul, it will not flick. He fays, ·Depart from me for 1 am, a finful man; O Lord. Luke No man needs fpeak to him of his repentance, for his comfort; he can quickly efpy fuch faults in it as makes it naught: nor of his tears, for he is affured, they have never come into the Lord's bottle. He disputes himself away from Chrift; and concludes; now that he has been fuch a flighter of Chrift, and is such an unholy and vile creature, he cannot, he will not, he ought not, to come to Chrift; and that he must either be in better cafe, or else he'll never believe. And hence, he now makes his strongest efforts, to amend what was amifs in his way before. He prays more earnestly than ever, mourns more bitterly, ftrives against fin in heart and life, more vigorously, and watcheth more diligently; if by any means he may, at length be fit to come to Chrift. One would think the man is well hum bled now: But ah ! devilish pride lurks under the veil of all this feeming humility. Like a kindly branch of the old ftock; he adheres ftill; and will not submit to the righteufnels of God, Rom. x. 3. He will not come to the market of free grace, wi.hout money. He is bidden to the marriage of the King's Son, where the bridegroom himself furnished all the guests with wedding garments, tripping them of their own, but he will not come, because he wants a wedding garment; howbeit he is very busy making unc ready. This is fad work; and therefore he must have a deeper ftroke yet; elfe he is ruined. This ftroke is reached him with the ax of the law, in its irritating power. Thus the law girding the foul with cords of death, and holding it in with the rigorous commands of obedience, under the pain of the curfe; and God, in his holy and wife conduct, withdrawing his restraining grace; corruption is Irritated, lufts become violent, and the more they are Ariven againft, the more they rage, like a furious horse checked with the bit. Then do corruptions fet up their heads, which he never faw in himself before. Here oft