Page images
PDF
EPUB

(2.) Draw near in the full affurance of faith. Faith's fpecial object is the blood of Chrift. Come leaning and depending on the merit and efficacy of this blood. Would you be wafted over to the prefence of God, come fwimming through that river which makes glad the city of our God. Caft all your weight upon it. It bears the weight of the Father's glory, and will bear the weight of your falvation. If your affurance of welcome depends on any thing in yourselves, God will caft the door of accefs in your face, as prefumptuous infenfible creatures. Labour to get your fouls wrought up to a full affurance of faith, not doubting of your welcome to, and acceptance with him through Chrift. Fix on the promise, he is faithful who made it. Though a trembling hand may reach a pardon, and God will not quench a fmoking flax, yet it is more to the honour of God, the honour of the precious blood of Chrift, and more to the fanctification, as well as comfort of the foul, confidently, without hefitation, to lay hold upon the promise, and apply it, with all that is in it: Matth. xxi. 22. "All things whatsoever ye fhall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."

(3.) Get your hearts before-hand Sprinkled from an evil confcience. Are you to come to his table?pray that all controverfies be done away between you and him. If you are to appear before the Lord, go, dip, wash, bathe in the fountain opened for fin and for uncleanness, Zech. xiii. 1. that you may be clean. Take a back-look of your ways, and be not fuperficial in it, left fome unremoved guilt ftare you in the face when you are coming forward, and drive you back. Do not think your repentance, reformation, vows, tears, (though of blood), will purge the confcience: Only Chrift's blood will do it; for this only can fatisfy the de

mands

mands of justice and of the law. Now, lay the weight of your remiffion on this blood, apply it to yourselves by faith, and this will purge your confcience. This fea of Christ's blood stands between us and the throne for that effect, Rev. iv 6..

Laftly, Let your outward converfation be blamelefs, free from fcandalous fins: "Pfal. xxiv. 4. "He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his foul unto vanity, nor fworn deceitfully," is the perfon who fhall afcend into the hill of God. Wash your hands in innocence, if you would encompafs God's altar. Repent, and mourn over the fins of the outward man, and apply to the fame blood for pardon. Forfake and give up with thofe fins, whether against the firft or fecond table; refolve, and endeavour fincerely to perform. Amen.

THE

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED *.

SERMON XXXV.

HEB. X. 22. Let us draw near with a true heart, in full affurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil confcience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

'T will afford a beam of surprising and heart-re

if we compare it with that in Gen. iii. 22.-24.

Behold in these verses the fruits of the firft Adam's finning. Adam finned, and we in his loins, as well as himself, were driven out from the prefence of the Lord. Christ suffered, and we are drawn in again, and farther in than ever Adam was. Hear the fentence from Heaven cafting us out : "Behold the man!" fee what he has brought himself to, "he is become as one of us, to know good and evil." A holy taunt!" And now, left he put forth his hand, and take alfo of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever." There is a deficiency in this fpeech, which is easily supplied * Delivered immediately before the difpenfation of the faciament.

plied from what follows: "Let us drive him out." But hear the voice from heaven calling in again the wretched outcafts. The apoftle here, as one of the outcasts, manages the voice in effect thus, Behold God, the fecond Perfon! he is become as one of us, has taken upon him our nature, to know by his own feeling in fome fort, the good we loft, the evil in which we are involved; and now, let us draw near, let us come back, come in, come forward, nay, come near; let us not only put forth, but freely stretch forth our hand, grasp, and take of the tree of life; eat freely, abundantly, and live for ever.'

O that the reverse may be carried yet farther! God fent forth the man, bade him go, but he would not: "So God drove him out." Now, God bids us draw near, but we will not come. May the Lord put forth his hand, and draw us in.

But here an inquiry occurs, How near may finners come to Jesus Christ?

1. They may come into the house of God, ver. 21. "Having an High-Prieft over the house of God." When Adam finned, he was driven out of the house, as a divorced woman. The first covenant was broken; but now, that the new covenant is made, the divorced finner, who is newmarried to his Maker in Chrift, may come in again to the house. They may come to the lower house in ordinances; it is their own houfe; by that title, they may fit down at the table as in their own house: Ifa. lvii. 13. " He that putteth his truft in me fhall poffefs the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain." They may come to the higher house, even heaven, this is the house in the context. They will come there at death, but the text aims at a coming to it before death; and therefore, this drawing near is a spiritual motion

upon the wings of faith, carrying the foul out of the body to heaven as its own houfe, because it is Chrift's house.

2. They come far forward in the house: Ver. 19. "Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holieft by the blood of Jefus." The temple ftood eaft and weft, the porch, or entry, being in the east. Without the houfe were the courts of the temple, in one of which ftood the altar, before the porch of the houfe, in the open air. In the temple was a vail, which divided the eaft end, called "the holy place," (into which ordinary priests might go), from the weft end, called "the holieft of all," into which only the HighPrieft might enter once a-year. There was the ark, with the mercy-feat and cloud of glory on it; and it was a special type of the highest heavens, the high and holy place, which is the glorious dwelling of God.

Now, I fay, finners may through Christ come far forward in the house, they may have Job's with to come to God, even to his feat, Job, xxiii. 3. Sinners, we have an altar, a crucified Saviour; if you defire to come into the house of God, come by that altar, and welcome, there is no other way; come into the holy place; nay, come forward into the holiest of all. Stand by no means only gazing on the vail, the vail of Christ's flesh, but come through the vail unto God, God in Chrift; come even to his feat. God is in Chrift as the cloud of glory on the mercy-feat in the holiest of all; come forward through the vail of Christ's flesh, fufficiently rent and torn in his fufferings, to afford you accefs through it to God, fitting on his mercy-feat in Christ, that you may be refreshed and comforted, your fouls fatisfied and fanctified with breathings of his love, with peace, and good-will from thence, VOL. II. Y

even

« PreviousContinue »