Part 15

Despairing sinner! Thou lookest on thy right hand, and on thy left, saying, “Who will shew us any good?” Thou art looking over all thy duties and professions to patch a righteousness to save thee. Look at Christ now; look to him and be saved all the ends of the earth, Is. xlv. 22. There is none else. He is a Saviour, and there is none besides him, xliii. 11. Look any where else, and thou art undone. God will look at nothing but Christ, and thou must look at nothing else. Christ is lifted up on high, as the brazen serpent in the wilderness, that sinners at the end of the earth, at the greatest distance, may see him, and look towards him, John, iii. 14, 15. The least sight of him will be saving, the least touch healing to thee; and God intends thou shouldst look on him, for he hath set him upon a high throne of glory, in the open view of all poor sinners. Thou hast infinite reason to look on him: no reason at all to look off him; for he is meek and lowly of heart, Matt. xi. 29. He will do that himself which he requires of his creatures; viz. bear with infirmities, Rom. xv. 1. Not pleasing himself, nor standing upon points of law, ver. 2; he will restore with the spirit of meekness, Gal. vi.; and bear thy burdens, ver. 2. He will forgive not only till seven times, but seventy times seven, Matt. xviii. 21, 22. I put the faith of the apostles to it to believe this, Luke, xvii. 4, 5. Because we are hard to forgive, we think Christ is hard.

We see sin great, we think Christ doth so, and measure infinite love with our line, infinite merits with our sins, which is the great pride and blasphemy, Ps. ciii. 11, 12; Is. x. 15. Hear what he saith: I have found a ransom, Job xxxiii. 24; in him I am well pleased, Matt. iii. 18. God will have nothing else; nothing else will do thee good, or satisfy conscience, but Christ who satisfied the Father. God doth all upon the account of Christ. Thy deserts are hell, wrath, rejection. Christ’s deserts are life, pardon, and acceptance. He will not only shew thee one, but he will give thee the other. It is Christ’s own glory and happiness to pardon. Consider, whilst Christ was upon the earth, he was more among publicans and sinners, than among scribes and pharisees, his professed adversaries, for they were righteous ones: it is not as thou imaginest, that his state in glory makes him neglected, scornful to poor sinners; No. He hath the same heart now in heaven; he is good, and changeth not; he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, John, i. 20. He went through all thy temptations, dejections, sorrows, desertions, rejections, Matt. iv. 3 to 12 and 26; Mark, xv. 24; Luke, xxii. 44; Matt. xxiv. 38. And he hath drawn the bitterness of the cup, and left thee the sweet: the condemnation is out; Christ drank up all the Father’s wrath at one draught, and nothing but salvation is left for thee. Thou sayest thou canst not believe, thou canst not repent. Fitter for Christ if thou hast nothing but sin and misery. Go to Christ with all thy impenitence and unbelief, to get faith and repentance from him--that is glorious: Say unto him, Lord, I have brought no righteousness of grace to be accepted in or justified by; I am come for thine. We would be bringing to Christ, which must not be; grace will not stand with works, Tit. iii. 5; Rom. xi. 6. Self-righteousness and self-sufficiency are the darlings of nature, which she preserves as her life; that makes Christ obnoxious to nature; nature cannot desire him; he is just directly opposite to all nature’s glorious interests. Let nature make a gospel, and it would make it contrary to Christ. It would be to the just, the innocent, the holy, &c. Christ made the gospel for thee, that is, for needy sinners, the ungodly, the unrighteous, the accursed. Nature cannot endure to think the gospel is only for sinners; it will rather choose to despair than go to Christ upon such terrible terms. When nature is opposed to guilt or wrath, it will go to its own haunts of self-righteousness, self-goodness, &c. An infinite power must cast down those strong holds. None but the self-justiciary stands excluded out of the gospel. Christ will look at the most abominable sinner before him, because to such a one Christ cannot be made justification--he is no sinner. To say in compliment, I am a sinner, is easy; but to pray with the publican indeed, Lord be merciful to me a sinner, is the hardest prayer in the world. It is easy to profess Christ with the mouth, but to confess him with the heart, as Peter, (to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, the alone Mediator,) that is above flesh and blood. Many call Christ Saviour; few know him to be so. To see grace and salvation in Christ, is the greatest sight in the world; none can do that, but at the same time they shall see that glory and salvation to be theirs. I may be ashamed to think, in the midst of so much profession, that I have little of the blood of Christ, which is the main thing of the gospel. A Christless formal profession will be the blackest sight next to hell. Thou mayest have many good things, and yet one thing may be wanting that may make thee go away sorrowful from Christ. Thou hast never sold all thou hast, never parted with all thine own righteousness, &c. Thou mayest be high in duty, and yet a perfect enemy and adversary to Christ, in every prayer, in every ordinance.

Labour after sanctification to thy utmost, but make not a Christ of it to save thee; if so, it must come down one way or other.

Christ’s infinite satisfaction, not thy sanctification, must be thy justification before God. When the Lord shall appear terrible out of his holy place, fire shall consume that as hay and stubble. This will be found true religion, to rest all upon the everlasting mountains of God’s love and grace in Christ; to live continually in the sight of Christ’s infinite righteousness and merits, (they are sanctifying; without them the heart is carnal,) and in those sights to see the full vileness of sin, and to see all pardoned; in those sights to pray, hear, &c., seeing thy polluted self, and all thy weak performances accepted continually; in those sights to trample upon all thy self-glories, righteousness, and privileges, as abominable, and be found continually in the righteousness of Christ only; rejoicing in the ruins of thy own righteousness, the spoiling of all thy own excellencies, that Christ’s alone, as Mediator, may be exalted on his throne: mourning over all thy duties (how glorious soever) which thou hast not performed in the sight and sense of Christ’s love. Without the blood of Christ on the conscience, all this is dead service, Heb. ix. 14.

That opinion of free will, so cried up, will be easily confuted, as it is by scripture, in the heart that hath had any spiritual dealings with Jesus Christ, as to the application to its merit, and subjection to his righteousness. Christ is every way too magnificent a person for a poor nature to close withal or to apprehend. Christ is so infinitely holy, nature durst never look at him; so infinitely good, nature can never believe him to be such, when it lies under a full sight of sin. Christ is too high and glorious for nature so much as to touch. There must be a divine nature first put in the soul, to make it lie on him, he lies so infinitely beyond the sight or reach of nature.

That Christ, which natural free will can apprehend, is but a natural Christ of a man’s own making, not the Father’s Christ, nor Jesus the Son of the living God, to whom none can come without the father’s drawing, John, vi. 44. 46. Finally, search the scriptures daily, as mines of gold, wherein the heart of Christ is laid. Watch against constitutional sins, see them in their vileness, and they shall never break out into act. Keep always an humble, empty, broken frame of heart, sensible of any spiritual miscarriage, observant of all inward workings, fit for the highest communications. Keep not guilt in the conscience, but apply the blood of Christ immediately. God chargeth sin and guilt upon thee, to make thee look to Christ.

Judge not Christ’s love by providences, but by promises. Bless God for shaking off false foundations, and for any way whereby he keeps the soul awakened and looking after Christ. Better sicknesses and temptations than security and slightness.

A slighting spirit will turn a profane spirit, and will sin and pray too. Slighting is the bane of profession; if it be not rooted out of the heart, by constant and serious dealings with, and beholdings of Christ in duties, it will grow more strong and more deadly by being under church ordinances. Measure not thy graces by other attainments, but by Scripture trials. Be serious and exact in duty, having the weight of it upon the heart; be as much afraid of taking comfort from duties as from sins. Comfort from any hand but Christ’s is deadly. Be much in prayer, or you will never keep up much communion with God. As you are in closet prayer, so you will be in all other ordinances.

Reckon not duties by high expression, but by low frames, and the beholdings of Christ. Tremble at duties and gifts. It was a saying of a great saint, he was more afraid of his duties than his sins; the one often made him proud, the other always made him humble. Treasure up manifestations of Christ’s love, they make the heart low for Christ, too high for sin. Slight not the lowest, meanest evidences of grace; God may put thee to make use of the lowest as thou thinkest, even that, 1 John, iii. 14, may be worth a thousand worlds to thee.

Be true to truth, but not turbulent and scornful. Restore such as are fallen; help them up again with all the bowels of Christ. Set the broken disjointed bones with the grace of the gospel. High professor, despise not weak saints. Thou mayest come to wish to be in the condition of the meanest of them. Be faithful to others’ infirmities, but sensible of thy own. Visit sick beds and deserted souls much, they are excellent schools in experience. Abide in your calling. Be dutiful to all relations as to the Lord. Be content with little of the world; little will serve. Think every little of the earth much, because unworthy of the least. Think much of heaven, not little, because Christ is so rich and free. Think every one better than thyself, and ever carry self-loathing about thee, as one fit to be trampled upon by all saints. See the vanity of the world, and the consumption there is upon all things, and love nothing but Christ. Mourn to see so little of Christ in the world, so few needing him: trifles please them better. To a secure soul Christ is but a table, the scripture but a story. Mourn to think how many there are under baptism and church order, that are not under grace, looking much after outward duties, little after Christ, little versed in grace. Prepare for the cross; welcome it, bear it triumphantly like Christ’s cross; whether scoffs, mockings, jeers, contempt, imprisonment, &c. But see it be Christ’s cross, not thine own.

Sin will hinder from glorying in the cross of Christ. Omitting little truths against light may breed guilt in the conscience, as well as committing the greatest sins against light. If thou hast been taken out of the belly of hell into Christ’s bosom, and made to sit among princes in the household of God, oh how shouldst thou live as a pattern of mercy? Redeemed, restored soul, what infinite sums dost thou not owe to Christ! With what singular frames must thou walk, and do every duty! On sabbaths, what praising days, singing hallelujahs, should they be to thee! Church fellowship: what a heaven, a being with Christ, and angels, and saints in communion; what a bathing of the soul in eternal love; what a burial with Christ, and dying to all things beside him! Every time thou thinkest of Christ, be astonished, and wonder; and when thou seest sin, look at Christ’s grace which did pardon it; and when thou art proud, look at Christ’s grace, that shall humble and strike thee down in the dust.

Remember Christ’s time of love, when thou wast naked, Ezekiel, xvi. 8, 9, and then he chose thee. Canst thou ever have a proud thought?--Remember whose arms supported thee from sinking, and delivered thee from the lowest hell, Ps. lxxxvi. 13: and shout in the ears of angels and men, Ps. cxlviii. and for ever sing, “Praise, praise, grace, grace.” Daily repent and pray; and walk in the spirit of grace as one that hath the anointing of grace upon thee. Remember thy sins, Christ’s pardoning; thy deserts, Christ’s merits; thy weakness, Christ’s strength; thy pride, Christ’s humility; thy many infirmities, Christ’s restorings; thy guilt, Christ’s new applications of his blood; thy failings, Christ’s raisings up; thy wants, Christ’s fulness; thy temptations, Christ’s tenderness; thy vileness, Christ’s righteousness.

Blessed soul! whom Christ shall find not trusting in his own righteousness, Phil. iii. 9, but having his robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb, Rev. vii. 14. Woeful, miserable professor, that hath not the gospel within! Rest not in church trials; thou mayest pass them, and be cast away in Christ’s day of trial. Thou mayest come to baptism, and never come to Jesus and the blood of sprinkling, Heb. xii. 24. Whatever working or attainments, short of Christ s blood, merits, righteousness, (the main object of the gospel) fall short of the truth, and leave the soul in a condition of doubtings and questionings; and doubtings, if not looked into betimes, will turn to a lightness of spirit, one of the most dangerous of frames.

Trifle not with ordinances. Be much in meditation and prayer. Wait diligently upon all hearing opportunities. We have need of doctrine, reproof, exhortations, consolation, as tender herbs and the grass hath of the rain, the dew, the small rain, and the showers, Deut. xxxii. 2. Do all thou doest as soul-work unto Christ, Zech. vi. 5, 6; as immediately dealing with Christ Jesus; as if he were looking on thee, and thou on him, and get all thy strength from him.

Observe what holy motions you find in your soul to duties; prize the least good thought thou hast of Christ, the least good word thou speakest of him sincerely from thy heart. Rich mercy! Oh! bless God for it! Observe if every day you have the Day-spring from on high, with his morning dews of mourning for sin, constantly visiting thee, Luke, i. 78. Have you the bright Morning-star, with fresh influences of grace and peace, constantly arising, Rev. xxii. 16, and Christ sweetly greeting the soul in all duties? What duty makes not more spiritual, will make more carnal; what doth not quicken and humble, will deaden and harden.

Judas may have the outward privilege of baptism, the supper, church-fellowship, &c., but John leaned on Christ’s bosom, John, iii. 23; that is the gospel-ordinance posture, in which we should pray and hear, and perform all duties. Nothing but lying in that bosom will dissolve hardness of heart, and make thee to mourn heartily for sin and cure lightness and indifference of spirit, that gangrene to profession; that will humble indeed, and make the soul cordial to Christ, and sin vile to the soul; yea, transform the ugliest place of hell into the glory of Christ. Never think thou art right as thou shouldst be, a Christian of any attainment, until thou come to this, always to see and feel thyself lying in the bosom of Christ, who is in the bosom of his Father, John, i. 18. Come and pray the Father for views of Christ, and you will be sure to speed. You can come with no request that pleaseth him better. He gave him out of his own bosom for that very end, to be held up before the eyes of sinners, as the everlasting monument of his unspeakable love.

Looking at the natural sun weakens the eye. The more you look at Christ, the Sun of righteousness, the stronger and clearer will the eye of faith be. Look but at Christ, you will love him, and live upon him. Think on him continually,--keep the eye constantly upon Christ’s blood, or every blast of temptation will shake you. If you see sin’s sinfulness, to loath it and mourn, do not stand looking upon sin, but look upon Christ first, as suffering and satisfying for it. If you would see your graces, your sanctification, do not stand gazing upon them, but look at Christ’s righteousness in the first place,--see the Son, and you see all,--look at your graces in the last place.

Go to Christ in sight of your sin and misery, not of your grace and holiness. Have nothing to do with thy graces and sanctification, they will but veil Christ, till thou hast seen Christ first. He that looks upon Christ through his graces, is like one that sees the sun in water, which wavereth, and moves as the water doth. Look upon Christ only as shining in the firmament of the Father’s love and grace, you will not see him but in his own glory, which is unspeakable. Pride and unbelief will put you upon seeing somewhat in yourself first, but faith will have to do with none but Christ, who is unexpressibly glorious, and must swallow up thy sanctification as well as thy sin: for God made him both for us, and we must take him for both, 1 Cor. i. 30, 2 Cor. v. 21. He that sets up his sanctification to look at, to comfort him, he sets up the greatest idol, which will strengthen his doubts and fears. Do but look off Christ, and presently, like Peter, you sink in doubt.

A Christian never wants comfort but by breaking the order and method of the gospel, looking on his own, and looking off Christ’s perfect righteousness, which is, to choose rather to live by candlelight than by the light of the sun. The honey that you suck from your own righteousness will turn into perfect gall; and the light that you take from that to walk in will turn into black night upon the soul. Satan is tempting thee, by putting thee to plod about thine own grace, to get comfort from that; then the Father comes and points thee to Christ’s grace, as rich and glorious, infinitely pleasing to him; and biddest thee study Christ’s righteousness; and his biddings are enablings; that is, a blessed motion, a sweet whispering, checking thy belief--follow the least hint, close with much prayer, prize it as an invaluable jewel; it is an earnest of more to come. Again,

If you will pray, and cannot, and are so discouraged, see Christ praying for you, using his interest with the Father for you. What can you want? John, xiv. 7, and chap. xvii. If you be troubled, see Christ your peace, Eph. ii. 14. Leaving you peace when he went up to heaven, again and again charging you not to be troubled; no, not in the least sinfully troubled; so as to obstruct the comfort of thy believing, John, xiv. 1, 27. He is now upon the throne, having spoiled upon his cross, in the lowest state of his humiliation, all whatsoever can hurt or annoy thee; he hath borne all thy sins, sorrows, troubles, and temptations, and is gone to prepare mansions for thee.

Thou who hast seen Christ all, and thyself absolutely nothing who makest Christ all thy life, and art dead to all righteousness besides, thou art a Christian, one highly beloved, and who hath found favour with God, a favourite of heaven. Do Christ this one favour for all his love to thee; love all his poor saints and churches, the meanest, the weakest, notwithstanding any difference in judgment, they are engraven on his heart, as the names of the children of Israel on Aaron’s breast-plate; Ex. xxviii. 21. Let them be so on thine. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee, Ps. cxxii. 6.

THE END

SINS AND SORROWS

SPREAD

BEFORE GOD:

A SERMON,

BY THE REV. ISAAC WATTS.

GLASGOW: PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS.

SINS AND SORROWS

SPREAD BEFORE GOD.

JOB xxiii. 3, 4.

Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.

There is such a thing as converse with God in prayer, and it is the life and pleasure of a pious soul; without it we are no Christians; and he that practises it most, is the best follower of Christ, for our Lord spent much time in converse with his heavenly Father. This is the balm that eases the most raging pains of the mind, when the wounded conscience comes to the mercy-seat, and finds pardon and peace there. This is the cordial that revives and exalts our natures, when the spirit, broken with sorrows and almost fainting with death, draws near to the almighty Physician, and is healed and refreshed. The mercy-seat in heaven is our surest and sweetest refuge in every hour of distress and darkness on earth; this is our daily support and relief, while we are passing through a world of temptations and hardships in the way to the promised land. “It is good for us to draw near to God.” Psal. lxxiii. 28.

And yet so much is human nature sunk down and fallen from God, that even his own children are ready to indulge a neglect of converse with him, if their souls are not always upon the watch. But let it be remembered here, that so much as we abate of this divine entertainment among the vanities or amusements of the world, the businesses or burdens of life; so much we lose of the glory and joy of religion, and deprive our souls of the comfort that God invites us to receive.

Job was encompassed with sorrows all around, and his friends had censured him as a vile hypocrite, and a great sinner, because he was so terribly afflicted by the hand of God: whither should he run now but to his heavenly Father, and tell him of all his sufferings?

From the practice of this holy man, I thought we might have sufficient warrant to draw this inference, viz. that when a saint gets near to God in prayer, he tells him all his circumstances, and pleads for help. And this is the doctrine which I am endeavouring now to improve. O if I could but come near him; I would spread all my concerns before his eye, and I would plead with him for relief; I would fill my mouth with arguments.

Four things I proposed in the prosecution of this doctrine.

I. To consider what it is for a soul to get near to God in prayer.

II. What particular subjects doth a soul, thus brought near to the mercy-seat, converse with God about.

III. Why he causes to tell all his circumstances and his sorrows to God, when he is thus near him.

IV. How he pleads for relief.

I. We have already considered what it is for a soul to get near to the seat of God, and what are the usual attendants of such a privilege. At such a season the holy soul will have an awful and adoring sense of the majesty of God, a becoming fear of his terrors, and some sweeter taste of his love. There will be a divine hatred of every sin, and a sensible virtue and influence proceeding from a present God, to resist every temptation; there will be a spiritual and heavenly temper diffusing itself through the whole soul, and all the powers of it; a fixedness of heart without wandering; and a liveliness without tiring; no weariness is felt in the spirit at such a season, even though the flesh may be ready to faint under the overpowering sweetness; then the soul with freedom opens itself before the eye of God, and melts and flows in divine language, whether it complain or rejoice. But I have finished this head, and repeat no more.

II. What are some of the particular circumstances or subjects of complaint, that a saint brings to God when he comes near to him.