many things in order to it, and which have a remote tendency to it, which he doth not do; and fo he perisheth not, though he cannot, but because he will not.

Divers things may be done by poor finners with their own hearts, which are not done; and though in themselves they are infufficient, yet being the way and method in and by which the Spirit of God ufually works, we are bound to do them. As for example, (1.) Though it be not in your power to open your hearts to Chrift, yet it is in your power to forbear the external acts of fin, which faften your hearts the more against Chrift; who forces thine hands to steal, thy tongue to fwear or lie? Who forces the cup of excess down your throat? (2.) Though you cannot open your hearts under the word, yet it is in your power to wait and attend upon the external duties and ordinances of the gofpel: why cannot those feet carry thee to the affemblies of the faints, as well as to an ale-house? (3.) And though you cannot let the word effectually into your hearts, yet cer tainly you can apply your minds with more attention and confideration to it than you do. Who forces thine eyes to wander, or closes them with fleep, when the awful matters of eternal Hife and death are founding in thine ears? (4.) Though you can. not open your hearts to embrace Chrift, yet certainly you can reflect upon yourselves when the obvious characters of a Christ. lefs ftate are plainly held forth before your eyes: God hath giv en you a felf-reflecting power; "The fpirit of man knoweth "the things of a man," 1 Cor. ii. 11. When you hear of convictions of fin, compunction of heart for fin, deep concernments of the foul about its eternal ftate, hungerings and thirstings after Chrift, restless and anxious days and nights about falvation, others have felt; you can certainly turn in upon yourfelves, and examine whether ever it were fo with you: and if not, methinks it were not hard to aggravate your own misery, to take your poor fouls afide, and bemoan them, faying, ah my my poor foul, canft thou endure everlasting burnings? What will become of thee if Chrift pafs thee by, and his spirit strive no more with thee? Why cannot you throw yourselves at the feet of God, and cry for mercy? Prayer is a part of natural worship, distress ufually puts men upon it that yet have no grace, Jonah i. 5. Do but this towards the opening and faving of your own fouls, which though it be not in itfelf fufficient, nor puts God under any meritorious obligation or neceffity to add the reft; yet it puts you into the way of the spirit. And is not thy foul, finner, worth as much as this comes to? Have you not taken a great deal more pains than this for the trifles of

this world? And will it not be a dreadful aggravation of fin and mifery to all eternity, that you perifhed fo eafily. Do not you fee many striving round about you for Chrift and falvation, whilst you fit ftill with folded arms as if you had nothing to de for another world?" The kingdom of heaven fuffereth vi"olence, and the violent take it by force," Mat. xi. 12.

Why should other mens fouls be dearer to them than yours unto you? What difcouragements have you, which other men have not? Or what encouragements have they, which you have not?

Object. Say not, We have no affurance our pains shall profper, or our strivings be made effectual to converfion; if there were any promife in the gospel that fuch endeavours should be feconded from heaven, and made available to salvation, then we would strive as long as breath and life should laft; but all this may be to no purpose, we may be Christless, and hopeless when all is done.

Sol. But yet remember it is poffible God may blefs these weak endeavours, and come in by his Almighty spirit with them: may, it is highly probable that he will do fo; and is a strong probability nothing with you? Do you use to do no actions about your civil callings without an affurance of fuccefs? When the merchant adventures his life or eftate at fea, is he fure of a good return? Or doth he not adventure upon the mere hopes and probabilities of a gainful voyage? When the husbandman plows his land, empties both his bags and purfe upon it, is he fure of a good harvest? May not a blast come that fhall defeat all his hopes? Yet he ploweth and foweth in hope, and ordina rily God maketh him partake of his hope; but without fuch industry his expectations would be vain. Away then with vain excufes, up and be doing in the use of all appointed means, and the Lord be with you.

Third Ufe for Trial.

Before I difmifs this point, let us try ourselves by it, whether God hath opened our hearts to Chrift, broken thefe bars of ignorance, unbelief, cuftom, prejudice, &c. and the will stand wide open to receive Chrift Jefus the Lord.

This is a folemn ufe, the confequence of it great; O that our faithfulness and seriousness in the trial might be answerable. Try yourselves by these following marks:

Mark 1. If your eyes be not opened to fee fin in its vileness, and Chrift in his glory, fuitablenefs, and neceffity; then fure your hearts were never yet effectually opened by the gospel. I LII

VOL. IV.

confefs mens eyes may be opened to fee fin, and yet their hearts at the fame time fhut up by unbelief against Christ; but no man's heart can be opened to Chrift whilft his eyes are shut: John iv. 40." This is the will of him that fent me, that every "one which feeth the Son and believeth on him, may have "everlasting life." The work of faith is always wrought in the light of conviction; the cure of the heart begins at the eye of the mind, Acts xxvi. 18. " to open their eyes, and turn "them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to "God." God opens mens hearts by fhining into them, 2 Cor. iv. 6. If therefore any man's eyes be ftill blinded with ignorance, prejudice, &c. fo that he apprehends not his own guilt and mifery, nor fees the worth and neceffity of a Saviour; that man's heart is ftill under Satan's lock and bar, fin is fhut in, and Chrift is fhut out of that man's foul.

Mark 2. No heart opens to Chrift by faith, till it be first pricked and wounded by compunction and humiliation; this heart-wounding work is always antecedent to the work of faith. I doubt not but your thoughts forè-run my difcourfe to that famous fcripture, Acts ii. 37. where Peter preaching to those that had crucified Christ, and bringing up his difcourfe close to their confciences, in the application of that fermon, convincing them not only what a horrid and attrocious crime the crucifying the Son of God was in itself; but alfo charging it home upon them," Whom ye have taken, and with wicked hands have "crucified and flain; when they heard this, they were prick"ed at the heart; and cried out, men and brethren, what shall "we do?" Upon this out-cry three thoufand fouls opened in one hour to Chrift. Now confider whether your hearts have been thus pricked and wounded; hath forrow for fin pierced thy foul? Vain finner, that frothy heart of thine must be made to bleed under compunctions for fin, or there will be no room for Chrift in it. Come fouls, it is in vain to flatter yourselves in your own eyes: reflect upon the frames of your hearts, call back the days that are past, and fay, when was the timẻ, and where was the place when thou layeft at the foot of God, fobbing and mourning upon the account of thy fins? Did ever God hear fuch a cry as this from thy foul! Ah Lord, my foul is diftreffed, I roll hither and thither for eafe and comfort, but find none; O the infupportable weight of guilt! O the bitterness of fin! My foul fails under it, Lord undertake for me. I do not fay, the degrees of compunction and humiliation are equal in all converts; neither their fins, nor abilities to bear forrows for them, are equal; but this I fay, thy heart muft ake for fin, or it will

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never open to Chrift; he binds up none but broken hearts, Ifa. xvi. 1.

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Mark 3. If Christ be come into thy heart, then the love and delight of every fin is gone out of thy heart. Chrift and the love of fin cannot dwell together: what Christ said to the foldi ers that apprehended him in the garden, the like he faith to every foul that comes to apprehend him by faith, If you seek me, let these go their way; away with the fin thou most delightest in: Chrift cannot come in- till thefe be gone, Ifa. Iv. 6, 7, 8. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon "while he is near: Let the wicked forfake his way, and the "unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, "for he will abundantly pardon." Here be the terms of your acceptation and falvation plainly laid down, forfake thy ways and thoughts; the way, notes the external acts of fin; and the thoughts, the internal acts, both of contrivance and delight in fin; both these must be forfaken; and that is not all, for this makes up but a negative holiness. Let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy. It is in vain for men to make the door of falvation wider than God hath made it; we cannot bring down Chrift's terms lower than he hath fet them; if we will not come up to them, Chrift, and we must part. And this makes the great struggle, the fharp debate in the fouls of converts. O! it is hard to give up pleafant and profitable lufts; but away you must go, a bill of divorce must be figned for them, or you cannot be espoused to the Lord Jefus. This will be found to be much harder, than to part with all externals for Christ's fake.

Mark 4. No heart can open truly to Chrift, that is not made willing, upon due deliberation, to receive him, with his crofs of fufferings, and his yoke of obedience, Mat. xvi. 24. and xi. 29.

An exception against either of these is an effectual bar to thy union with Chrift; he looks upon that foul as not worthy of him, that puts in fuch an exception, Mat. x. 38. If thou judgeft not Chrift worth all fufferings, all loffes, all reproaches, he judges thee unworthy to bear the name of his disciple. So for the duties of obedience, called his yoke; he that will not receive Chrift's yoke, can never receive his perfon, nor any benefit by his blood.

Mark 5. Every heart that opens fincerely and evangelically to Chrift, opens to him in deep humility, and sense of its emp

tinefs and unworthinefs; all felf-righteoufnefs is given up as dung and drofs: Thus Abraham came unto him, as to one that juftifieth the ungodly, Rom. iv. 5. " Now to him that worketh 66 not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his "faith is counted for righteousnefs." Yea, here is the true way of juftification indeed; where the imputed righteousness of Chrift comes, all felf-righteoufnefs vanishes before it. By him that worketh not, understand not an idle, lazy believer, that takes no care of the duties of obedience; no, no, an idle faith can never be a faving faith: But the meaning is, he worketh not in a law fenfe, to the ends and intentions of the first covenant; to make up a righteousness to himself by his own working, to cover himself with a robe of righteoufnefs of bis own fpinning and weaving, a home-made cloth; no, not a rag of that: Thou must receive Chrift into an empty, naked, unworthy foul, or not receive him at all. Bleffed Paul heartily réjected all his own righteoufnefs, caft down that boufe-idol to the ground, that he might be found in the imputed righteoufnefs of Chrift, Phil. iii. 18. Caft that idal out of door, it stands in the way of a better righteoufaefs. There be divers ways wherein finners maintain their own righteousness to their own ruin: There is a grofs, and a more refined felf-righte oufnefs; the one more palpable, and eafily liable to conviction, the other much harder to be discovered and cured. Afk fome men upon what their hopes of falvation are grounded? and they will tell you, they are just in their dealings with men, and conftant in their prayers to God, that is all, and therefore they doubt not of their falvation: Thus they fubftitute a righteouf nefs of their own, in the room of Christ's blood, and are their own deftroyers by feeking this way to be their own Saviours, But then there is a more refined way of self-righteousness, drest up with fuch pretences of humility, that men are hardly to be convinced of it. I pity many poor fouls upon this account, who ftand off from Chrift, dare not believe because they want fuch and fuch qualifications to fit them for Chrift. O faith one, could I find fo much brokennefs of heart for fin, fo much reformation and power over corruptions, then I could come to Chrift; the meaning of which is this, if I could bring a price in my hand to purchase him, then I fhould be encouraged to go unto him. Here, now, lies horrible pride covered over with a veil of great humility: Poor finner, either come naked and empty-handed, according to Ifa. lv. 1. Rom. iv. 5. or expect a repulse; for Chrift is not the fale, but the gift of God.

Mark 6. Lastly, whatever foul opens favingly to Christ, it

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