Part 13

Then said Christian, "What means this?"

The Interpreter answered, "This is Christ, who continually with the oil of his grace maintains the work already begun in the heart; by the means of which, notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still. 2 Cor. 12: 9. And in that thou sawest that the man stood behind the wall to maintain the fire; this is to teach thee that it is hard for the tempter to see how this work of grace is maintained in the soul."

There is to be seen at the bottom of this holy river, the glory of God. We are saved, saved by grace, saved by grace through the redemption that is in Christ, to the praise and glory of God. And what a good bottom is here. Grace will not fail, Christ has been sufficiently tried, and God will not lose his glory; therefore they that drink of this river, shall doubtless be saved; to wit, they that drink of it with a spiritual appetite to it.

It pleased God, for the glory of his wisdom, to make this the way; to wit, to set up grace to reign. I have often thought, and sometimes said, If God will be pleased with any way, surely he will be pleased with his own. Now this is the way of his own devising, the fruit and effect of his own wisdom. Wherefore, sinner, please him, please him in that wherein he is well pleased; come to the waters, cast thyself into them and fear not drowning; let God alone to cause them to carry thee into his paradise, that thou mayest see his throne.

Let us take notice of the carriage of God to man, and again of man to God, in his conversion.

First, of God's carriage to man. He comes to him while he is in his sins; he comes to him now, not in the heat and fire of his jealousy, but in the cool of the day, in unspeakable gentleness, mercy, pity, and love--not in clothing himself with vengeance, but in a way of entreaty, and meekly beseecheth the sinner to be reconciled unto him. 2 Cor. 5: 19, 20.

It is expected among men, that he who gives the offence, should be the first in seeking peace; but, sinner, betwixt God and man it is not so: not that we loved God, not that we chose God; but God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. God is the first that seeketh peace; and in a way of entreaty, he bids his ministers pray you in Christ's stead: "As if God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God."

O sinner, wilt thou not open? Behold, God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ stand both at the door of thy heart, beseeching there for favor from thee, that thou wilt be reconciled to them; with the promise, if thou wilt comply, to forgive thee all thy sins. O grace, O amazing grace! To see a prince entreat a beggar to receive an alms, would be a strange sight; to see a king entreat the traitor to accept of mercy, would be a stranger sight than that; but to see God entreat a sinner, to hear Christ say, "I stand at the door and knock, with a heart full and a heaven full of grace to bestow upon him that opens;" this is such a sight as dazzles the eyes of angels. What sayest thou now, sinner? Is not this God rich in mercy? hath not this God great love for sinners? Nay, further, that thou mayst not have any ground to think that all this is hut complimenting, there is also here declared, that "God hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." If God would have stuck at any thing, it would have been at the death of his Son; but he delivered him up for us freely: how shall he not then with him freely give us all things?

Let us now come to the carriage of these sinners to God, and that from the first day he begins to deal with their souls, even to the time that they are to be taken up into heaven.

1. And to begin with God's ordinary dealing with sinners: when at first he ministers conviction to them by his word, how strangely do they behave themselves. They love not to have their consciences touched; they like not to ponder upon what they have been, what they are, or what is like to become of them hereafter: such thoughts they count unmanly and hurtful. And now they are for any thing rather than the word: an alehouse, a playhouse, sports, pleasures, sleep, the world, and what not, so they may stave of the power of the word of God.

2. If God now comes up closer to them, and begins to fasten conviction upon the conscience, though such convictions be the first step to faith and repentance, yea, to life eternal, yet what shifts will they have to forget them and wear them off! Yea, although they now begin to see that they must either turn or turn, yet ofttimes they will study to waive a present conversion. They object, they are too young to turn yet; seven years hence is time enough; when they are old, or come upon a sick bed.

O what an enemy is man to his own salvation! I am persuaded that God has visited some of you often with his word, and you have thrown water, as fast as he hath by the word cast fire, upon your conscience.

Christian, what had become of thee, if God had taken thy denial for an answer, and said, "Then will I carry the word of salvation to another, and he will hear it?"

"Sinner, turn!" says God. "Lord, I cannot attend to it," says the sinner. "Turn or burn," says God. "I will venture that," says the sinner. "Turn and be saved," says God. "I cannot leave my pleasures," says the sinner; "sweet sins, sweet pleasures, sweet delights," says the sinner. But what grace is it in God thus to parley with the sinner! O the patience of God to a poor sinner! What if God should now say, "Then get thee to thy sins, get thee to thy delights, get thee to thy pleasures, take them for thy portion; they shall be all thy heaven, all thy happiness, all thy portion?"

3. But God comes again, and shows the sinner the necessity of turning now or not at all; yea, and giveth the sinner this conviction so strongly that he cannot put it if. But behold, the sinner has one spark of enmity still: if he must needs turn now, he will either turn from one sin to another, from great ones to little ones, from many to few, or from all to one, and there stop. But perhaps convictions will not thus leave him. Why, then he will turn from profaneness to the law of Moses, and will dwell as long as God will let him, upon his own seeming goodness. And now observe him, he is a great stickler for legal performance; now he will be a good neighbor, he will pay every man his own, will leave off his swearing, the ale-house, his sports, and carnal delights; he will read, pray, talk of scripture, and be a very busy one in religion, such as it is; now he will please God, and make him amends for all the wrong he has done him, and will feed him with chapters, and prayers, and promises, and vows, and a great many more such dainty dishes as these; persuading himself that now he must be fair for heaven, and thinks besides that he serveth God as well as any man: but all this while he is as ignorant of Christ as the stool he sits on, and no nearer heaven than was the blind Pharisee, only he has got in a cleaner way to hell than the rest of his neighbors are.

Might not God now cast off this sinner, and cast him out of his sight? might he not leave him to his own choice, to be deluded by and to fall in his own righteousness, because he trusts to it and commits iniquity?

But grace, preventing grace preserves him. It is true, this turn of the sinner is a turning short of Christ. But,

4. God in this way of the sinner will mercifully follow him, and show him the shortness of his performances, the emptiness of his duties, and the uncleanness of his righteousness. This I speak of the sinner, the salvation of whose soul is graciously intended and contrived of God; for he shall by gospel light be wearied out of all; he shall be made to see the vanity of all, and that the personal righteousness of Jesus Christ, and that only, is it which of God is ordained to save the sinner from the due reward of his sins. But behold, the sinner now, at the sight and sense of his own nothingness, falleth into a kind of despair; for although he hath it in him to presume of salvation through the delusiveness of his own good opinion of himself, yet he hath it not in himself to have a good opinion of the grace of God in the righteousness of Christ. Wherefore he concludeth that if salvation be alone of the grace of God through the righteousness of Christ, and all of a man's own is utterly rejected as to the justification of his person with God, then he is cast away.

Now, the reason of this sinking of heart is the sight that God has given him--a sight of the uncleanness of his best performance. The former sight of his immoralities did somewhat distress him, and make him betake himself to his own good deeds to ease his conscience; wherefore this was his prop, his stay. But behold, now God has taken this from under him, and now he falls. Wherefore his best doth also now forsake him, and fly away like the morning dew.

Besides, this revelation of the emptiness of his own righteousness brings also with it a further discovery of the naughtiness of his heart, in its hypocrisies, pride, unbelief, hardness of heart, deadness, and backwardness to all gospel obedience; which sight of himself lies like millstones upon his shoulders, and sinks him yet further into doubts and fears of damnation. For bid him now receive Christ; he answers, he cannot, he dares not. Ask him why he cannot; he will answer, he has no faith nor hope in his heart. Tell him that grace is offered him freely; he says, "But I have no heart to receive it." Besides, he finds not, as he thinks, any gracious disposition in his soul, and therefore concludes he does not belong to God's mercy, nor has an interest in the blood of Christ, and therefore dares not presume to believe. Wherefore he sinks in his heart, he dies in his thoughts, he doubts, he despairs, and concludes he shall never be saved.

5. But behold, the God of all grace leaves him not in this distress, but comes up now to him closer than ever; he sends the Spirit of adoption, the blessed Comforter, to him to tell him God is love, and therefore not willing to reject the broken in heart; bids him cry and pray for an evidence of mercy to his soul, and says, "Peradventure you may be hid in the day of the Lord's anger."

At this the sinner takes some encouragement; yet he can get no more than that which will hang upon a mere probability, which, by the next doubt that ariseth in the heart, is blown quite away, and the soul left again in its first plight, or worse; where he lamentably bewails his miserable state, and is tormented with a thousand fears of perishing; for he hears not a word from heaven, perhaps for several weeks together. Wherefore unbelief begins to get the mastery of him, and takes off the very edge and spirit, of prayer, and inclination to hear the word any longer; yea, the devil also claps in with these thoughts, saying, "All your prayers, and hearing, and reading, and godly company, which you frequent, will rise up in judgment against you at last; therefore better it is, if you must be damned, to choose as easy a place in hell as you can."

The soul at this being quite discouraged, thinks to do as it has been taught, and with dying thoughts it begins to faint when it goes to prayer or to hear the word. But behold, when all hope seems to be quite gone, and the soul concludes, "I die, I perish," in comes on a sudden the Spirit of God again, with some good word of God which the soul never thought of before; which word of God commands a calm in the soul, makes unbelief give place, encourages to hope and wait upon God again: perhaps it gives some little sight of Christ to the soul, and of his blessed undertaking for sinners.

But behold, so soon as the power of things again begins to wear off the heart, the sinner gives place to unbelief, questions God's mercy, and fears damning again. He also entertains hard thoughts of God and Christ, and thinks former encouragements were fancies, delusions, or mere think-sos.

And why doth not God now cast the sinner to hell, for thus abusing his mercy and grace? O no: "He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he will have compassion on whom he will have compassion;" wherefore goodness and mercy shall follow him all the days of his life, that he may dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

6. God, therefore, after all these provocations, comes by his Spirit to the soul again, and brings sealing grace and pardon to the conscience, testifying to it that its sins are forgiven and that freely, for the sake of the blood of Christ. And now has the sinner such a sight of the grace of God in Christ, as kindly breaks his heart with joy and comfort. Now the soul knows what it is to eat promises; it also knows what it is to eat and drink the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ by faith; now it is driven by the power of his grace to its knees, to thank God for forgiveness of sins and for hopes of an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith which is in Christ; now it has a calm and a sunshine; now "he washes his steps with butter, and the rock pours him out rivers of oil."

7. But after this, perhaps the soul grows cold again; it also forgets the grace received, and waxes carnal; begins again to hanker after the world; loseth the life and savor of heavenly things; grieves the Spirit of God; wofully backslides; casteth off closet duties quite, or else retains only the formality of them; is a reproach to religion, and grieves the heart of them that are awake and tender of God's name.

But what will God now do? Will he take this advantage to destroy the sinner? No. Will he let him alone in his apostasy? No. Will he leave him to recover himself by the strength of his now languishing grace? No. What then? Why, he will seek this man out till he finds him, and bring him home to himself again: "For thus saith the Lord God, Behold I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out, as a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among the sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered. I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away; I will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick." Ezek. 34:11-16.