Sermon XIX.

Sermon XIX.1 John i. 9, 10.—“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar,”&c.And who will not confess their sin, say you? Who doth not confess sins daily, and, therefore, who is not forgiven and pardoned? But stay, and consider the matter again. Take not this upon your first light apprehensions, which in religion are commonly empty, vain, and superficial, but search the scriptures, and your own hearts that ye may know what confession means. It may be said of that external custom of confession that many of you have, that the Lord hath not required it,—“sacrifices and burnt offerings thou wouldest not.”Some external submissions and confessions, which you take for compensation for sins and offences against God,—these, I say, are but abomination to the Lord, but“a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise,”Psal. li. 16, 17. And,“Lo, I come to do thy will, I delight in it,”Psal. xl. 7, 8. When external profession and confessions are separated from the internal contrition of the heart and godly sorrow for sin, and when both internal contrition and external profession and confession are divided from conformity, or study of conformity to God's will, then they are in no better acceptance with God than those external sacrifices which God rejected, though he had required them, because they were disjoined from the true life of them and spiritual meaning, that is, faith in a mediator, and love to obedience. If confession flow not from some contrition of heart if there be not some inward spring of this kind, the heart, opened and unfolding its very inside before God, breaking in pieces, which makes both pain or sense, and likewise gives the clearer view of the inward parts of the heart, and if it[pg 326]be not joined with affection to God's will and law, earnest love to new obedience, it is but a vain, empty, and counterfeit confession, that denies itself. I suppose, a man that confesses sin which he feels not, or forsakes not, in so doing, he declares that he knows not the nature of sin; he may know that such an action is commonly called sin, and, it may be, is ashamed and censured among men, and therefore he confesseth it; but while he confesseth it without sense or feeling, he declares that he takes it not up as sin, hath not found the vileness and loathsomeness of the nature of it nor beheld it as it is a violation of the most high Lord's laws, and a provocation of his glorious holiness. Did a soul view it thus, as it is represented in God's sight, as it dishonours that glorious Majesty, and hath manifest rebellion in it against him, and as it defiles and pollutes our spirits; he could not, I say, thus look upon it, but he would find some inward soul abhorrence and displeasance at it, and himself too. How monstrous would it make him in his own sight? It could not but affect the heart, and humble it in secret before God; whereas your forced and strained confessions made in public, they are merely taken on then, and proceed from no inward principle. There is no shadow of any soul humiliation, in secret, but as some use to put on sackcloth when they come to make that profession, and put it off when they go out, so you put on a habit of confession in public, and put it off you when you go out of the congregation. To be mourning before the Lord, in your secret retirements,—that you are strangers to. But I wonder how you should thus mock God, that you will not be as serious and real in confessing as in sinning. Will you sin with the whole man, and confess only with the mouth? Will ye not sin with delight, and not confess it with a true sorrow that indeed affects the heart? Now, do you honour God by confessing, when the manner of it declares, that you feel not the bitterness of sin, and conceive not the holiness and righteousness of God, whom you have to do withal? Even so, when you confess sin, which you do not forsake, you in so far declare that you know not sin, what it is you confess, and so, that you have mocked him who will not be mocked; for, what a mockery is it, to confess those faults which we have no solid effectual purpose to reform, to vomit up your sins by confession, that we may with more desire and lust lick up the vomit again, and to pretend to wash, for nothing else, but to return to the puddle, and defile again! My brethren, out of the same fountain comes not bitter water and sweet; James iii. 11. Since that which ordinarily proceeds from you is bitter, unsavoury to God and man, carnal, earthly, and sensual, your ways are a displayed banner against God's will, then lay your account, all your professions and acknowledgments are of the same nature,—they are but a little more sugared over, and their inward nature is not changed, is as unacceptable to God, as your sins are.I would give you some characters out of the text, to discover unto you the vanity and emptiness of your ordinary confessions. The confession of sin must be particular, universal, perpetual, or constant;—particular, I say, for there are many thousands who confess that they are sinners, and yet do not at all confess their sins; for, to confess sins is to confess their own real actual guiltiness, that which they indeed have committed or are inclined to do. So the true and sincere confession of a repenting people is expressed, 1 Kings viii. 38,“What prayer or supplication soever be made by any man, which shall know the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands, then hear thou in heaven, and forgive every man whose heart thou knowest.”Now consider whether or not you be thus acquainted with your own hearts and ways, as to know your particular plague and predominant sin. Are you not rather wholly strangers to yourselves, especially the plague of your hearts? There are few that keep so much as a record or register of their actions done against God's law, or their neglect of his will; and therefore, when you are particularly posed about your sins, or the challenge of sin, you can speak nothing to that, but that you never knew one sin by another; that is, indeed, you never observed your sins, you never knew any sin, but contented yourself with the tradition you received that you were sinners. But if any man be used to reflect upon his own ways,—yet generally, the most part of men are altogether strangers to their hearts,—if they know any evil of themselves it is at most but something done or undone, some commission or omission, but nothing of the inward fountain of sin is discovered. I beseech you, then, do not deceive yourselves with this general acknowledgment that you are sinners,[pg 327]while in the meantime your real particular sins are hid from you, and you cannot choose but hide in a generality from God. Certainly, you are far from forgiveness, and that blessedness of which David speaks, (Psal. xxxii.) for this belongs to the man“that hideth not his sins, in whose heart there is no guile.”And this is the plainness and sincerity of the heart, rightly to discern its own plagues, and unfold them to him. David, no doubt, would at any time have confessed that he was a sinner, but mark how heavy the wrath of God was on him for all that, because he came not to a plain, ingenuous, and humble acknowledgment of his particular sins.“I confessed my sin, and mine iniquity I hid not.”While you confess only in general terms, you confess other's sins rather than yours, but this is it—to descend into our own hearts, and find out our just and true accusation, our real debt, to charge ourselves as narrowly as we can, that he may discharge us fully, and forgive us freely.Next, I say, confession must be universal, that is, of all sin, without partiality or respect to any sin. I doubt if a man can truly repent of any sin, except he in a manner repent of all sin; or truly forsake one sin, except there be a divorcement of the heart from and forsaking of all sin; therefore the apostle saith,“If we confess our sins,”not sin simply, but sins, taking in all the body and collection of them, for it is opposed to that,“if we say we have no sin,”&c. Then there lies a necessity upon us to confess what we have; we have all sin, and so should confess all sins. Now, my meaning is not, that it is absolutely necessary that a soul come to the particular knowledge and acknowledgment of all his sins, whether of ignorance or infirmity, nay, that is not possible, for“who can understand his errors?”saith David,“cleanse thou me from secret sins,”Psal. xix. 12. There are many sins of ignorance, that we know not to be sins, and many escapes of infirmity, that we do not advert to, which otherwise we might know. Now, I do not impose that burden on a soul, to confess every individual sin of that kind; but this certainly must be,—there must be such a discovery of the nature of sin, and the loathsomeness of it in God's sight, and the heinous guilt of it, as may abase and humble the soul in his presence, there must be some distincter and clearer view of the dispositions and lusts of the heart, than men attain generally unto, and, withal, a discovery of the holy and spiritual meaning of God's law, which may unfold a multitude of transgressions, that are hid from the world, and make sin to abound in a man's sight and sense—for when the law enters, sin abounds, and to close up this, as there are many sins now discovered unto such a soul, which lay hid before, the light having shined in upon the darkness, and, above all, the desperate wickedness of the heart is presented, so there is no sin known and discerned, but there is an equal impartial sorrow for it, and indignation against it. As a believer hath respect to all God's commands, and loves to obey them, so the penitent soul hath an impartial hatred of all sin, even the dearest and most beloved idol, and desires unfeignedly to be rid of it. Hence your usual public confessions of sin are wiped out of the number of true and sincere confessions, because you pretend to repent of one sin, and in the meantime, neither do ye know a multitude of other sins that prevail over you, nor do you mourn for them, nor forsake them. Nay, you do not examine yourselves that way, to find out the temper of your hearts, or tenor and course of your ways. You pretend to repent for drunkenness, or such like, and yet you are ordinary cursers, swearers, liars, railers, neglecters of prayer, profaners of the Sabbath, and such like, and these you do not withal mourn for. In sum, he that mourns only for the sin that men censure, knoweth and confesseth no sin sincerely. If you would indeed return unto God from some gross evils, you must be divorced in your affections from all sin.Then this confession should be perpetuated and continued as long as we are in this life, for that is imported by comparing this verse with those it stands between.“If we say we have no sin, if we say at any time, while we are in this life, if we imagine or dream of any such perfection here,”we lie. Now, what should we do then, since sin is always lodging in our mortal bodies, during this time of necessary abode beside an ill neighbour? What should be our exercise? Even this,—confess your sins, confess, I say, as long as you have them, draw out this the length of that. Be continually groaning to him under that body of death, and mourning under your daily infirmities and failings. That stream of corruption runs continually—let[pg 328]the stream of your contrition and confession run as incessantly, and there is another stream of Christ's blood, that runs constantly too, to cleanse you. Now, herein is the discovery of the vanity and deceitfulness of many of your confessions, public and private, the current of them soon dries up, there is no perpetuity or constancy in them, no daily humbling or abasing yourselves, but all that is, is by fits and starts upon some transient convictions or outward censures and rebukes, and thus men quickly cover and bury their sins in oblivion and security and forget what manner of persons they were. They are not under a duly impartial examination of their ways, take notice of nothing but some solemn and gross escapes, and these are but a short time under their view.Now, let me apply a little to the encouragement of poor souls, who being inwardly burdened with the weight of their own guiltiness, exoner themselves by confession in his bosom. As you have two suits, and two desires to him,—one, that your sins may be forgiven, another, that they may be subdued, so he hath two solemn engagements and ties to satisfy you,—one to forgive your sins, and another to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. The soul that is truly penitent, is not only desirous of pardon of sin—that is not the chief or only design of such a soul in application to Christ,—but it is withal to be purified from sin and all unrighteousness, and to have ungodly lusts cleansed away. And herein is the great application of such an one's reality,—it will not suffice or satisfy such an one, to be assured of delivery from wrath and condemnation, but he must likewise be redeemed from sin, that it hath no dominion over him. He desires to be freed from death, that he may have his conscience withal purged“from dead works to serve the living God,”Heb. ix. 14. He would have sin blotted out of an accusing conscience, that it may be purged out of the affections of the heart, and he would have his sins washed away, for this end especially, that he may be washed from his sins, Rev. i. 5. Now, as this is the great desire and design of such a heart, in which there is no guile, to have sin purified and purged out of us as well as pardoned, so there is a special tie and obligation upon God our Father, by promise, not only to pardon sin, but to purge from sin, not only to cover it with the garment of Christ's righteousness, and the breadth of his infinite love but also to cleanse it by his Spirit effectually applying that blood to the purifying of the heart. Now, where God hath bound himself voluntarily, and out of love, do not ye lose him by unbelief, for that will bind you into a prison: but labour to receive those gracious promises, and to take him bound as he offers. Believe, I say that he will both forgive you, and in due time will cleanse your heart from the love and delight of sin. Believe his promise, and engagement by promise to both and this will set a seal to his truth and faithfulness. There is nothing in God to affright a sinner, but his justice, holiness, and righteousness, but unto thee who, in the humble confession of thy sins, fliest into Jesus Christ, that very thing which did discourage thee, may now encourage and embolden thee to come, for“he is just and faithful to forgive sins.”His justice being now satisfied, is engaged that way to forgive, not to punish.Sermon XX.1 John i. 10.—“If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”There is nothing in which religion more consists than in the true and unfeigned knowledge of ourselves. The heathens supposed that sentence, γνωθι σεατον“Know thyself,”descended from heaven. It was indeed the motto of the wisest and most religious amongst them. But certain it is, that the true and sincere understanding of ourselves descends from“the Father of lights,”and is as great a gift as man is capable of, next to the knowledge of God himself. There is nothing more necessary to man, either as a man or as a Christian, either as endowed with reason or professing religion, than that he should be thoroughly acquainted with himself, his own[pg 329]heart, its dispositions, inclinations, and lusts, his ways and actions, that while he travels abroad to other creatures and countries, he may not commit so shameful an absurdity, as to be a stranger at home, where he ought to be best acquainted. Yet how sad is it, that this which is so absolutely needful and universally profitable, should be lying under the manyest difficulties in the attainment of it? So that there is nothing harder, than to bring a man to a perfect understanding of himself:—what a vile, haughty, and base creature he is—how defiled and desperately wicked his nature—how abominable his actions, in a word, what a compound of darkness and wickedness he is—a heap of defiled dust, and a mass of confusion—a sink of impiety and iniquity, even the best of mankind, those of the rarest and most refined extraction, take them at their best estate. Thus they are as sepulchres painted without, and putrified within—outwardly adorned, and within all full of rottenness and corruption,“the imagination of his heart only evil continually.”Now, I say, here is the great business and labour of religion,—to bring a man to the clear discerning of his own nature,—to represent unto him justly his own image, as it is painted in the word of God, and presented in the glass of the law, and so by such a surprising monstrous appearance, to affect his heart to self abhorrency in dust and ashes and to have this representation, however unpleasant, yet most profitable, continually observant to our minds, that we may not forget what manner of persons we are. Truly I may say, if there be a perfection in this estate of imperfection, herein it consists, and if there be any attainment of a Christian, I account this the greatest,—to be truly sensible of himself, and vile in his own eyes.It was the custom of Philip,248king of Macedonia, after he had overcome the famous republic of Greece, to have a young man to salute him first every morning with these words,Philippe homo es,—Philip, thou art a man, to the end that he might be daily minded of his mortality, and the unconstancy of human affairs, lest he should be puffed up with his victory, and this was done before any could have access to speak with him, as if it were to season and prepare him for the actions of the day. But O how much more ought a Christian to train up his own heart and accustom it this way, to be his continual remembrancer of himself, to suggest continually to his mind, and whisper this first into his ear in the morning, and mid day, and evening,—peccator es, thou art a sinner, to hold our own image continually before us, in prayer and praises, in restraints, in liberties of spirit, in religious actions, and in all our ordinary conversation, that it might salt and season all our thoughts, words and deeds, and keep them from that ordinary putrefaction and corruption of pride and self conceit, which maketh all our ointment stink.“If we say we have no sin, we make him a liar.”Why is this repeated again, but to show unto us, even to you Christians who believe in Christ, and are washed in his blood, how hard it is to know ourselves aright? If we speak of the grosser sort of persons, they scarce know any sin, nor the nature and vileness of any that they know, therefore they live in security and peace, and bless themselves in their own hearts, as if they had no sin. For such, I say, I shall only say unto them, that your self deceiving is not so subtile, but it may soon be discerned; your lie is gross, and quickly seen through. But I would turn myself to you Christians, who are in some measure acquainted with yourselves, yet there is something against you from this word. After ye have once got some peace from the challenge of sin, and hope of pardon, you many times fall out of acquaintance with yourselves. Having attained, by the Lord's grace, to some restraint of the more visible outbreakings of sin, you have not that occasion to know yourselves by, and so you remain strangers to your hearts, and fall into better liking with yourselves, than the first sight of yourselves permitted you. Now, my beloved in the Lord, herein you are to be blamed, that you do not rather go to the fountain, and there behold the streams, than only to behold the fountain in the streams. You ought rather, upon the Lord's testimony of man, to believe what is in you, before you find it, and see it breaking out;[pg 330]and keep this character continually in your sight, which will be more powerful to humble you than many outbreakings. I think we should be so well acquainted with our own natures, as to account nothing strange to them that we see abroad, but rather think all the grossness and wickedness of men suitable and correspondent to our spirits,—to that root of bitterness that is in them. The goodness of God in restraining the appearance of that in us, which is within us in reality, should rather increase the sense of our own wickedness, than diminish it in our view.Indeed, self love is that which blinds us, and bemists us in the sight of ourselves. We look upon ourselves through this false medium, and it represents all things more beautiful than they are, and therefore the apostle hath reason to say,“We deceive ourselves, and we make God a liar.”O how much practical self-conceit is there in the application of truth! There are many errors contrary to the truths themselves, and many deceivers and deceived, who spread them, but I believe there are more errors committed by men in the application of truths to their own hearts, than in the contemplation of them, and more self deceiving than deceiving of others. It is strange to think, how sound, and clear, and distinct a man's judgment will be against those evils in others, which yet he seeth not in himself, how many Christians will be able to decipher the nature of some vices, and unbowel the evils of them, and be quick-sighted to espy the least appearance of them in another, and to condemn it, and yet so partial are they in judging themselves,—self-love so purblinds them in this reflection, that they cannot discern that in themselves, which others cannot but discern! How often do men declaim against pride, and covetousness, and self-seeking, and other evils of that kind? They will pour out a flood of eloquence and zeal against them, and yet it is strange they do not advert, that they are accusing themselves, and impannelling themselves in such discourses, though others, it may be, will easily perceive a predominancy of these evils in them.“Who art thou, O man, who judgeth another, and doest the same thing? Canst thou escape God's judgment?”Rom. ii. 1. Consider this, O Christian, that thou mayest learn to turn the edge of all thy censures and convictions against thyself, that thou mayest prevent all men's judgments of thee, in judging thyself all things that men can judge thee, that is, a chief of sinners, that hath the root of all sin in thee, and so thou mayest anticipate the divine judgment too,“for if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged.”Labour thou to know those evils that are incident to thy nature, before others can know them, that is, in the root and fountain, before they come to the fruit and stream, to know sins in the first conceptions of them, before they come to such productions as are visible, and this shall keep thee humble, and preserve thee from much sin, and thou shalt not deceive thyself, nor dishonour God, in making him a liar, but rather set to thy seal to this truth, and his word shall abide in thee.There is a common rule that we have in judging ourselves, by comparing ourselves amongst ourselves, which, as Paul saith,“is not wisdom,”2 Cor. x. 12. When we do not measure ourselves by the perfect rule of God's holy word, but parallel ourselves with other persons, who are still defective from the rule, far further from it than anyone is from another, this is the ordinary method of the judging of self love. We compare with the worst persons, and if we be not so bad as they, we think ourselves good. If not so ignorant as some are, we presume that we know, if not so profane as many, we believe ourselves religious.“Lord, I am not as this publican,”so say many in their hearts,—there is a curser, a swearer, a drunkard, a blind ignorant soul, that neglects prayer in private and public, and upon these ruins of others' sins, they build some better estimation of themselves. But, I pray you, what will that avail you, to be unlike them, if you be more unlike your pattern than they are unlike you? It must be, others will compare with those that are good, but it is with that which is worst in them, and not that which is best. How often do men reckon this way,—here is a good man, here is an eminent person, yet he is such and such, subject to such infirmities, and here self-love flatters itself, and, by flattering, deceives itself. My beloved, let us learn to establish a more perfect rule, which may show all our imperfections. Let our rule ascend, that our hearts may descend in humility. But when our role and pattern descends to men of like infirmities, then our pride and self conceit ascends, and the higher we be that way in our own account, the[pg 331]lower we are indeed, and in God's account, and the lower we be in ourselves we lose nothing by it; for, as God is higher in our account, so we are higher in God's account, according to that standing rule, Matth. xxiii. 12,“Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.”Sermon XXI.1 John ii. 1.—“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,”&c.The gospel is an entire uniform piece, all the parts of it are interwoven through other, and interchangeably knit together, so that there can be no dividing of it any more than of Christ's coat that was without seam. If you have it not altogether by the divine lot, you cannot truly have any part of it, for they are so knit together, that if you disjoin them, you destroy them, and if they cease to be together, they cease altogether to be. I speak this, because there may be pretensions to some abstracted parts of Christianity. One man pretends to faith in Jesus Christ, and persuasion of pardon of sin, and in this there may be some secret glorying arising from that confidence, another may pretend to the study of holiness and obedience, and may endeavour something that way to do known duties, and abstain from gross sins. Now, I say, if the first do not conjoin the study of the second, and if the second do not lay down the first as the foundation, both of them embrace a shadow for the thing itself, because they separate those things that God hath joined, and so can have no being but in men's fancy, when they are not conjoined. He that would pretend to a righteousness of Christ, without him, must withal study to have the righteousness of the law fulfilled within him, and he that endeavours to have holiness within must withal go out of himself, to seek a righteousness without him, whereupon to build his peace and acceptance with God, or else, neither of them hath truly any righteousness without them, to cover them, or holiness within, to cleanse them. Now, here the beloved apostle shows us this divine contexture of the gospel. The great and comprehensive end and design of the gospel is, peace in pardon of sin, and purity from sin.“These things I write unto you, that you sin not,”&c. The gospel is comprised in commands and promises, both make one web, and link in together. The immediate end of the command is,“that we sin not,”nay, but there is another thing always either expressly added, or tacitly understood—“but if any man sin,”that desires not to sin,“we have an advocate with the Father.”So the promise comes in as a subsidiary help to all the precepts. It is annexed to give security to a poor soul from despair, and therefore the apostle teacheth you a blessed art of constructing all the commands and exhortations of the gospel, those of the highest pitch, by supplying the full sense with this happy and seasonable caution or caveat,“but if any man sin,”&c. Doth that command,“Be ye holy as I am holy,”perfect as your heavenly Father, which sounds so much unattainable perfection, and seems to hold forth an inimitable pattern, doth it, I say, discourage thee? Then, use the apostle's art, add this caution to the command, subjoin this sweet exceptive,—“but if any man,”that desires to be holy, and gives himself to this study, fail often, and fall and defile himself with unholiness, let him not despair, but know, that he hath“an advocate with the Father.”If that of Paul's urge thee,“present your bodies a living sacrifice,—and be not conformed to the world,”but transformed, and“glorify God in your bodies and spirits,”which are his, (Rom. xii. 1, 2, 1 Cor. vi. 20,)—and, cleanse yourselves“from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,”(2 Cor. vii. 1,)—and,“walk in the Spirit,”and“walk as children of the light,”&c.,—if these do too rigorously exact upon thee, so as to make thee lose thy peace, and weaken thy heart and hands, learn to make out a full sentence, and fill up the full sense and meaning of the gospel, according as you see it done here. But if any man,—whose inward heart-desires, and chief designs are toward these things, who would think himself happy in holiness and conformity to God, and estimates[pg 332]his blessedness or misery, from his union or separation from God,—“sin”then“we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous,”who hath all that we want, and will not suffer any accusation to fasten upon us, as long as he lives“to make intercession for us.”On the other hand, take a view of the promises of the gospel. Though the immediate and next end of them is to give peace to troubled souls, and settle us in the high point of our acceptance with God, yet certainly they have a further end, even purity from sin, as well as pardon of sin, cleansing from all sin and filthiness as well as covering of filthiness.“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”What things? Consider what goes before, and what follows after, even the publication of the word of life, and eternal life in him, the declaration of our fellowship with God in Christ the offering of the blood of Christ, able to cleanse all sin, the promise of pardon to the penitent, confession of sin,—all these things I write,“that ye sin not,”so that this seems to be the ultimate end and chief design of the gospel, unto which all tends, unto which all work together. The promises are for peace, and peace is for purity, the promises are for faith, and faith is for purifying of the heart, and performing the precepts, so that, all at length returns to this, from whence, while we swerved, all this misery is come upon us. In the beginning it was thus,—man was created to glorify God, by obedience to his blessed will, sin interposeth and marreth the whole frame, and from this hath a flood of misery flowed in upon us. Well, the gospel comes offering a Saviour, and forgiveness in him. Thus peace is purchased, pardon granted, the soul is restored unto its primitive condition and state of subordination to God's will, and so redemption ends where creation began, or rather in a more perfect frame of the same kind. The second Adam builds what the first Adam broke down, and the Son re-creates what the Father in the beginning created, yea, with some addition. In this new edition of mankind, all seems new—“new heavens, and new earth,”and that because the creature that was made old, and defiled with sin, is made new by grace. Now, hence you may learn the second part of this lesson that the apostle teaches us; as ye ought to correct, as it were, precepts of the gospel, by subjoining promises in this manner, so ye ought to direct promises towards the performance of his precepts, as their chief end. Whensoever you read it written,“The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin,”—“If we confess, he is faithful to forgive our sins,”—“God so loved the world that he gave his Son,”—“He that believeth hath everlasting life,”&c.—then make up the entire sense and meaning after this manner,“These things are written that we sin not.”Is there a redemption from wrath published? Is there reconciliation with God preached? And are we beseeched to come and have the benefit of them? Then say, and supply within thine own heart, These things are written, published, and preached, that we may not sin. Look to the furthest end of these things, it is,“that we sin not.”The end of things, the scope of writings, and the purpose of actions, is the very measure of them, and so that is the best interpreter of them. The scope of scripture is by all accounted the very thread that will lead a man right in and out of the labyrinths that are in it. And so it is used as the rule of the interpretation in the parts of it. Now, my beloved in the Lord, take here the scope of the whole scriptures, the mark that all the gospel shoots at,“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”You hear, it is true, of pardon of sin, of delivery from wrath, of not coming into condemnation, of covering offences, of blotting them out as a cloud, all these you read and hear of, but what do they all aim at? If you consider not that attentively you shall no more understand the plain gospel, than you can expound a parable without observing the scope of it. Do you think these have no further aim, than to give you peace, and to secure you from fears and terrors, that you may then walk as you list, and follow the guiding of your own hearts? Nay, if you take it so, you totally mistake it. If you do not read on, and had all these things written to this end,“that ye sin not,”you err, not understanding, or misunderstanding, the scriptures.“These things I write unto you, little children.”To enforce this the more sweetly, he useth this affectionate compellation,“little children,”for in all things affection hath a mighty stroke, almost as much as reason. It is the most suitable way to prevail with the spirit of a man, to deal in love and tenderness with it, it speaks[pg 333]more sweetly, and so can have less resistance, and therefore works more strongly. It is true, another way of terrors threatening, and reproofs, mingled with sharp and heavy words of challenges, may make a great deal of more noise, and yet it hath not such virtue to prevail with a rational soul. The Spirit of the Lord was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still and calm voice which came to Elijah, 1 Kings xix. 11, 12. These suit not the gentle, dove-like disposition of the Spirit; and though they be fit to rend rocks in pieces, yet they cannot truly break hearts, and make them contrite. The sun will make a man sooner part with his cloak than the wind, such is the difference between the warm beams of affection, and the boisterous violence of passions or terror. Now, O that there were such a spirit in them who preach the gospel, such a fatherly affection, that with much pity and compassion they might call sinners from the ways of death! O there is no subject, in which a man may have more room for melting affections, nothing that will admit of such bowels of compassion as this—the multitude of souls posting to destruction, and so blindfolded that they cannot see it! Here the fountain of tears might be opened to run abundantly. The Lord personates a tender hearted father or husband often,“Oh, why will ye die? Ye have broken my heart with your whorish heart. O Jerusalem, how oft would I, but thou wouldst not!”When he, who is not subject to human passions, expresseth himself thus, how much more doth it become us poor creatures to have pity on our fellow-creatures? Should it not press out from us many groans, to see so many perishing, even beside salvation. I wish you would take it so, that the warning you to flee from the wrath to come, is the greatest act of favour and love that can be done to you. It becomes us to be solicitous about you, and declare unto you, that you will meet with destruction in those paths in which you walk; that these ways go down to the chambers of death. O that it might be done with so much feeling compassion of your misery, as the necessity of it requires! But, why do many of you take it so hard to be thus forewarned, and have your danger declared unto you? I guess at the reason of it. You are in a distempter as sick children distempered in a fever, who are not capable of discerning their parents' tender affection, when it crosseth their own inclinations and ways.Sermon XXII.1 John ii. 1.—“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,”, &c.Christ Jesus came by water and by blood, not by water only, but by blood also, and I add, not by blood only but by water also, chap. v. 6. In sin there is the guilt binding over to punishment, and there is the filth or spot that defileth the soul in God's sight. To take away guilt, nothing so fit as blood for there is no punishment beyond blood, therefore saith the apostle,“without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin,”Heb. ix. 22, and for the stain and spot, nothing is so suitable as water, for that is generally appointed for cleansing. And some shadow of this the heathens had, who had their lustrations in water, and their expiations by blood,249but more significantly and plainly, the Jews, who had their purifications[pg 334]by sprinkling of water, (Num. viii. 7.) and expiations by sacrificing of slain beasts. But all these were but evanishing shadows; now the substance is come, Jesus Christ is come in water and blood; in water, to cleanse the spots of the soul, to purify it from all filthiness; and in blood, to satisfy for sin, and remove the punishment. You have both in these words of the apostle, for he labours to set out unto us the true Christ, whole and entire,“these things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”Here is the proper end of the water—and“if any man sin, we have Christ a propitiation for our sins.”Here is the blood—the end of the blood is to save us, the end of the water is that we sin not, since we are saved. He came in the blood of expiation, because we had sinned. He came in the water of sanctification, that we might not sin. His blood speaks peace to the soul, and the water subjoins,“but let them not return to folly.”His blood cries,“behold thou art made whole.”And the water echoes unto it,“sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee,”John v. 14. These two streams of water and blood, which are appointed for purity and pardon, run intermingled all along, and so the proper effects of them are interchangeably attributed to either of them;“he hath washed us in his blood,”(Rev. i. 5; vii. 14.)“and the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin.”Then, certainly, this blood cannot be without water, it is never separated from it. The proper effect of blood is to cover sin; but because the water runs in that channel, and is conveyed by the blood thither, therefore it doth cleanse sin, as well as cover it.“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”This then is the design of the whole gospel, the great and grand design,—to destroy sin, and save the sinner. There is a treaty of peace made with the sinner, and“Christ is the peace-maker.”A tender of life and salvation is made to him, but there is no treaty, no capitulation or composition with sin; out it must go, first out of its dominion, then out of its habitation. It must first lose its power, and then its being in a believer. Yea, this is one of the chief articles of our peace, not only required of us as our duty, that we should destroy that which cannot but destroy us; for, if any man will needs hug and embrace his sins, and cannot part with them, he must needs die in their embracements, because the council of heaven hath irrevocably passed a fatal sentence against sin, as the only thing that in all the creation hath the most perfect opposition to his blessed will, and contrariety to his holy nature,—but also, and especially, as the great stipulation and promise upon his part,“to redeem us from all our iniquities, and purify us to himself, a people zealous of good works;”and not only to redeem us from hell, and deliver us from wrath, Tit. ii. 14. He hath undertaken this great work, to compesce250this mutiny and rebellion that was raised up in the creation by sin, else what peace could be between God and us, as long as his enemy and ours dwelt in our bosom, and we at peace with it.Now, take a short view of these things that are written in the preceding chapter, and you shall see that the harmonious voice of all that is in the gospel, is this,“that we sin not.”Let me say further, as“these things are written that we sin not,”so[pg 335]all things are done“that we sin not.”Take all the whole work of creation, of providence, of redemption,—all of them speak one language,“that we sin not.”“Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge: there is no speech or language where their voice is not heard,”Psalm xix. 2, 3. And, as in that place, their voice proclaims the glory, majesty, and goodness of God, so they, with the same sound, proclaim and declare, that we should not sin against such a God, so great, and so good. All that we see suggests and insinuates this unto our hearts; all that we hear whispers this unto our ears,“that we sin not, that he made us, and not we ourselves, and that we are the very work of his hands.”This speaks our absolute and essential dependence on him, and therefore proclaims with a loud voice, that sin, which would cut off this subordination, and loose from this dependence upon his holy will, is a monstrous, unnatural thing. Take all his mercies towards us, whether general or particular, the transcendent abundance of his infinite goodness in the earth, that river of his riches that runs through it, to water every man, and bring supply to his doors, that infinite variety that is in heaven and earth, and all of them of equal birth-right with man; yet by the law of our Maker, a yoke of subjection and service to man is imposed upon them, so that man is, in a manner, set in the centre of all, to the end, that all the several qualifications and perfections that are in every creature, may concentre and meet together in him, and flow towards him. Look upon all his particular acts of care and favour towards thee, consider his judgments upon the world, upon the nation, or thine own person. Put to thine ear, and hear. This is the joint harmonious melody, this is the proclamation of all,“that we sin not,”that we sin not against so good a God, and so great a God. That were wickedness, this were madness. If he wound, it is“that we sin not:”if he heal again, it is“that we sin not.”Doth he kill? It is“that we sin not!”Doth he make alive? It is for the same end. Doth he shut up and restrain our liberty, either by bondage, or sickness, or other afflictions? Why, he means“that we sin not.”Doth he open again? He means the same thing,“that we sin no more, lest a worse thing befall us.”Doth he make many to fall in battle, and turn the fury of that upon us? The voice of it is, that you who are left behind should“sin no more.”Is there severity towards others, and towards you clemency? O the loud voice of that is,“sin not!”But alas, the result of all is, that which is written, Psal. lxxviii. 32.—“Nevertheless they sinned still.”In the midst of so many concurring testimonies, in the very throng of all the sounds and voices that all the works of God utter, in the very hearing of these, nevertheless to sin still, and not to return and inquire early after God,—this is the plague and judgment of the nation.But let us return to the words,“these things,”&c.“That which is written of the word of life, that which was from the beginning, and was manifested unto us,”that is written“that we sin not:”For, saith this same apostle, chap. iii. 5, 8,“And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin;”yea, for this very purpose, saith he,“that he might destroy the works of the devil.”Now, this is the great business, that drew the Son out of the Father's bosom,—to destroy the arch-enemy and capital rebel, sin, which, as to man, is a work of Satan's, because it first entered in man by the devil's suggestion and counsel. All that misery and ruin, all those works of darkness and death, that Satan had by his malice and policy wrought upon and in poor mankind, Jesus was manifested in the flesh without sin, to destroy and take away sin out of our flesh, and to abolish and destroy Satan's work, which he had builded upon the ruins of God's work, of the image of God, and to repair and renew that first blessed work of God in man, Eph. iv. 23, 24.Now, O how cogent and persuading is this; one so high, come down so low, one dwelling in inaccessible glory, manifested in the flesh, in the infirmity and weakness of it, to this very purpose, to repair the creation, to make up the breaches of it, to destroy sin, and save the sinner! What force is in this to persuade a soul that truly believes it,“not to sin!”For, may he think within himself, shall I save that which Christ came to destroy, shall I entertain and maintain that which he came to take away, and do what in me lies to frustrate the great end of his glorious and wonderful descent from heaven? Shall I join hands, and associate with my lusts, and war for them,“which war against my soul,”and him that would save my soul? Nay, let us[pg 336]conclude, my beloved, within our own hearts,—Is the Word and Prince of life manifested from heaven, and come to mar and unmake that work of Satan, that he may rescue me from under his tyranny? Then God forbid that I should help Satan to build up that which my Saviour is casting down, and to make a prison for myself, and cords to bind me in it for everlasting. Nay, will a believing soul say, rather let me be a worker together with Christ. Though faintly, yet I resolve to wrestle with him, to pull down all the strongholds that Satan keeps in my nature, and so to congratulate and consent to him, who is the avenger and assertor of my liberty.Then consider the greatest end and furthest design of the gospel, how it is inseparably chained and linked into this,“that we sin not.”We are called to fellowship with the Father and the Son, and herein is his glory and our happiness. Now, this proclaims with a loud voice,“that we sin not,”for, what more contrary to that design of union and communion with God, than to sin, which disunites and discommunicates the soul from God. The nature of sin you know, is the transgression of his law, and so it is the very just opposition of the creatures will to the will of him that made it. Now, how do ye imagine that this can consist with true friendship and fellowship, which looseth that conjunction of wills and affections, which is the bond of true friendship, and the ground of fellowship?Idem velle atque idem nolle, hæc demum vera amicitia est.251The conspiracy of our desires and delights in one point with God's, this sweet coincidency makes our communion, and what communion then can there be with God, when that which his soul abhors is your delight, and his delight is not your desire?“What communion hath light with darkness?”Sin is darkness. All sin but especially sin entertained and maintained, sin that hath the full consent of the heart, and carrieth the whole man after it, that is Egyptian darkness, an universal darkness over the soul. This being interposed between God and the soul, breaks off communion, eclipses that soul totally. Therefore, my beloved, if you do believe that you are called unto this high dignity of fellowship with God, and if your souls be stirred with some holy ambition after it, consider that“these things are written that ye sin not.”Consider what baseness is in it, for one that hath such a noble design, as fellowship with the Highest, to debase his soul so far and so low, as to serve sinful and fleshly lusts. There is a vileness and wretchedness in the service of sin, that any soul, truly and nobly principled, cannot but look upon it with indignation, because he can behold nothing but indignity in it.“Shall I who am a ruler,”saith Nehemiah,“shall such a man as I flee? and who is there that being as I am, would flee?”Neh. vi. 11. A Christian hath more reason. Shall such a man as I, who am born again to such a hope, and called to such a high dignity, shall I, who aim and aspire so high as fellowship with God, debase and degrade myself with the vilest servitude? Shall I defile in that puddle again, till my own clothes abhor me, who aim at so pure and so holy a society? Shall I yoke in myself with drunkards, liars, swearers, and other slaves of sin? Shall I rank myself thus, and conform myself to the world, seeing there is a noble and glorious society to incorporate with, the King of kings to converse with daily? Alas, what are these worms that sit on thrones to him? But far more, how base are these companions in iniquity, your pot companions? &c. And what a vile society is it like that of the bottomless pit, where devils are linked together in chains?

Sermon XIX.1 John i. 9, 10.—“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar,”&c.And who will not confess their sin, say you? Who doth not confess sins daily, and, therefore, who is not forgiven and pardoned? But stay, and consider the matter again. Take not this upon your first light apprehensions, which in religion are commonly empty, vain, and superficial, but search the scriptures, and your own hearts that ye may know what confession means. It may be said of that external custom of confession that many of you have, that the Lord hath not required it,—“sacrifices and burnt offerings thou wouldest not.”Some external submissions and confessions, which you take for compensation for sins and offences against God,—these, I say, are but abomination to the Lord, but“a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise,”Psal. li. 16, 17. And,“Lo, I come to do thy will, I delight in it,”Psal. xl. 7, 8. When external profession and confessions are separated from the internal contrition of the heart and godly sorrow for sin, and when both internal contrition and external profession and confession are divided from conformity, or study of conformity to God's will, then they are in no better acceptance with God than those external sacrifices which God rejected, though he had required them, because they were disjoined from the true life of them and spiritual meaning, that is, faith in a mediator, and love to obedience. If confession flow not from some contrition of heart if there be not some inward spring of this kind, the heart, opened and unfolding its very inside before God, breaking in pieces, which makes both pain or sense, and likewise gives the clearer view of the inward parts of the heart, and if it[pg 326]be not joined with affection to God's will and law, earnest love to new obedience, it is but a vain, empty, and counterfeit confession, that denies itself. I suppose, a man that confesses sin which he feels not, or forsakes not, in so doing, he declares that he knows not the nature of sin; he may know that such an action is commonly called sin, and, it may be, is ashamed and censured among men, and therefore he confesseth it; but while he confesseth it without sense or feeling, he declares that he takes it not up as sin, hath not found the vileness and loathsomeness of the nature of it nor beheld it as it is a violation of the most high Lord's laws, and a provocation of his glorious holiness. Did a soul view it thus, as it is represented in God's sight, as it dishonours that glorious Majesty, and hath manifest rebellion in it against him, and as it defiles and pollutes our spirits; he could not, I say, thus look upon it, but he would find some inward soul abhorrence and displeasance at it, and himself too. How monstrous would it make him in his own sight? It could not but affect the heart, and humble it in secret before God; whereas your forced and strained confessions made in public, they are merely taken on then, and proceed from no inward principle. There is no shadow of any soul humiliation, in secret, but as some use to put on sackcloth when they come to make that profession, and put it off when they go out, so you put on a habit of confession in public, and put it off you when you go out of the congregation. To be mourning before the Lord, in your secret retirements,—that you are strangers to. But I wonder how you should thus mock God, that you will not be as serious and real in confessing as in sinning. Will you sin with the whole man, and confess only with the mouth? Will ye not sin with delight, and not confess it with a true sorrow that indeed affects the heart? Now, do you honour God by confessing, when the manner of it declares, that you feel not the bitterness of sin, and conceive not the holiness and righteousness of God, whom you have to do withal? Even so, when you confess sin, which you do not forsake, you in so far declare that you know not sin, what it is you confess, and so, that you have mocked him who will not be mocked; for, what a mockery is it, to confess those faults which we have no solid effectual purpose to reform, to vomit up your sins by confession, that we may with more desire and lust lick up the vomit again, and to pretend to wash, for nothing else, but to return to the puddle, and defile again! My brethren, out of the same fountain comes not bitter water and sweet; James iii. 11. Since that which ordinarily proceeds from you is bitter, unsavoury to God and man, carnal, earthly, and sensual, your ways are a displayed banner against God's will, then lay your account, all your professions and acknowledgments are of the same nature,—they are but a little more sugared over, and their inward nature is not changed, is as unacceptable to God, as your sins are.I would give you some characters out of the text, to discover unto you the vanity and emptiness of your ordinary confessions. The confession of sin must be particular, universal, perpetual, or constant;—particular, I say, for there are many thousands who confess that they are sinners, and yet do not at all confess their sins; for, to confess sins is to confess their own real actual guiltiness, that which they indeed have committed or are inclined to do. So the true and sincere confession of a repenting people is expressed, 1 Kings viii. 38,“What prayer or supplication soever be made by any man, which shall know the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands, then hear thou in heaven, and forgive every man whose heart thou knowest.”Now consider whether or not you be thus acquainted with your own hearts and ways, as to know your particular plague and predominant sin. Are you not rather wholly strangers to yourselves, especially the plague of your hearts? There are few that keep so much as a record or register of their actions done against God's law, or their neglect of his will; and therefore, when you are particularly posed about your sins, or the challenge of sin, you can speak nothing to that, but that you never knew one sin by another; that is, indeed, you never observed your sins, you never knew any sin, but contented yourself with the tradition you received that you were sinners. But if any man be used to reflect upon his own ways,—yet generally, the most part of men are altogether strangers to their hearts,—if they know any evil of themselves it is at most but something done or undone, some commission or omission, but nothing of the inward fountain of sin is discovered. I beseech you, then, do not deceive yourselves with this general acknowledgment that you are sinners,[pg 327]while in the meantime your real particular sins are hid from you, and you cannot choose but hide in a generality from God. Certainly, you are far from forgiveness, and that blessedness of which David speaks, (Psal. xxxii.) for this belongs to the man“that hideth not his sins, in whose heart there is no guile.”And this is the plainness and sincerity of the heart, rightly to discern its own plagues, and unfold them to him. David, no doubt, would at any time have confessed that he was a sinner, but mark how heavy the wrath of God was on him for all that, because he came not to a plain, ingenuous, and humble acknowledgment of his particular sins.“I confessed my sin, and mine iniquity I hid not.”While you confess only in general terms, you confess other's sins rather than yours, but this is it—to descend into our own hearts, and find out our just and true accusation, our real debt, to charge ourselves as narrowly as we can, that he may discharge us fully, and forgive us freely.Next, I say, confession must be universal, that is, of all sin, without partiality or respect to any sin. I doubt if a man can truly repent of any sin, except he in a manner repent of all sin; or truly forsake one sin, except there be a divorcement of the heart from and forsaking of all sin; therefore the apostle saith,“If we confess our sins,”not sin simply, but sins, taking in all the body and collection of them, for it is opposed to that,“if we say we have no sin,”&c. Then there lies a necessity upon us to confess what we have; we have all sin, and so should confess all sins. Now, my meaning is not, that it is absolutely necessary that a soul come to the particular knowledge and acknowledgment of all his sins, whether of ignorance or infirmity, nay, that is not possible, for“who can understand his errors?”saith David,“cleanse thou me from secret sins,”Psal. xix. 12. There are many sins of ignorance, that we know not to be sins, and many escapes of infirmity, that we do not advert to, which otherwise we might know. Now, I do not impose that burden on a soul, to confess every individual sin of that kind; but this certainly must be,—there must be such a discovery of the nature of sin, and the loathsomeness of it in God's sight, and the heinous guilt of it, as may abase and humble the soul in his presence, there must be some distincter and clearer view of the dispositions and lusts of the heart, than men attain generally unto, and, withal, a discovery of the holy and spiritual meaning of God's law, which may unfold a multitude of transgressions, that are hid from the world, and make sin to abound in a man's sight and sense—for when the law enters, sin abounds, and to close up this, as there are many sins now discovered unto such a soul, which lay hid before, the light having shined in upon the darkness, and, above all, the desperate wickedness of the heart is presented, so there is no sin known and discerned, but there is an equal impartial sorrow for it, and indignation against it. As a believer hath respect to all God's commands, and loves to obey them, so the penitent soul hath an impartial hatred of all sin, even the dearest and most beloved idol, and desires unfeignedly to be rid of it. Hence your usual public confessions of sin are wiped out of the number of true and sincere confessions, because you pretend to repent of one sin, and in the meantime, neither do ye know a multitude of other sins that prevail over you, nor do you mourn for them, nor forsake them. Nay, you do not examine yourselves that way, to find out the temper of your hearts, or tenor and course of your ways. You pretend to repent for drunkenness, or such like, and yet you are ordinary cursers, swearers, liars, railers, neglecters of prayer, profaners of the Sabbath, and such like, and these you do not withal mourn for. In sum, he that mourns only for the sin that men censure, knoweth and confesseth no sin sincerely. If you would indeed return unto God from some gross evils, you must be divorced in your affections from all sin.Then this confession should be perpetuated and continued as long as we are in this life, for that is imported by comparing this verse with those it stands between.“If we say we have no sin, if we say at any time, while we are in this life, if we imagine or dream of any such perfection here,”we lie. Now, what should we do then, since sin is always lodging in our mortal bodies, during this time of necessary abode beside an ill neighbour? What should be our exercise? Even this,—confess your sins, confess, I say, as long as you have them, draw out this the length of that. Be continually groaning to him under that body of death, and mourning under your daily infirmities and failings. That stream of corruption runs continually—let[pg 328]the stream of your contrition and confession run as incessantly, and there is another stream of Christ's blood, that runs constantly too, to cleanse you. Now, herein is the discovery of the vanity and deceitfulness of many of your confessions, public and private, the current of them soon dries up, there is no perpetuity or constancy in them, no daily humbling or abasing yourselves, but all that is, is by fits and starts upon some transient convictions or outward censures and rebukes, and thus men quickly cover and bury their sins in oblivion and security and forget what manner of persons they were. They are not under a duly impartial examination of their ways, take notice of nothing but some solemn and gross escapes, and these are but a short time under their view.Now, let me apply a little to the encouragement of poor souls, who being inwardly burdened with the weight of their own guiltiness, exoner themselves by confession in his bosom. As you have two suits, and two desires to him,—one, that your sins may be forgiven, another, that they may be subdued, so he hath two solemn engagements and ties to satisfy you,—one to forgive your sins, and another to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. The soul that is truly penitent, is not only desirous of pardon of sin—that is not the chief or only design of such a soul in application to Christ,—but it is withal to be purified from sin and all unrighteousness, and to have ungodly lusts cleansed away. And herein is the great application of such an one's reality,—it will not suffice or satisfy such an one, to be assured of delivery from wrath and condemnation, but he must likewise be redeemed from sin, that it hath no dominion over him. He desires to be freed from death, that he may have his conscience withal purged“from dead works to serve the living God,”Heb. ix. 14. He would have sin blotted out of an accusing conscience, that it may be purged out of the affections of the heart, and he would have his sins washed away, for this end especially, that he may be washed from his sins, Rev. i. 5. Now, as this is the great desire and design of such a heart, in which there is no guile, to have sin purified and purged out of us as well as pardoned, so there is a special tie and obligation upon God our Father, by promise, not only to pardon sin, but to purge from sin, not only to cover it with the garment of Christ's righteousness, and the breadth of his infinite love but also to cleanse it by his Spirit effectually applying that blood to the purifying of the heart. Now, where God hath bound himself voluntarily, and out of love, do not ye lose him by unbelief, for that will bind you into a prison: but labour to receive those gracious promises, and to take him bound as he offers. Believe, I say that he will both forgive you, and in due time will cleanse your heart from the love and delight of sin. Believe his promise, and engagement by promise to both and this will set a seal to his truth and faithfulness. There is nothing in God to affright a sinner, but his justice, holiness, and righteousness, but unto thee who, in the humble confession of thy sins, fliest into Jesus Christ, that very thing which did discourage thee, may now encourage and embolden thee to come, for“he is just and faithful to forgive sins.”His justice being now satisfied, is engaged that way to forgive, not to punish.Sermon XX.1 John i. 10.—“If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”There is nothing in which religion more consists than in the true and unfeigned knowledge of ourselves. The heathens supposed that sentence, γνωθι σεατον“Know thyself,”descended from heaven. It was indeed the motto of the wisest and most religious amongst them. But certain it is, that the true and sincere understanding of ourselves descends from“the Father of lights,”and is as great a gift as man is capable of, next to the knowledge of God himself. There is nothing more necessary to man, either as a man or as a Christian, either as endowed with reason or professing religion, than that he should be thoroughly acquainted with himself, his own[pg 329]heart, its dispositions, inclinations, and lusts, his ways and actions, that while he travels abroad to other creatures and countries, he may not commit so shameful an absurdity, as to be a stranger at home, where he ought to be best acquainted. Yet how sad is it, that this which is so absolutely needful and universally profitable, should be lying under the manyest difficulties in the attainment of it? So that there is nothing harder, than to bring a man to a perfect understanding of himself:—what a vile, haughty, and base creature he is—how defiled and desperately wicked his nature—how abominable his actions, in a word, what a compound of darkness and wickedness he is—a heap of defiled dust, and a mass of confusion—a sink of impiety and iniquity, even the best of mankind, those of the rarest and most refined extraction, take them at their best estate. Thus they are as sepulchres painted without, and putrified within—outwardly adorned, and within all full of rottenness and corruption,“the imagination of his heart only evil continually.”Now, I say, here is the great business and labour of religion,—to bring a man to the clear discerning of his own nature,—to represent unto him justly his own image, as it is painted in the word of God, and presented in the glass of the law, and so by such a surprising monstrous appearance, to affect his heart to self abhorrency in dust and ashes and to have this representation, however unpleasant, yet most profitable, continually observant to our minds, that we may not forget what manner of persons we are. Truly I may say, if there be a perfection in this estate of imperfection, herein it consists, and if there be any attainment of a Christian, I account this the greatest,—to be truly sensible of himself, and vile in his own eyes.It was the custom of Philip,248king of Macedonia, after he had overcome the famous republic of Greece, to have a young man to salute him first every morning with these words,Philippe homo es,—Philip, thou art a man, to the end that he might be daily minded of his mortality, and the unconstancy of human affairs, lest he should be puffed up with his victory, and this was done before any could have access to speak with him, as if it were to season and prepare him for the actions of the day. But O how much more ought a Christian to train up his own heart and accustom it this way, to be his continual remembrancer of himself, to suggest continually to his mind, and whisper this first into his ear in the morning, and mid day, and evening,—peccator es, thou art a sinner, to hold our own image continually before us, in prayer and praises, in restraints, in liberties of spirit, in religious actions, and in all our ordinary conversation, that it might salt and season all our thoughts, words and deeds, and keep them from that ordinary putrefaction and corruption of pride and self conceit, which maketh all our ointment stink.“If we say we have no sin, we make him a liar.”Why is this repeated again, but to show unto us, even to you Christians who believe in Christ, and are washed in his blood, how hard it is to know ourselves aright? If we speak of the grosser sort of persons, they scarce know any sin, nor the nature and vileness of any that they know, therefore they live in security and peace, and bless themselves in their own hearts, as if they had no sin. For such, I say, I shall only say unto them, that your self deceiving is not so subtile, but it may soon be discerned; your lie is gross, and quickly seen through. But I would turn myself to you Christians, who are in some measure acquainted with yourselves, yet there is something against you from this word. After ye have once got some peace from the challenge of sin, and hope of pardon, you many times fall out of acquaintance with yourselves. Having attained, by the Lord's grace, to some restraint of the more visible outbreakings of sin, you have not that occasion to know yourselves by, and so you remain strangers to your hearts, and fall into better liking with yourselves, than the first sight of yourselves permitted you. Now, my beloved in the Lord, herein you are to be blamed, that you do not rather go to the fountain, and there behold the streams, than only to behold the fountain in the streams. You ought rather, upon the Lord's testimony of man, to believe what is in you, before you find it, and see it breaking out;[pg 330]and keep this character continually in your sight, which will be more powerful to humble you than many outbreakings. I think we should be so well acquainted with our own natures, as to account nothing strange to them that we see abroad, but rather think all the grossness and wickedness of men suitable and correspondent to our spirits,—to that root of bitterness that is in them. The goodness of God in restraining the appearance of that in us, which is within us in reality, should rather increase the sense of our own wickedness, than diminish it in our view.Indeed, self love is that which blinds us, and bemists us in the sight of ourselves. We look upon ourselves through this false medium, and it represents all things more beautiful than they are, and therefore the apostle hath reason to say,“We deceive ourselves, and we make God a liar.”O how much practical self-conceit is there in the application of truth! There are many errors contrary to the truths themselves, and many deceivers and deceived, who spread them, but I believe there are more errors committed by men in the application of truths to their own hearts, than in the contemplation of them, and more self deceiving than deceiving of others. It is strange to think, how sound, and clear, and distinct a man's judgment will be against those evils in others, which yet he seeth not in himself, how many Christians will be able to decipher the nature of some vices, and unbowel the evils of them, and be quick-sighted to espy the least appearance of them in another, and to condemn it, and yet so partial are they in judging themselves,—self-love so purblinds them in this reflection, that they cannot discern that in themselves, which others cannot but discern! How often do men declaim against pride, and covetousness, and self-seeking, and other evils of that kind? They will pour out a flood of eloquence and zeal against them, and yet it is strange they do not advert, that they are accusing themselves, and impannelling themselves in such discourses, though others, it may be, will easily perceive a predominancy of these evils in them.“Who art thou, O man, who judgeth another, and doest the same thing? Canst thou escape God's judgment?”Rom. ii. 1. Consider this, O Christian, that thou mayest learn to turn the edge of all thy censures and convictions against thyself, that thou mayest prevent all men's judgments of thee, in judging thyself all things that men can judge thee, that is, a chief of sinners, that hath the root of all sin in thee, and so thou mayest anticipate the divine judgment too,“for if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged.”Labour thou to know those evils that are incident to thy nature, before others can know them, that is, in the root and fountain, before they come to the fruit and stream, to know sins in the first conceptions of them, before they come to such productions as are visible, and this shall keep thee humble, and preserve thee from much sin, and thou shalt not deceive thyself, nor dishonour God, in making him a liar, but rather set to thy seal to this truth, and his word shall abide in thee.There is a common rule that we have in judging ourselves, by comparing ourselves amongst ourselves, which, as Paul saith,“is not wisdom,”2 Cor. x. 12. When we do not measure ourselves by the perfect rule of God's holy word, but parallel ourselves with other persons, who are still defective from the rule, far further from it than anyone is from another, this is the ordinary method of the judging of self love. We compare with the worst persons, and if we be not so bad as they, we think ourselves good. If not so ignorant as some are, we presume that we know, if not so profane as many, we believe ourselves religious.“Lord, I am not as this publican,”so say many in their hearts,—there is a curser, a swearer, a drunkard, a blind ignorant soul, that neglects prayer in private and public, and upon these ruins of others' sins, they build some better estimation of themselves. But, I pray you, what will that avail you, to be unlike them, if you be more unlike your pattern than they are unlike you? It must be, others will compare with those that are good, but it is with that which is worst in them, and not that which is best. How often do men reckon this way,—here is a good man, here is an eminent person, yet he is such and such, subject to such infirmities, and here self-love flatters itself, and, by flattering, deceives itself. My beloved, let us learn to establish a more perfect rule, which may show all our imperfections. Let our rule ascend, that our hearts may descend in humility. But when our role and pattern descends to men of like infirmities, then our pride and self conceit ascends, and the higher we be that way in our own account, the[pg 331]lower we are indeed, and in God's account, and the lower we be in ourselves we lose nothing by it; for, as God is higher in our account, so we are higher in God's account, according to that standing rule, Matth. xxiii. 12,“Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.”Sermon XXI.1 John ii. 1.—“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,”&c.The gospel is an entire uniform piece, all the parts of it are interwoven through other, and interchangeably knit together, so that there can be no dividing of it any more than of Christ's coat that was without seam. If you have it not altogether by the divine lot, you cannot truly have any part of it, for they are so knit together, that if you disjoin them, you destroy them, and if they cease to be together, they cease altogether to be. I speak this, because there may be pretensions to some abstracted parts of Christianity. One man pretends to faith in Jesus Christ, and persuasion of pardon of sin, and in this there may be some secret glorying arising from that confidence, another may pretend to the study of holiness and obedience, and may endeavour something that way to do known duties, and abstain from gross sins. Now, I say, if the first do not conjoin the study of the second, and if the second do not lay down the first as the foundation, both of them embrace a shadow for the thing itself, because they separate those things that God hath joined, and so can have no being but in men's fancy, when they are not conjoined. He that would pretend to a righteousness of Christ, without him, must withal study to have the righteousness of the law fulfilled within him, and he that endeavours to have holiness within must withal go out of himself, to seek a righteousness without him, whereupon to build his peace and acceptance with God, or else, neither of them hath truly any righteousness without them, to cover them, or holiness within, to cleanse them. Now, here the beloved apostle shows us this divine contexture of the gospel. The great and comprehensive end and design of the gospel is, peace in pardon of sin, and purity from sin.“These things I write unto you, that you sin not,”&c. The gospel is comprised in commands and promises, both make one web, and link in together. The immediate end of the command is,“that we sin not,”nay, but there is another thing always either expressly added, or tacitly understood—“but if any man sin,”that desires not to sin,“we have an advocate with the Father.”So the promise comes in as a subsidiary help to all the precepts. It is annexed to give security to a poor soul from despair, and therefore the apostle teacheth you a blessed art of constructing all the commands and exhortations of the gospel, those of the highest pitch, by supplying the full sense with this happy and seasonable caution or caveat,“but if any man sin,”&c. Doth that command,“Be ye holy as I am holy,”perfect as your heavenly Father, which sounds so much unattainable perfection, and seems to hold forth an inimitable pattern, doth it, I say, discourage thee? Then, use the apostle's art, add this caution to the command, subjoin this sweet exceptive,—“but if any man,”that desires to be holy, and gives himself to this study, fail often, and fall and defile himself with unholiness, let him not despair, but know, that he hath“an advocate with the Father.”If that of Paul's urge thee,“present your bodies a living sacrifice,—and be not conformed to the world,”but transformed, and“glorify God in your bodies and spirits,”which are his, (Rom. xii. 1, 2, 1 Cor. vi. 20,)—and, cleanse yourselves“from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,”(2 Cor. vii. 1,)—and,“walk in the Spirit,”and“walk as children of the light,”&c.,—if these do too rigorously exact upon thee, so as to make thee lose thy peace, and weaken thy heart and hands, learn to make out a full sentence, and fill up the full sense and meaning of the gospel, according as you see it done here. But if any man,—whose inward heart-desires, and chief designs are toward these things, who would think himself happy in holiness and conformity to God, and estimates[pg 332]his blessedness or misery, from his union or separation from God,—“sin”then“we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous,”who hath all that we want, and will not suffer any accusation to fasten upon us, as long as he lives“to make intercession for us.”On the other hand, take a view of the promises of the gospel. Though the immediate and next end of them is to give peace to troubled souls, and settle us in the high point of our acceptance with God, yet certainly they have a further end, even purity from sin, as well as pardon of sin, cleansing from all sin and filthiness as well as covering of filthiness.“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”What things? Consider what goes before, and what follows after, even the publication of the word of life, and eternal life in him, the declaration of our fellowship with God in Christ the offering of the blood of Christ, able to cleanse all sin, the promise of pardon to the penitent, confession of sin,—all these things I write,“that ye sin not,”so that this seems to be the ultimate end and chief design of the gospel, unto which all tends, unto which all work together. The promises are for peace, and peace is for purity, the promises are for faith, and faith is for purifying of the heart, and performing the precepts, so that, all at length returns to this, from whence, while we swerved, all this misery is come upon us. In the beginning it was thus,—man was created to glorify God, by obedience to his blessed will, sin interposeth and marreth the whole frame, and from this hath a flood of misery flowed in upon us. Well, the gospel comes offering a Saviour, and forgiveness in him. Thus peace is purchased, pardon granted, the soul is restored unto its primitive condition and state of subordination to God's will, and so redemption ends where creation began, or rather in a more perfect frame of the same kind. The second Adam builds what the first Adam broke down, and the Son re-creates what the Father in the beginning created, yea, with some addition. In this new edition of mankind, all seems new—“new heavens, and new earth,”and that because the creature that was made old, and defiled with sin, is made new by grace. Now, hence you may learn the second part of this lesson that the apostle teaches us; as ye ought to correct, as it were, precepts of the gospel, by subjoining promises in this manner, so ye ought to direct promises towards the performance of his precepts, as their chief end. Whensoever you read it written,“The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin,”—“If we confess, he is faithful to forgive our sins,”—“God so loved the world that he gave his Son,”—“He that believeth hath everlasting life,”&c.—then make up the entire sense and meaning after this manner,“These things are written that we sin not.”Is there a redemption from wrath published? Is there reconciliation with God preached? And are we beseeched to come and have the benefit of them? Then say, and supply within thine own heart, These things are written, published, and preached, that we may not sin. Look to the furthest end of these things, it is,“that we sin not.”The end of things, the scope of writings, and the purpose of actions, is the very measure of them, and so that is the best interpreter of them. The scope of scripture is by all accounted the very thread that will lead a man right in and out of the labyrinths that are in it. And so it is used as the rule of the interpretation in the parts of it. Now, my beloved in the Lord, take here the scope of the whole scriptures, the mark that all the gospel shoots at,“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”You hear, it is true, of pardon of sin, of delivery from wrath, of not coming into condemnation, of covering offences, of blotting them out as a cloud, all these you read and hear of, but what do they all aim at? If you consider not that attentively you shall no more understand the plain gospel, than you can expound a parable without observing the scope of it. Do you think these have no further aim, than to give you peace, and to secure you from fears and terrors, that you may then walk as you list, and follow the guiding of your own hearts? Nay, if you take it so, you totally mistake it. If you do not read on, and had all these things written to this end,“that ye sin not,”you err, not understanding, or misunderstanding, the scriptures.“These things I write unto you, little children.”To enforce this the more sweetly, he useth this affectionate compellation,“little children,”for in all things affection hath a mighty stroke, almost as much as reason. It is the most suitable way to prevail with the spirit of a man, to deal in love and tenderness with it, it speaks[pg 333]more sweetly, and so can have less resistance, and therefore works more strongly. It is true, another way of terrors threatening, and reproofs, mingled with sharp and heavy words of challenges, may make a great deal of more noise, and yet it hath not such virtue to prevail with a rational soul. The Spirit of the Lord was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still and calm voice which came to Elijah, 1 Kings xix. 11, 12. These suit not the gentle, dove-like disposition of the Spirit; and though they be fit to rend rocks in pieces, yet they cannot truly break hearts, and make them contrite. The sun will make a man sooner part with his cloak than the wind, such is the difference between the warm beams of affection, and the boisterous violence of passions or terror. Now, O that there were such a spirit in them who preach the gospel, such a fatherly affection, that with much pity and compassion they might call sinners from the ways of death! O there is no subject, in which a man may have more room for melting affections, nothing that will admit of such bowels of compassion as this—the multitude of souls posting to destruction, and so blindfolded that they cannot see it! Here the fountain of tears might be opened to run abundantly. The Lord personates a tender hearted father or husband often,“Oh, why will ye die? Ye have broken my heart with your whorish heart. O Jerusalem, how oft would I, but thou wouldst not!”When he, who is not subject to human passions, expresseth himself thus, how much more doth it become us poor creatures to have pity on our fellow-creatures? Should it not press out from us many groans, to see so many perishing, even beside salvation. I wish you would take it so, that the warning you to flee from the wrath to come, is the greatest act of favour and love that can be done to you. It becomes us to be solicitous about you, and declare unto you, that you will meet with destruction in those paths in which you walk; that these ways go down to the chambers of death. O that it might be done with so much feeling compassion of your misery, as the necessity of it requires! But, why do many of you take it so hard to be thus forewarned, and have your danger declared unto you? I guess at the reason of it. You are in a distempter as sick children distempered in a fever, who are not capable of discerning their parents' tender affection, when it crosseth their own inclinations and ways.Sermon XXII.1 John ii. 1.—“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,”, &c.Christ Jesus came by water and by blood, not by water only, but by blood also, and I add, not by blood only but by water also, chap. v. 6. In sin there is the guilt binding over to punishment, and there is the filth or spot that defileth the soul in God's sight. To take away guilt, nothing so fit as blood for there is no punishment beyond blood, therefore saith the apostle,“without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin,”Heb. ix. 22, and for the stain and spot, nothing is so suitable as water, for that is generally appointed for cleansing. And some shadow of this the heathens had, who had their lustrations in water, and their expiations by blood,249but more significantly and plainly, the Jews, who had their purifications[pg 334]by sprinkling of water, (Num. viii. 7.) and expiations by sacrificing of slain beasts. But all these were but evanishing shadows; now the substance is come, Jesus Christ is come in water and blood; in water, to cleanse the spots of the soul, to purify it from all filthiness; and in blood, to satisfy for sin, and remove the punishment. You have both in these words of the apostle, for he labours to set out unto us the true Christ, whole and entire,“these things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”Here is the proper end of the water—and“if any man sin, we have Christ a propitiation for our sins.”Here is the blood—the end of the blood is to save us, the end of the water is that we sin not, since we are saved. He came in the blood of expiation, because we had sinned. He came in the water of sanctification, that we might not sin. His blood speaks peace to the soul, and the water subjoins,“but let them not return to folly.”His blood cries,“behold thou art made whole.”And the water echoes unto it,“sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee,”John v. 14. These two streams of water and blood, which are appointed for purity and pardon, run intermingled all along, and so the proper effects of them are interchangeably attributed to either of them;“he hath washed us in his blood,”(Rev. i. 5; vii. 14.)“and the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin.”Then, certainly, this blood cannot be without water, it is never separated from it. The proper effect of blood is to cover sin; but because the water runs in that channel, and is conveyed by the blood thither, therefore it doth cleanse sin, as well as cover it.“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”This then is the design of the whole gospel, the great and grand design,—to destroy sin, and save the sinner. There is a treaty of peace made with the sinner, and“Christ is the peace-maker.”A tender of life and salvation is made to him, but there is no treaty, no capitulation or composition with sin; out it must go, first out of its dominion, then out of its habitation. It must first lose its power, and then its being in a believer. Yea, this is one of the chief articles of our peace, not only required of us as our duty, that we should destroy that which cannot but destroy us; for, if any man will needs hug and embrace his sins, and cannot part with them, he must needs die in their embracements, because the council of heaven hath irrevocably passed a fatal sentence against sin, as the only thing that in all the creation hath the most perfect opposition to his blessed will, and contrariety to his holy nature,—but also, and especially, as the great stipulation and promise upon his part,“to redeem us from all our iniquities, and purify us to himself, a people zealous of good works;”and not only to redeem us from hell, and deliver us from wrath, Tit. ii. 14. He hath undertaken this great work, to compesce250this mutiny and rebellion that was raised up in the creation by sin, else what peace could be between God and us, as long as his enemy and ours dwelt in our bosom, and we at peace with it.Now, take a short view of these things that are written in the preceding chapter, and you shall see that the harmonious voice of all that is in the gospel, is this,“that we sin not.”Let me say further, as“these things are written that we sin not,”so[pg 335]all things are done“that we sin not.”Take all the whole work of creation, of providence, of redemption,—all of them speak one language,“that we sin not.”“Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge: there is no speech or language where their voice is not heard,”Psalm xix. 2, 3. And, as in that place, their voice proclaims the glory, majesty, and goodness of God, so they, with the same sound, proclaim and declare, that we should not sin against such a God, so great, and so good. All that we see suggests and insinuates this unto our hearts; all that we hear whispers this unto our ears,“that we sin not, that he made us, and not we ourselves, and that we are the very work of his hands.”This speaks our absolute and essential dependence on him, and therefore proclaims with a loud voice, that sin, which would cut off this subordination, and loose from this dependence upon his holy will, is a monstrous, unnatural thing. Take all his mercies towards us, whether general or particular, the transcendent abundance of his infinite goodness in the earth, that river of his riches that runs through it, to water every man, and bring supply to his doors, that infinite variety that is in heaven and earth, and all of them of equal birth-right with man; yet by the law of our Maker, a yoke of subjection and service to man is imposed upon them, so that man is, in a manner, set in the centre of all, to the end, that all the several qualifications and perfections that are in every creature, may concentre and meet together in him, and flow towards him. Look upon all his particular acts of care and favour towards thee, consider his judgments upon the world, upon the nation, or thine own person. Put to thine ear, and hear. This is the joint harmonious melody, this is the proclamation of all,“that we sin not,”that we sin not against so good a God, and so great a God. That were wickedness, this were madness. If he wound, it is“that we sin not:”if he heal again, it is“that we sin not.”Doth he kill? It is“that we sin not!”Doth he make alive? It is for the same end. Doth he shut up and restrain our liberty, either by bondage, or sickness, or other afflictions? Why, he means“that we sin not.”Doth he open again? He means the same thing,“that we sin no more, lest a worse thing befall us.”Doth he make many to fall in battle, and turn the fury of that upon us? The voice of it is, that you who are left behind should“sin no more.”Is there severity towards others, and towards you clemency? O the loud voice of that is,“sin not!”But alas, the result of all is, that which is written, Psal. lxxviii. 32.—“Nevertheless they sinned still.”In the midst of so many concurring testimonies, in the very throng of all the sounds and voices that all the works of God utter, in the very hearing of these, nevertheless to sin still, and not to return and inquire early after God,—this is the plague and judgment of the nation.But let us return to the words,“these things,”&c.“That which is written of the word of life, that which was from the beginning, and was manifested unto us,”that is written“that we sin not:”For, saith this same apostle, chap. iii. 5, 8,“And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin;”yea, for this very purpose, saith he,“that he might destroy the works of the devil.”Now, this is the great business, that drew the Son out of the Father's bosom,—to destroy the arch-enemy and capital rebel, sin, which, as to man, is a work of Satan's, because it first entered in man by the devil's suggestion and counsel. All that misery and ruin, all those works of darkness and death, that Satan had by his malice and policy wrought upon and in poor mankind, Jesus was manifested in the flesh without sin, to destroy and take away sin out of our flesh, and to abolish and destroy Satan's work, which he had builded upon the ruins of God's work, of the image of God, and to repair and renew that first blessed work of God in man, Eph. iv. 23, 24.Now, O how cogent and persuading is this; one so high, come down so low, one dwelling in inaccessible glory, manifested in the flesh, in the infirmity and weakness of it, to this very purpose, to repair the creation, to make up the breaches of it, to destroy sin, and save the sinner! What force is in this to persuade a soul that truly believes it,“not to sin!”For, may he think within himself, shall I save that which Christ came to destroy, shall I entertain and maintain that which he came to take away, and do what in me lies to frustrate the great end of his glorious and wonderful descent from heaven? Shall I join hands, and associate with my lusts, and war for them,“which war against my soul,”and him that would save my soul? Nay, let us[pg 336]conclude, my beloved, within our own hearts,—Is the Word and Prince of life manifested from heaven, and come to mar and unmake that work of Satan, that he may rescue me from under his tyranny? Then God forbid that I should help Satan to build up that which my Saviour is casting down, and to make a prison for myself, and cords to bind me in it for everlasting. Nay, will a believing soul say, rather let me be a worker together with Christ. Though faintly, yet I resolve to wrestle with him, to pull down all the strongholds that Satan keeps in my nature, and so to congratulate and consent to him, who is the avenger and assertor of my liberty.Then consider the greatest end and furthest design of the gospel, how it is inseparably chained and linked into this,“that we sin not.”We are called to fellowship with the Father and the Son, and herein is his glory and our happiness. Now, this proclaims with a loud voice,“that we sin not,”for, what more contrary to that design of union and communion with God, than to sin, which disunites and discommunicates the soul from God. The nature of sin you know, is the transgression of his law, and so it is the very just opposition of the creatures will to the will of him that made it. Now, how do ye imagine that this can consist with true friendship and fellowship, which looseth that conjunction of wills and affections, which is the bond of true friendship, and the ground of fellowship?Idem velle atque idem nolle, hæc demum vera amicitia est.251The conspiracy of our desires and delights in one point with God's, this sweet coincidency makes our communion, and what communion then can there be with God, when that which his soul abhors is your delight, and his delight is not your desire?“What communion hath light with darkness?”Sin is darkness. All sin but especially sin entertained and maintained, sin that hath the full consent of the heart, and carrieth the whole man after it, that is Egyptian darkness, an universal darkness over the soul. This being interposed between God and the soul, breaks off communion, eclipses that soul totally. Therefore, my beloved, if you do believe that you are called unto this high dignity of fellowship with God, and if your souls be stirred with some holy ambition after it, consider that“these things are written that ye sin not.”Consider what baseness is in it, for one that hath such a noble design, as fellowship with the Highest, to debase his soul so far and so low, as to serve sinful and fleshly lusts. There is a vileness and wretchedness in the service of sin, that any soul, truly and nobly principled, cannot but look upon it with indignation, because he can behold nothing but indignity in it.“Shall I who am a ruler,”saith Nehemiah,“shall such a man as I flee? and who is there that being as I am, would flee?”Neh. vi. 11. A Christian hath more reason. Shall such a man as I, who am born again to such a hope, and called to such a high dignity, shall I, who aim and aspire so high as fellowship with God, debase and degrade myself with the vilest servitude? Shall I defile in that puddle again, till my own clothes abhor me, who aim at so pure and so holy a society? Shall I yoke in myself with drunkards, liars, swearers, and other slaves of sin? Shall I rank myself thus, and conform myself to the world, seeing there is a noble and glorious society to incorporate with, the King of kings to converse with daily? Alas, what are these worms that sit on thrones to him? But far more, how base are these companions in iniquity, your pot companions? &c. And what a vile society is it like that of the bottomless pit, where devils are linked together in chains?

Sermon XIX.1 John i. 9, 10.—“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar,”&c.And who will not confess their sin, say you? Who doth not confess sins daily, and, therefore, who is not forgiven and pardoned? But stay, and consider the matter again. Take not this upon your first light apprehensions, which in religion are commonly empty, vain, and superficial, but search the scriptures, and your own hearts that ye may know what confession means. It may be said of that external custom of confession that many of you have, that the Lord hath not required it,—“sacrifices and burnt offerings thou wouldest not.”Some external submissions and confessions, which you take for compensation for sins and offences against God,—these, I say, are but abomination to the Lord, but“a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise,”Psal. li. 16, 17. And,“Lo, I come to do thy will, I delight in it,”Psal. xl. 7, 8. When external profession and confessions are separated from the internal contrition of the heart and godly sorrow for sin, and when both internal contrition and external profession and confession are divided from conformity, or study of conformity to God's will, then they are in no better acceptance with God than those external sacrifices which God rejected, though he had required them, because they were disjoined from the true life of them and spiritual meaning, that is, faith in a mediator, and love to obedience. If confession flow not from some contrition of heart if there be not some inward spring of this kind, the heart, opened and unfolding its very inside before God, breaking in pieces, which makes both pain or sense, and likewise gives the clearer view of the inward parts of the heart, and if it[pg 326]be not joined with affection to God's will and law, earnest love to new obedience, it is but a vain, empty, and counterfeit confession, that denies itself. I suppose, a man that confesses sin which he feels not, or forsakes not, in so doing, he declares that he knows not the nature of sin; he may know that such an action is commonly called sin, and, it may be, is ashamed and censured among men, and therefore he confesseth it; but while he confesseth it without sense or feeling, he declares that he takes it not up as sin, hath not found the vileness and loathsomeness of the nature of it nor beheld it as it is a violation of the most high Lord's laws, and a provocation of his glorious holiness. Did a soul view it thus, as it is represented in God's sight, as it dishonours that glorious Majesty, and hath manifest rebellion in it against him, and as it defiles and pollutes our spirits; he could not, I say, thus look upon it, but he would find some inward soul abhorrence and displeasance at it, and himself too. How monstrous would it make him in his own sight? It could not but affect the heart, and humble it in secret before God; whereas your forced and strained confessions made in public, they are merely taken on then, and proceed from no inward principle. There is no shadow of any soul humiliation, in secret, but as some use to put on sackcloth when they come to make that profession, and put it off when they go out, so you put on a habit of confession in public, and put it off you when you go out of the congregation. To be mourning before the Lord, in your secret retirements,—that you are strangers to. But I wonder how you should thus mock God, that you will not be as serious and real in confessing as in sinning. Will you sin with the whole man, and confess only with the mouth? Will ye not sin with delight, and not confess it with a true sorrow that indeed affects the heart? Now, do you honour God by confessing, when the manner of it declares, that you feel not the bitterness of sin, and conceive not the holiness and righteousness of God, whom you have to do withal? Even so, when you confess sin, which you do not forsake, you in so far declare that you know not sin, what it is you confess, and so, that you have mocked him who will not be mocked; for, what a mockery is it, to confess those faults which we have no solid effectual purpose to reform, to vomit up your sins by confession, that we may with more desire and lust lick up the vomit again, and to pretend to wash, for nothing else, but to return to the puddle, and defile again! My brethren, out of the same fountain comes not bitter water and sweet; James iii. 11. Since that which ordinarily proceeds from you is bitter, unsavoury to God and man, carnal, earthly, and sensual, your ways are a displayed banner against God's will, then lay your account, all your professions and acknowledgments are of the same nature,—they are but a little more sugared over, and their inward nature is not changed, is as unacceptable to God, as your sins are.I would give you some characters out of the text, to discover unto you the vanity and emptiness of your ordinary confessions. The confession of sin must be particular, universal, perpetual, or constant;—particular, I say, for there are many thousands who confess that they are sinners, and yet do not at all confess their sins; for, to confess sins is to confess their own real actual guiltiness, that which they indeed have committed or are inclined to do. So the true and sincere confession of a repenting people is expressed, 1 Kings viii. 38,“What prayer or supplication soever be made by any man, which shall know the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands, then hear thou in heaven, and forgive every man whose heart thou knowest.”Now consider whether or not you be thus acquainted with your own hearts and ways, as to know your particular plague and predominant sin. Are you not rather wholly strangers to yourselves, especially the plague of your hearts? There are few that keep so much as a record or register of their actions done against God's law, or their neglect of his will; and therefore, when you are particularly posed about your sins, or the challenge of sin, you can speak nothing to that, but that you never knew one sin by another; that is, indeed, you never observed your sins, you never knew any sin, but contented yourself with the tradition you received that you were sinners. But if any man be used to reflect upon his own ways,—yet generally, the most part of men are altogether strangers to their hearts,—if they know any evil of themselves it is at most but something done or undone, some commission or omission, but nothing of the inward fountain of sin is discovered. I beseech you, then, do not deceive yourselves with this general acknowledgment that you are sinners,[pg 327]while in the meantime your real particular sins are hid from you, and you cannot choose but hide in a generality from God. Certainly, you are far from forgiveness, and that blessedness of which David speaks, (Psal. xxxii.) for this belongs to the man“that hideth not his sins, in whose heart there is no guile.”And this is the plainness and sincerity of the heart, rightly to discern its own plagues, and unfold them to him. David, no doubt, would at any time have confessed that he was a sinner, but mark how heavy the wrath of God was on him for all that, because he came not to a plain, ingenuous, and humble acknowledgment of his particular sins.“I confessed my sin, and mine iniquity I hid not.”While you confess only in general terms, you confess other's sins rather than yours, but this is it—to descend into our own hearts, and find out our just and true accusation, our real debt, to charge ourselves as narrowly as we can, that he may discharge us fully, and forgive us freely.Next, I say, confession must be universal, that is, of all sin, without partiality or respect to any sin. I doubt if a man can truly repent of any sin, except he in a manner repent of all sin; or truly forsake one sin, except there be a divorcement of the heart from and forsaking of all sin; therefore the apostle saith,“If we confess our sins,”not sin simply, but sins, taking in all the body and collection of them, for it is opposed to that,“if we say we have no sin,”&c. Then there lies a necessity upon us to confess what we have; we have all sin, and so should confess all sins. Now, my meaning is not, that it is absolutely necessary that a soul come to the particular knowledge and acknowledgment of all his sins, whether of ignorance or infirmity, nay, that is not possible, for“who can understand his errors?”saith David,“cleanse thou me from secret sins,”Psal. xix. 12. There are many sins of ignorance, that we know not to be sins, and many escapes of infirmity, that we do not advert to, which otherwise we might know. Now, I do not impose that burden on a soul, to confess every individual sin of that kind; but this certainly must be,—there must be such a discovery of the nature of sin, and the loathsomeness of it in God's sight, and the heinous guilt of it, as may abase and humble the soul in his presence, there must be some distincter and clearer view of the dispositions and lusts of the heart, than men attain generally unto, and, withal, a discovery of the holy and spiritual meaning of God's law, which may unfold a multitude of transgressions, that are hid from the world, and make sin to abound in a man's sight and sense—for when the law enters, sin abounds, and to close up this, as there are many sins now discovered unto such a soul, which lay hid before, the light having shined in upon the darkness, and, above all, the desperate wickedness of the heart is presented, so there is no sin known and discerned, but there is an equal impartial sorrow for it, and indignation against it. As a believer hath respect to all God's commands, and loves to obey them, so the penitent soul hath an impartial hatred of all sin, even the dearest and most beloved idol, and desires unfeignedly to be rid of it. Hence your usual public confessions of sin are wiped out of the number of true and sincere confessions, because you pretend to repent of one sin, and in the meantime, neither do ye know a multitude of other sins that prevail over you, nor do you mourn for them, nor forsake them. Nay, you do not examine yourselves that way, to find out the temper of your hearts, or tenor and course of your ways. You pretend to repent for drunkenness, or such like, and yet you are ordinary cursers, swearers, liars, railers, neglecters of prayer, profaners of the Sabbath, and such like, and these you do not withal mourn for. In sum, he that mourns only for the sin that men censure, knoweth and confesseth no sin sincerely. If you would indeed return unto God from some gross evils, you must be divorced in your affections from all sin.Then this confession should be perpetuated and continued as long as we are in this life, for that is imported by comparing this verse with those it stands between.“If we say we have no sin, if we say at any time, while we are in this life, if we imagine or dream of any such perfection here,”we lie. Now, what should we do then, since sin is always lodging in our mortal bodies, during this time of necessary abode beside an ill neighbour? What should be our exercise? Even this,—confess your sins, confess, I say, as long as you have them, draw out this the length of that. Be continually groaning to him under that body of death, and mourning under your daily infirmities and failings. That stream of corruption runs continually—let[pg 328]the stream of your contrition and confession run as incessantly, and there is another stream of Christ's blood, that runs constantly too, to cleanse you. Now, herein is the discovery of the vanity and deceitfulness of many of your confessions, public and private, the current of them soon dries up, there is no perpetuity or constancy in them, no daily humbling or abasing yourselves, but all that is, is by fits and starts upon some transient convictions or outward censures and rebukes, and thus men quickly cover and bury their sins in oblivion and security and forget what manner of persons they were. They are not under a duly impartial examination of their ways, take notice of nothing but some solemn and gross escapes, and these are but a short time under their view.Now, let me apply a little to the encouragement of poor souls, who being inwardly burdened with the weight of their own guiltiness, exoner themselves by confession in his bosom. As you have two suits, and two desires to him,—one, that your sins may be forgiven, another, that they may be subdued, so he hath two solemn engagements and ties to satisfy you,—one to forgive your sins, and another to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. The soul that is truly penitent, is not only desirous of pardon of sin—that is not the chief or only design of such a soul in application to Christ,—but it is withal to be purified from sin and all unrighteousness, and to have ungodly lusts cleansed away. And herein is the great application of such an one's reality,—it will not suffice or satisfy such an one, to be assured of delivery from wrath and condemnation, but he must likewise be redeemed from sin, that it hath no dominion over him. He desires to be freed from death, that he may have his conscience withal purged“from dead works to serve the living God,”Heb. ix. 14. He would have sin blotted out of an accusing conscience, that it may be purged out of the affections of the heart, and he would have his sins washed away, for this end especially, that he may be washed from his sins, Rev. i. 5. Now, as this is the great desire and design of such a heart, in which there is no guile, to have sin purified and purged out of us as well as pardoned, so there is a special tie and obligation upon God our Father, by promise, not only to pardon sin, but to purge from sin, not only to cover it with the garment of Christ's righteousness, and the breadth of his infinite love but also to cleanse it by his Spirit effectually applying that blood to the purifying of the heart. Now, where God hath bound himself voluntarily, and out of love, do not ye lose him by unbelief, for that will bind you into a prison: but labour to receive those gracious promises, and to take him bound as he offers. Believe, I say that he will both forgive you, and in due time will cleanse your heart from the love and delight of sin. Believe his promise, and engagement by promise to both and this will set a seal to his truth and faithfulness. There is nothing in God to affright a sinner, but his justice, holiness, and righteousness, but unto thee who, in the humble confession of thy sins, fliest into Jesus Christ, that very thing which did discourage thee, may now encourage and embolden thee to come, for“he is just and faithful to forgive sins.”His justice being now satisfied, is engaged that way to forgive, not to punish.Sermon XX.1 John i. 10.—“If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”There is nothing in which religion more consists than in the true and unfeigned knowledge of ourselves. The heathens supposed that sentence, γνωθι σεατον“Know thyself,”descended from heaven. It was indeed the motto of the wisest and most religious amongst them. But certain it is, that the true and sincere understanding of ourselves descends from“the Father of lights,”and is as great a gift as man is capable of, next to the knowledge of God himself. There is nothing more necessary to man, either as a man or as a Christian, either as endowed with reason or professing religion, than that he should be thoroughly acquainted with himself, his own[pg 329]heart, its dispositions, inclinations, and lusts, his ways and actions, that while he travels abroad to other creatures and countries, he may not commit so shameful an absurdity, as to be a stranger at home, where he ought to be best acquainted. Yet how sad is it, that this which is so absolutely needful and universally profitable, should be lying under the manyest difficulties in the attainment of it? So that there is nothing harder, than to bring a man to a perfect understanding of himself:—what a vile, haughty, and base creature he is—how defiled and desperately wicked his nature—how abominable his actions, in a word, what a compound of darkness and wickedness he is—a heap of defiled dust, and a mass of confusion—a sink of impiety and iniquity, even the best of mankind, those of the rarest and most refined extraction, take them at their best estate. Thus they are as sepulchres painted without, and putrified within—outwardly adorned, and within all full of rottenness and corruption,“the imagination of his heart only evil continually.”Now, I say, here is the great business and labour of religion,—to bring a man to the clear discerning of his own nature,—to represent unto him justly his own image, as it is painted in the word of God, and presented in the glass of the law, and so by such a surprising monstrous appearance, to affect his heart to self abhorrency in dust and ashes and to have this representation, however unpleasant, yet most profitable, continually observant to our minds, that we may not forget what manner of persons we are. Truly I may say, if there be a perfection in this estate of imperfection, herein it consists, and if there be any attainment of a Christian, I account this the greatest,—to be truly sensible of himself, and vile in his own eyes.It was the custom of Philip,248king of Macedonia, after he had overcome the famous republic of Greece, to have a young man to salute him first every morning with these words,Philippe homo es,—Philip, thou art a man, to the end that he might be daily minded of his mortality, and the unconstancy of human affairs, lest he should be puffed up with his victory, and this was done before any could have access to speak with him, as if it were to season and prepare him for the actions of the day. But O how much more ought a Christian to train up his own heart and accustom it this way, to be his continual remembrancer of himself, to suggest continually to his mind, and whisper this first into his ear in the morning, and mid day, and evening,—peccator es, thou art a sinner, to hold our own image continually before us, in prayer and praises, in restraints, in liberties of spirit, in religious actions, and in all our ordinary conversation, that it might salt and season all our thoughts, words and deeds, and keep them from that ordinary putrefaction and corruption of pride and self conceit, which maketh all our ointment stink.“If we say we have no sin, we make him a liar.”Why is this repeated again, but to show unto us, even to you Christians who believe in Christ, and are washed in his blood, how hard it is to know ourselves aright? If we speak of the grosser sort of persons, they scarce know any sin, nor the nature and vileness of any that they know, therefore they live in security and peace, and bless themselves in their own hearts, as if they had no sin. For such, I say, I shall only say unto them, that your self deceiving is not so subtile, but it may soon be discerned; your lie is gross, and quickly seen through. But I would turn myself to you Christians, who are in some measure acquainted with yourselves, yet there is something against you from this word. After ye have once got some peace from the challenge of sin, and hope of pardon, you many times fall out of acquaintance with yourselves. Having attained, by the Lord's grace, to some restraint of the more visible outbreakings of sin, you have not that occasion to know yourselves by, and so you remain strangers to your hearts, and fall into better liking with yourselves, than the first sight of yourselves permitted you. Now, my beloved in the Lord, herein you are to be blamed, that you do not rather go to the fountain, and there behold the streams, than only to behold the fountain in the streams. You ought rather, upon the Lord's testimony of man, to believe what is in you, before you find it, and see it breaking out;[pg 330]and keep this character continually in your sight, which will be more powerful to humble you than many outbreakings. I think we should be so well acquainted with our own natures, as to account nothing strange to them that we see abroad, but rather think all the grossness and wickedness of men suitable and correspondent to our spirits,—to that root of bitterness that is in them. The goodness of God in restraining the appearance of that in us, which is within us in reality, should rather increase the sense of our own wickedness, than diminish it in our view.Indeed, self love is that which blinds us, and bemists us in the sight of ourselves. We look upon ourselves through this false medium, and it represents all things more beautiful than they are, and therefore the apostle hath reason to say,“We deceive ourselves, and we make God a liar.”O how much practical self-conceit is there in the application of truth! There are many errors contrary to the truths themselves, and many deceivers and deceived, who spread them, but I believe there are more errors committed by men in the application of truths to their own hearts, than in the contemplation of them, and more self deceiving than deceiving of others. It is strange to think, how sound, and clear, and distinct a man's judgment will be against those evils in others, which yet he seeth not in himself, how many Christians will be able to decipher the nature of some vices, and unbowel the evils of them, and be quick-sighted to espy the least appearance of them in another, and to condemn it, and yet so partial are they in judging themselves,—self-love so purblinds them in this reflection, that they cannot discern that in themselves, which others cannot but discern! How often do men declaim against pride, and covetousness, and self-seeking, and other evils of that kind? They will pour out a flood of eloquence and zeal against them, and yet it is strange they do not advert, that they are accusing themselves, and impannelling themselves in such discourses, though others, it may be, will easily perceive a predominancy of these evils in them.“Who art thou, O man, who judgeth another, and doest the same thing? Canst thou escape God's judgment?”Rom. ii. 1. Consider this, O Christian, that thou mayest learn to turn the edge of all thy censures and convictions against thyself, that thou mayest prevent all men's judgments of thee, in judging thyself all things that men can judge thee, that is, a chief of sinners, that hath the root of all sin in thee, and so thou mayest anticipate the divine judgment too,“for if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged.”Labour thou to know those evils that are incident to thy nature, before others can know them, that is, in the root and fountain, before they come to the fruit and stream, to know sins in the first conceptions of them, before they come to such productions as are visible, and this shall keep thee humble, and preserve thee from much sin, and thou shalt not deceive thyself, nor dishonour God, in making him a liar, but rather set to thy seal to this truth, and his word shall abide in thee.There is a common rule that we have in judging ourselves, by comparing ourselves amongst ourselves, which, as Paul saith,“is not wisdom,”2 Cor. x. 12. When we do not measure ourselves by the perfect rule of God's holy word, but parallel ourselves with other persons, who are still defective from the rule, far further from it than anyone is from another, this is the ordinary method of the judging of self love. We compare with the worst persons, and if we be not so bad as they, we think ourselves good. If not so ignorant as some are, we presume that we know, if not so profane as many, we believe ourselves religious.“Lord, I am not as this publican,”so say many in their hearts,—there is a curser, a swearer, a drunkard, a blind ignorant soul, that neglects prayer in private and public, and upon these ruins of others' sins, they build some better estimation of themselves. But, I pray you, what will that avail you, to be unlike them, if you be more unlike your pattern than they are unlike you? It must be, others will compare with those that are good, but it is with that which is worst in them, and not that which is best. How often do men reckon this way,—here is a good man, here is an eminent person, yet he is such and such, subject to such infirmities, and here self-love flatters itself, and, by flattering, deceives itself. My beloved, let us learn to establish a more perfect rule, which may show all our imperfections. Let our rule ascend, that our hearts may descend in humility. But when our role and pattern descends to men of like infirmities, then our pride and self conceit ascends, and the higher we be that way in our own account, the[pg 331]lower we are indeed, and in God's account, and the lower we be in ourselves we lose nothing by it; for, as God is higher in our account, so we are higher in God's account, according to that standing rule, Matth. xxiii. 12,“Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.”Sermon XXI.1 John ii. 1.—“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,”&c.The gospel is an entire uniform piece, all the parts of it are interwoven through other, and interchangeably knit together, so that there can be no dividing of it any more than of Christ's coat that was without seam. If you have it not altogether by the divine lot, you cannot truly have any part of it, for they are so knit together, that if you disjoin them, you destroy them, and if they cease to be together, they cease altogether to be. I speak this, because there may be pretensions to some abstracted parts of Christianity. One man pretends to faith in Jesus Christ, and persuasion of pardon of sin, and in this there may be some secret glorying arising from that confidence, another may pretend to the study of holiness and obedience, and may endeavour something that way to do known duties, and abstain from gross sins. Now, I say, if the first do not conjoin the study of the second, and if the second do not lay down the first as the foundation, both of them embrace a shadow for the thing itself, because they separate those things that God hath joined, and so can have no being but in men's fancy, when they are not conjoined. He that would pretend to a righteousness of Christ, without him, must withal study to have the righteousness of the law fulfilled within him, and he that endeavours to have holiness within must withal go out of himself, to seek a righteousness without him, whereupon to build his peace and acceptance with God, or else, neither of them hath truly any righteousness without them, to cover them, or holiness within, to cleanse them. Now, here the beloved apostle shows us this divine contexture of the gospel. The great and comprehensive end and design of the gospel is, peace in pardon of sin, and purity from sin.“These things I write unto you, that you sin not,”&c. The gospel is comprised in commands and promises, both make one web, and link in together. The immediate end of the command is,“that we sin not,”nay, but there is another thing always either expressly added, or tacitly understood—“but if any man sin,”that desires not to sin,“we have an advocate with the Father.”So the promise comes in as a subsidiary help to all the precepts. It is annexed to give security to a poor soul from despair, and therefore the apostle teacheth you a blessed art of constructing all the commands and exhortations of the gospel, those of the highest pitch, by supplying the full sense with this happy and seasonable caution or caveat,“but if any man sin,”&c. Doth that command,“Be ye holy as I am holy,”perfect as your heavenly Father, which sounds so much unattainable perfection, and seems to hold forth an inimitable pattern, doth it, I say, discourage thee? Then, use the apostle's art, add this caution to the command, subjoin this sweet exceptive,—“but if any man,”that desires to be holy, and gives himself to this study, fail often, and fall and defile himself with unholiness, let him not despair, but know, that he hath“an advocate with the Father.”If that of Paul's urge thee,“present your bodies a living sacrifice,—and be not conformed to the world,”but transformed, and“glorify God in your bodies and spirits,”which are his, (Rom. xii. 1, 2, 1 Cor. vi. 20,)—and, cleanse yourselves“from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,”(2 Cor. vii. 1,)—and,“walk in the Spirit,”and“walk as children of the light,”&c.,—if these do too rigorously exact upon thee, so as to make thee lose thy peace, and weaken thy heart and hands, learn to make out a full sentence, and fill up the full sense and meaning of the gospel, according as you see it done here. But if any man,—whose inward heart-desires, and chief designs are toward these things, who would think himself happy in holiness and conformity to God, and estimates[pg 332]his blessedness or misery, from his union or separation from God,—“sin”then“we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous,”who hath all that we want, and will not suffer any accusation to fasten upon us, as long as he lives“to make intercession for us.”On the other hand, take a view of the promises of the gospel. Though the immediate and next end of them is to give peace to troubled souls, and settle us in the high point of our acceptance with God, yet certainly they have a further end, even purity from sin, as well as pardon of sin, cleansing from all sin and filthiness as well as covering of filthiness.“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”What things? Consider what goes before, and what follows after, even the publication of the word of life, and eternal life in him, the declaration of our fellowship with God in Christ the offering of the blood of Christ, able to cleanse all sin, the promise of pardon to the penitent, confession of sin,—all these things I write,“that ye sin not,”so that this seems to be the ultimate end and chief design of the gospel, unto which all tends, unto which all work together. The promises are for peace, and peace is for purity, the promises are for faith, and faith is for purifying of the heart, and performing the precepts, so that, all at length returns to this, from whence, while we swerved, all this misery is come upon us. In the beginning it was thus,—man was created to glorify God, by obedience to his blessed will, sin interposeth and marreth the whole frame, and from this hath a flood of misery flowed in upon us. Well, the gospel comes offering a Saviour, and forgiveness in him. Thus peace is purchased, pardon granted, the soul is restored unto its primitive condition and state of subordination to God's will, and so redemption ends where creation began, or rather in a more perfect frame of the same kind. The second Adam builds what the first Adam broke down, and the Son re-creates what the Father in the beginning created, yea, with some addition. In this new edition of mankind, all seems new—“new heavens, and new earth,”and that because the creature that was made old, and defiled with sin, is made new by grace. Now, hence you may learn the second part of this lesson that the apostle teaches us; as ye ought to correct, as it were, precepts of the gospel, by subjoining promises in this manner, so ye ought to direct promises towards the performance of his precepts, as their chief end. Whensoever you read it written,“The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin,”—“If we confess, he is faithful to forgive our sins,”—“God so loved the world that he gave his Son,”—“He that believeth hath everlasting life,”&c.—then make up the entire sense and meaning after this manner,“These things are written that we sin not.”Is there a redemption from wrath published? Is there reconciliation with God preached? And are we beseeched to come and have the benefit of them? Then say, and supply within thine own heart, These things are written, published, and preached, that we may not sin. Look to the furthest end of these things, it is,“that we sin not.”The end of things, the scope of writings, and the purpose of actions, is the very measure of them, and so that is the best interpreter of them. The scope of scripture is by all accounted the very thread that will lead a man right in and out of the labyrinths that are in it. And so it is used as the rule of the interpretation in the parts of it. Now, my beloved in the Lord, take here the scope of the whole scriptures, the mark that all the gospel shoots at,“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”You hear, it is true, of pardon of sin, of delivery from wrath, of not coming into condemnation, of covering offences, of blotting them out as a cloud, all these you read and hear of, but what do they all aim at? If you consider not that attentively you shall no more understand the plain gospel, than you can expound a parable without observing the scope of it. Do you think these have no further aim, than to give you peace, and to secure you from fears and terrors, that you may then walk as you list, and follow the guiding of your own hearts? Nay, if you take it so, you totally mistake it. If you do not read on, and had all these things written to this end,“that ye sin not,”you err, not understanding, or misunderstanding, the scriptures.“These things I write unto you, little children.”To enforce this the more sweetly, he useth this affectionate compellation,“little children,”for in all things affection hath a mighty stroke, almost as much as reason. It is the most suitable way to prevail with the spirit of a man, to deal in love and tenderness with it, it speaks[pg 333]more sweetly, and so can have less resistance, and therefore works more strongly. It is true, another way of terrors threatening, and reproofs, mingled with sharp and heavy words of challenges, may make a great deal of more noise, and yet it hath not such virtue to prevail with a rational soul. The Spirit of the Lord was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still and calm voice which came to Elijah, 1 Kings xix. 11, 12. These suit not the gentle, dove-like disposition of the Spirit; and though they be fit to rend rocks in pieces, yet they cannot truly break hearts, and make them contrite. The sun will make a man sooner part with his cloak than the wind, such is the difference between the warm beams of affection, and the boisterous violence of passions or terror. Now, O that there were such a spirit in them who preach the gospel, such a fatherly affection, that with much pity and compassion they might call sinners from the ways of death! O there is no subject, in which a man may have more room for melting affections, nothing that will admit of such bowels of compassion as this—the multitude of souls posting to destruction, and so blindfolded that they cannot see it! Here the fountain of tears might be opened to run abundantly. The Lord personates a tender hearted father or husband often,“Oh, why will ye die? Ye have broken my heart with your whorish heart. O Jerusalem, how oft would I, but thou wouldst not!”When he, who is not subject to human passions, expresseth himself thus, how much more doth it become us poor creatures to have pity on our fellow-creatures? Should it not press out from us many groans, to see so many perishing, even beside salvation. I wish you would take it so, that the warning you to flee from the wrath to come, is the greatest act of favour and love that can be done to you. It becomes us to be solicitous about you, and declare unto you, that you will meet with destruction in those paths in which you walk; that these ways go down to the chambers of death. O that it might be done with so much feeling compassion of your misery, as the necessity of it requires! But, why do many of you take it so hard to be thus forewarned, and have your danger declared unto you? I guess at the reason of it. You are in a distempter as sick children distempered in a fever, who are not capable of discerning their parents' tender affection, when it crosseth their own inclinations and ways.Sermon XXII.1 John ii. 1.—“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,”, &c.Christ Jesus came by water and by blood, not by water only, but by blood also, and I add, not by blood only but by water also, chap. v. 6. In sin there is the guilt binding over to punishment, and there is the filth or spot that defileth the soul in God's sight. To take away guilt, nothing so fit as blood for there is no punishment beyond blood, therefore saith the apostle,“without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin,”Heb. ix. 22, and for the stain and spot, nothing is so suitable as water, for that is generally appointed for cleansing. And some shadow of this the heathens had, who had their lustrations in water, and their expiations by blood,249but more significantly and plainly, the Jews, who had their purifications[pg 334]by sprinkling of water, (Num. viii. 7.) and expiations by sacrificing of slain beasts. But all these were but evanishing shadows; now the substance is come, Jesus Christ is come in water and blood; in water, to cleanse the spots of the soul, to purify it from all filthiness; and in blood, to satisfy for sin, and remove the punishment. You have both in these words of the apostle, for he labours to set out unto us the true Christ, whole and entire,“these things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”Here is the proper end of the water—and“if any man sin, we have Christ a propitiation for our sins.”Here is the blood—the end of the blood is to save us, the end of the water is that we sin not, since we are saved. He came in the blood of expiation, because we had sinned. He came in the water of sanctification, that we might not sin. His blood speaks peace to the soul, and the water subjoins,“but let them not return to folly.”His blood cries,“behold thou art made whole.”And the water echoes unto it,“sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee,”John v. 14. These two streams of water and blood, which are appointed for purity and pardon, run intermingled all along, and so the proper effects of them are interchangeably attributed to either of them;“he hath washed us in his blood,”(Rev. i. 5; vii. 14.)“and the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin.”Then, certainly, this blood cannot be without water, it is never separated from it. The proper effect of blood is to cover sin; but because the water runs in that channel, and is conveyed by the blood thither, therefore it doth cleanse sin, as well as cover it.“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”This then is the design of the whole gospel, the great and grand design,—to destroy sin, and save the sinner. There is a treaty of peace made with the sinner, and“Christ is the peace-maker.”A tender of life and salvation is made to him, but there is no treaty, no capitulation or composition with sin; out it must go, first out of its dominion, then out of its habitation. It must first lose its power, and then its being in a believer. Yea, this is one of the chief articles of our peace, not only required of us as our duty, that we should destroy that which cannot but destroy us; for, if any man will needs hug and embrace his sins, and cannot part with them, he must needs die in their embracements, because the council of heaven hath irrevocably passed a fatal sentence against sin, as the only thing that in all the creation hath the most perfect opposition to his blessed will, and contrariety to his holy nature,—but also, and especially, as the great stipulation and promise upon his part,“to redeem us from all our iniquities, and purify us to himself, a people zealous of good works;”and not only to redeem us from hell, and deliver us from wrath, Tit. ii. 14. He hath undertaken this great work, to compesce250this mutiny and rebellion that was raised up in the creation by sin, else what peace could be between God and us, as long as his enemy and ours dwelt in our bosom, and we at peace with it.Now, take a short view of these things that are written in the preceding chapter, and you shall see that the harmonious voice of all that is in the gospel, is this,“that we sin not.”Let me say further, as“these things are written that we sin not,”so[pg 335]all things are done“that we sin not.”Take all the whole work of creation, of providence, of redemption,—all of them speak one language,“that we sin not.”“Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge: there is no speech or language where their voice is not heard,”Psalm xix. 2, 3. And, as in that place, their voice proclaims the glory, majesty, and goodness of God, so they, with the same sound, proclaim and declare, that we should not sin against such a God, so great, and so good. All that we see suggests and insinuates this unto our hearts; all that we hear whispers this unto our ears,“that we sin not, that he made us, and not we ourselves, and that we are the very work of his hands.”This speaks our absolute and essential dependence on him, and therefore proclaims with a loud voice, that sin, which would cut off this subordination, and loose from this dependence upon his holy will, is a monstrous, unnatural thing. Take all his mercies towards us, whether general or particular, the transcendent abundance of his infinite goodness in the earth, that river of his riches that runs through it, to water every man, and bring supply to his doors, that infinite variety that is in heaven and earth, and all of them of equal birth-right with man; yet by the law of our Maker, a yoke of subjection and service to man is imposed upon them, so that man is, in a manner, set in the centre of all, to the end, that all the several qualifications and perfections that are in every creature, may concentre and meet together in him, and flow towards him. Look upon all his particular acts of care and favour towards thee, consider his judgments upon the world, upon the nation, or thine own person. Put to thine ear, and hear. This is the joint harmonious melody, this is the proclamation of all,“that we sin not,”that we sin not against so good a God, and so great a God. That were wickedness, this were madness. If he wound, it is“that we sin not:”if he heal again, it is“that we sin not.”Doth he kill? It is“that we sin not!”Doth he make alive? It is for the same end. Doth he shut up and restrain our liberty, either by bondage, or sickness, or other afflictions? Why, he means“that we sin not.”Doth he open again? He means the same thing,“that we sin no more, lest a worse thing befall us.”Doth he make many to fall in battle, and turn the fury of that upon us? The voice of it is, that you who are left behind should“sin no more.”Is there severity towards others, and towards you clemency? O the loud voice of that is,“sin not!”But alas, the result of all is, that which is written, Psal. lxxviii. 32.—“Nevertheless they sinned still.”In the midst of so many concurring testimonies, in the very throng of all the sounds and voices that all the works of God utter, in the very hearing of these, nevertheless to sin still, and not to return and inquire early after God,—this is the plague and judgment of the nation.But let us return to the words,“these things,”&c.“That which is written of the word of life, that which was from the beginning, and was manifested unto us,”that is written“that we sin not:”For, saith this same apostle, chap. iii. 5, 8,“And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin;”yea, for this very purpose, saith he,“that he might destroy the works of the devil.”Now, this is the great business, that drew the Son out of the Father's bosom,—to destroy the arch-enemy and capital rebel, sin, which, as to man, is a work of Satan's, because it first entered in man by the devil's suggestion and counsel. All that misery and ruin, all those works of darkness and death, that Satan had by his malice and policy wrought upon and in poor mankind, Jesus was manifested in the flesh without sin, to destroy and take away sin out of our flesh, and to abolish and destroy Satan's work, which he had builded upon the ruins of God's work, of the image of God, and to repair and renew that first blessed work of God in man, Eph. iv. 23, 24.Now, O how cogent and persuading is this; one so high, come down so low, one dwelling in inaccessible glory, manifested in the flesh, in the infirmity and weakness of it, to this very purpose, to repair the creation, to make up the breaches of it, to destroy sin, and save the sinner! What force is in this to persuade a soul that truly believes it,“not to sin!”For, may he think within himself, shall I save that which Christ came to destroy, shall I entertain and maintain that which he came to take away, and do what in me lies to frustrate the great end of his glorious and wonderful descent from heaven? Shall I join hands, and associate with my lusts, and war for them,“which war against my soul,”and him that would save my soul? Nay, let us[pg 336]conclude, my beloved, within our own hearts,—Is the Word and Prince of life manifested from heaven, and come to mar and unmake that work of Satan, that he may rescue me from under his tyranny? Then God forbid that I should help Satan to build up that which my Saviour is casting down, and to make a prison for myself, and cords to bind me in it for everlasting. Nay, will a believing soul say, rather let me be a worker together with Christ. Though faintly, yet I resolve to wrestle with him, to pull down all the strongholds that Satan keeps in my nature, and so to congratulate and consent to him, who is the avenger and assertor of my liberty.Then consider the greatest end and furthest design of the gospel, how it is inseparably chained and linked into this,“that we sin not.”We are called to fellowship with the Father and the Son, and herein is his glory and our happiness. Now, this proclaims with a loud voice,“that we sin not,”for, what more contrary to that design of union and communion with God, than to sin, which disunites and discommunicates the soul from God. The nature of sin you know, is the transgression of his law, and so it is the very just opposition of the creatures will to the will of him that made it. Now, how do ye imagine that this can consist with true friendship and fellowship, which looseth that conjunction of wills and affections, which is the bond of true friendship, and the ground of fellowship?Idem velle atque idem nolle, hæc demum vera amicitia est.251The conspiracy of our desires and delights in one point with God's, this sweet coincidency makes our communion, and what communion then can there be with God, when that which his soul abhors is your delight, and his delight is not your desire?“What communion hath light with darkness?”Sin is darkness. All sin but especially sin entertained and maintained, sin that hath the full consent of the heart, and carrieth the whole man after it, that is Egyptian darkness, an universal darkness over the soul. This being interposed between God and the soul, breaks off communion, eclipses that soul totally. Therefore, my beloved, if you do believe that you are called unto this high dignity of fellowship with God, and if your souls be stirred with some holy ambition after it, consider that“these things are written that ye sin not.”Consider what baseness is in it, for one that hath such a noble design, as fellowship with the Highest, to debase his soul so far and so low, as to serve sinful and fleshly lusts. There is a vileness and wretchedness in the service of sin, that any soul, truly and nobly principled, cannot but look upon it with indignation, because he can behold nothing but indignity in it.“Shall I who am a ruler,”saith Nehemiah,“shall such a man as I flee? and who is there that being as I am, would flee?”Neh. vi. 11. A Christian hath more reason. Shall such a man as I, who am born again to such a hope, and called to such a high dignity, shall I, who aim and aspire so high as fellowship with God, debase and degrade myself with the vilest servitude? Shall I defile in that puddle again, till my own clothes abhor me, who aim at so pure and so holy a society? Shall I yoke in myself with drunkards, liars, swearers, and other slaves of sin? Shall I rank myself thus, and conform myself to the world, seeing there is a noble and glorious society to incorporate with, the King of kings to converse with daily? Alas, what are these worms that sit on thrones to him? But far more, how base are these companions in iniquity, your pot companions? &c. And what a vile society is it like that of the bottomless pit, where devils are linked together in chains?

Sermon XIX.1 John i. 9, 10.—“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar,”&c.And who will not confess their sin, say you? Who doth not confess sins daily, and, therefore, who is not forgiven and pardoned? But stay, and consider the matter again. Take not this upon your first light apprehensions, which in religion are commonly empty, vain, and superficial, but search the scriptures, and your own hearts that ye may know what confession means. It may be said of that external custom of confession that many of you have, that the Lord hath not required it,—“sacrifices and burnt offerings thou wouldest not.”Some external submissions and confessions, which you take for compensation for sins and offences against God,—these, I say, are but abomination to the Lord, but“a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise,”Psal. li. 16, 17. And,“Lo, I come to do thy will, I delight in it,”Psal. xl. 7, 8. When external profession and confessions are separated from the internal contrition of the heart and godly sorrow for sin, and when both internal contrition and external profession and confession are divided from conformity, or study of conformity to God's will, then they are in no better acceptance with God than those external sacrifices which God rejected, though he had required them, because they were disjoined from the true life of them and spiritual meaning, that is, faith in a mediator, and love to obedience. If confession flow not from some contrition of heart if there be not some inward spring of this kind, the heart, opened and unfolding its very inside before God, breaking in pieces, which makes both pain or sense, and likewise gives the clearer view of the inward parts of the heart, and if it[pg 326]be not joined with affection to God's will and law, earnest love to new obedience, it is but a vain, empty, and counterfeit confession, that denies itself. I suppose, a man that confesses sin which he feels not, or forsakes not, in so doing, he declares that he knows not the nature of sin; he may know that such an action is commonly called sin, and, it may be, is ashamed and censured among men, and therefore he confesseth it; but while he confesseth it without sense or feeling, he declares that he takes it not up as sin, hath not found the vileness and loathsomeness of the nature of it nor beheld it as it is a violation of the most high Lord's laws, and a provocation of his glorious holiness. Did a soul view it thus, as it is represented in God's sight, as it dishonours that glorious Majesty, and hath manifest rebellion in it against him, and as it defiles and pollutes our spirits; he could not, I say, thus look upon it, but he would find some inward soul abhorrence and displeasance at it, and himself too. How monstrous would it make him in his own sight? It could not but affect the heart, and humble it in secret before God; whereas your forced and strained confessions made in public, they are merely taken on then, and proceed from no inward principle. There is no shadow of any soul humiliation, in secret, but as some use to put on sackcloth when they come to make that profession, and put it off when they go out, so you put on a habit of confession in public, and put it off you when you go out of the congregation. To be mourning before the Lord, in your secret retirements,—that you are strangers to. But I wonder how you should thus mock God, that you will not be as serious and real in confessing as in sinning. Will you sin with the whole man, and confess only with the mouth? Will ye not sin with delight, and not confess it with a true sorrow that indeed affects the heart? Now, do you honour God by confessing, when the manner of it declares, that you feel not the bitterness of sin, and conceive not the holiness and righteousness of God, whom you have to do withal? Even so, when you confess sin, which you do not forsake, you in so far declare that you know not sin, what it is you confess, and so, that you have mocked him who will not be mocked; for, what a mockery is it, to confess those faults which we have no solid effectual purpose to reform, to vomit up your sins by confession, that we may with more desire and lust lick up the vomit again, and to pretend to wash, for nothing else, but to return to the puddle, and defile again! My brethren, out of the same fountain comes not bitter water and sweet; James iii. 11. Since that which ordinarily proceeds from you is bitter, unsavoury to God and man, carnal, earthly, and sensual, your ways are a displayed banner against God's will, then lay your account, all your professions and acknowledgments are of the same nature,—they are but a little more sugared over, and their inward nature is not changed, is as unacceptable to God, as your sins are.I would give you some characters out of the text, to discover unto you the vanity and emptiness of your ordinary confessions. The confession of sin must be particular, universal, perpetual, or constant;—particular, I say, for there are many thousands who confess that they are sinners, and yet do not at all confess their sins; for, to confess sins is to confess their own real actual guiltiness, that which they indeed have committed or are inclined to do. So the true and sincere confession of a repenting people is expressed, 1 Kings viii. 38,“What prayer or supplication soever be made by any man, which shall know the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands, then hear thou in heaven, and forgive every man whose heart thou knowest.”Now consider whether or not you be thus acquainted with your own hearts and ways, as to know your particular plague and predominant sin. Are you not rather wholly strangers to yourselves, especially the plague of your hearts? There are few that keep so much as a record or register of their actions done against God's law, or their neglect of his will; and therefore, when you are particularly posed about your sins, or the challenge of sin, you can speak nothing to that, but that you never knew one sin by another; that is, indeed, you never observed your sins, you never knew any sin, but contented yourself with the tradition you received that you were sinners. But if any man be used to reflect upon his own ways,—yet generally, the most part of men are altogether strangers to their hearts,—if they know any evil of themselves it is at most but something done or undone, some commission or omission, but nothing of the inward fountain of sin is discovered. I beseech you, then, do not deceive yourselves with this general acknowledgment that you are sinners,[pg 327]while in the meantime your real particular sins are hid from you, and you cannot choose but hide in a generality from God. Certainly, you are far from forgiveness, and that blessedness of which David speaks, (Psal. xxxii.) for this belongs to the man“that hideth not his sins, in whose heart there is no guile.”And this is the plainness and sincerity of the heart, rightly to discern its own plagues, and unfold them to him. David, no doubt, would at any time have confessed that he was a sinner, but mark how heavy the wrath of God was on him for all that, because he came not to a plain, ingenuous, and humble acknowledgment of his particular sins.“I confessed my sin, and mine iniquity I hid not.”While you confess only in general terms, you confess other's sins rather than yours, but this is it—to descend into our own hearts, and find out our just and true accusation, our real debt, to charge ourselves as narrowly as we can, that he may discharge us fully, and forgive us freely.Next, I say, confession must be universal, that is, of all sin, without partiality or respect to any sin. I doubt if a man can truly repent of any sin, except he in a manner repent of all sin; or truly forsake one sin, except there be a divorcement of the heart from and forsaking of all sin; therefore the apostle saith,“If we confess our sins,”not sin simply, but sins, taking in all the body and collection of them, for it is opposed to that,“if we say we have no sin,”&c. Then there lies a necessity upon us to confess what we have; we have all sin, and so should confess all sins. Now, my meaning is not, that it is absolutely necessary that a soul come to the particular knowledge and acknowledgment of all his sins, whether of ignorance or infirmity, nay, that is not possible, for“who can understand his errors?”saith David,“cleanse thou me from secret sins,”Psal. xix. 12. There are many sins of ignorance, that we know not to be sins, and many escapes of infirmity, that we do not advert to, which otherwise we might know. Now, I do not impose that burden on a soul, to confess every individual sin of that kind; but this certainly must be,—there must be such a discovery of the nature of sin, and the loathsomeness of it in God's sight, and the heinous guilt of it, as may abase and humble the soul in his presence, there must be some distincter and clearer view of the dispositions and lusts of the heart, than men attain generally unto, and, withal, a discovery of the holy and spiritual meaning of God's law, which may unfold a multitude of transgressions, that are hid from the world, and make sin to abound in a man's sight and sense—for when the law enters, sin abounds, and to close up this, as there are many sins now discovered unto such a soul, which lay hid before, the light having shined in upon the darkness, and, above all, the desperate wickedness of the heart is presented, so there is no sin known and discerned, but there is an equal impartial sorrow for it, and indignation against it. As a believer hath respect to all God's commands, and loves to obey them, so the penitent soul hath an impartial hatred of all sin, even the dearest and most beloved idol, and desires unfeignedly to be rid of it. Hence your usual public confessions of sin are wiped out of the number of true and sincere confessions, because you pretend to repent of one sin, and in the meantime, neither do ye know a multitude of other sins that prevail over you, nor do you mourn for them, nor forsake them. Nay, you do not examine yourselves that way, to find out the temper of your hearts, or tenor and course of your ways. You pretend to repent for drunkenness, or such like, and yet you are ordinary cursers, swearers, liars, railers, neglecters of prayer, profaners of the Sabbath, and such like, and these you do not withal mourn for. In sum, he that mourns only for the sin that men censure, knoweth and confesseth no sin sincerely. If you would indeed return unto God from some gross evils, you must be divorced in your affections from all sin.Then this confession should be perpetuated and continued as long as we are in this life, for that is imported by comparing this verse with those it stands between.“If we say we have no sin, if we say at any time, while we are in this life, if we imagine or dream of any such perfection here,”we lie. Now, what should we do then, since sin is always lodging in our mortal bodies, during this time of necessary abode beside an ill neighbour? What should be our exercise? Even this,—confess your sins, confess, I say, as long as you have them, draw out this the length of that. Be continually groaning to him under that body of death, and mourning under your daily infirmities and failings. That stream of corruption runs continually—let[pg 328]the stream of your contrition and confession run as incessantly, and there is another stream of Christ's blood, that runs constantly too, to cleanse you. Now, herein is the discovery of the vanity and deceitfulness of many of your confessions, public and private, the current of them soon dries up, there is no perpetuity or constancy in them, no daily humbling or abasing yourselves, but all that is, is by fits and starts upon some transient convictions or outward censures and rebukes, and thus men quickly cover and bury their sins in oblivion and security and forget what manner of persons they were. They are not under a duly impartial examination of their ways, take notice of nothing but some solemn and gross escapes, and these are but a short time under their view.Now, let me apply a little to the encouragement of poor souls, who being inwardly burdened with the weight of their own guiltiness, exoner themselves by confession in his bosom. As you have two suits, and two desires to him,—one, that your sins may be forgiven, another, that they may be subdued, so he hath two solemn engagements and ties to satisfy you,—one to forgive your sins, and another to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. The soul that is truly penitent, is not only desirous of pardon of sin—that is not the chief or only design of such a soul in application to Christ,—but it is withal to be purified from sin and all unrighteousness, and to have ungodly lusts cleansed away. And herein is the great application of such an one's reality,—it will not suffice or satisfy such an one, to be assured of delivery from wrath and condemnation, but he must likewise be redeemed from sin, that it hath no dominion over him. He desires to be freed from death, that he may have his conscience withal purged“from dead works to serve the living God,”Heb. ix. 14. He would have sin blotted out of an accusing conscience, that it may be purged out of the affections of the heart, and he would have his sins washed away, for this end especially, that he may be washed from his sins, Rev. i. 5. Now, as this is the great desire and design of such a heart, in which there is no guile, to have sin purified and purged out of us as well as pardoned, so there is a special tie and obligation upon God our Father, by promise, not only to pardon sin, but to purge from sin, not only to cover it with the garment of Christ's righteousness, and the breadth of his infinite love but also to cleanse it by his Spirit effectually applying that blood to the purifying of the heart. Now, where God hath bound himself voluntarily, and out of love, do not ye lose him by unbelief, for that will bind you into a prison: but labour to receive those gracious promises, and to take him bound as he offers. Believe, I say that he will both forgive you, and in due time will cleanse your heart from the love and delight of sin. Believe his promise, and engagement by promise to both and this will set a seal to his truth and faithfulness. There is nothing in God to affright a sinner, but his justice, holiness, and righteousness, but unto thee who, in the humble confession of thy sins, fliest into Jesus Christ, that very thing which did discourage thee, may now encourage and embolden thee to come, for“he is just and faithful to forgive sins.”His justice being now satisfied, is engaged that way to forgive, not to punish.

1 John i. 9, 10.—“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar,”&c.

And who will not confess their sin, say you? Who doth not confess sins daily, and, therefore, who is not forgiven and pardoned? But stay, and consider the matter again. Take not this upon your first light apprehensions, which in religion are commonly empty, vain, and superficial, but search the scriptures, and your own hearts that ye may know what confession means. It may be said of that external custom of confession that many of you have, that the Lord hath not required it,—“sacrifices and burnt offerings thou wouldest not.”Some external submissions and confessions, which you take for compensation for sins and offences against God,—these, I say, are but abomination to the Lord, but“a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise,”Psal. li. 16, 17. And,“Lo, I come to do thy will, I delight in it,”Psal. xl. 7, 8. When external profession and confessions are separated from the internal contrition of the heart and godly sorrow for sin, and when both internal contrition and external profession and confession are divided from conformity, or study of conformity to God's will, then they are in no better acceptance with God than those external sacrifices which God rejected, though he had required them, because they were disjoined from the true life of them and spiritual meaning, that is, faith in a mediator, and love to obedience. If confession flow not from some contrition of heart if there be not some inward spring of this kind, the heart, opened and unfolding its very inside before God, breaking in pieces, which makes both pain or sense, and likewise gives the clearer view of the inward parts of the heart, and if it[pg 326]be not joined with affection to God's will and law, earnest love to new obedience, it is but a vain, empty, and counterfeit confession, that denies itself. I suppose, a man that confesses sin which he feels not, or forsakes not, in so doing, he declares that he knows not the nature of sin; he may know that such an action is commonly called sin, and, it may be, is ashamed and censured among men, and therefore he confesseth it; but while he confesseth it without sense or feeling, he declares that he takes it not up as sin, hath not found the vileness and loathsomeness of the nature of it nor beheld it as it is a violation of the most high Lord's laws, and a provocation of his glorious holiness. Did a soul view it thus, as it is represented in God's sight, as it dishonours that glorious Majesty, and hath manifest rebellion in it against him, and as it defiles and pollutes our spirits; he could not, I say, thus look upon it, but he would find some inward soul abhorrence and displeasance at it, and himself too. How monstrous would it make him in his own sight? It could not but affect the heart, and humble it in secret before God; whereas your forced and strained confessions made in public, they are merely taken on then, and proceed from no inward principle. There is no shadow of any soul humiliation, in secret, but as some use to put on sackcloth when they come to make that profession, and put it off when they go out, so you put on a habit of confession in public, and put it off you when you go out of the congregation. To be mourning before the Lord, in your secret retirements,—that you are strangers to. But I wonder how you should thus mock God, that you will not be as serious and real in confessing as in sinning. Will you sin with the whole man, and confess only with the mouth? Will ye not sin with delight, and not confess it with a true sorrow that indeed affects the heart? Now, do you honour God by confessing, when the manner of it declares, that you feel not the bitterness of sin, and conceive not the holiness and righteousness of God, whom you have to do withal? Even so, when you confess sin, which you do not forsake, you in so far declare that you know not sin, what it is you confess, and so, that you have mocked him who will not be mocked; for, what a mockery is it, to confess those faults which we have no solid effectual purpose to reform, to vomit up your sins by confession, that we may with more desire and lust lick up the vomit again, and to pretend to wash, for nothing else, but to return to the puddle, and defile again! My brethren, out of the same fountain comes not bitter water and sweet; James iii. 11. Since that which ordinarily proceeds from you is bitter, unsavoury to God and man, carnal, earthly, and sensual, your ways are a displayed banner against God's will, then lay your account, all your professions and acknowledgments are of the same nature,—they are but a little more sugared over, and their inward nature is not changed, is as unacceptable to God, as your sins are.

I would give you some characters out of the text, to discover unto you the vanity and emptiness of your ordinary confessions. The confession of sin must be particular, universal, perpetual, or constant;—particular, I say, for there are many thousands who confess that they are sinners, and yet do not at all confess their sins; for, to confess sins is to confess their own real actual guiltiness, that which they indeed have committed or are inclined to do. So the true and sincere confession of a repenting people is expressed, 1 Kings viii. 38,“What prayer or supplication soever be made by any man, which shall know the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands, then hear thou in heaven, and forgive every man whose heart thou knowest.”Now consider whether or not you be thus acquainted with your own hearts and ways, as to know your particular plague and predominant sin. Are you not rather wholly strangers to yourselves, especially the plague of your hearts? There are few that keep so much as a record or register of their actions done against God's law, or their neglect of his will; and therefore, when you are particularly posed about your sins, or the challenge of sin, you can speak nothing to that, but that you never knew one sin by another; that is, indeed, you never observed your sins, you never knew any sin, but contented yourself with the tradition you received that you were sinners. But if any man be used to reflect upon his own ways,—yet generally, the most part of men are altogether strangers to their hearts,—if they know any evil of themselves it is at most but something done or undone, some commission or omission, but nothing of the inward fountain of sin is discovered. I beseech you, then, do not deceive yourselves with this general acknowledgment that you are sinners,[pg 327]while in the meantime your real particular sins are hid from you, and you cannot choose but hide in a generality from God. Certainly, you are far from forgiveness, and that blessedness of which David speaks, (Psal. xxxii.) for this belongs to the man“that hideth not his sins, in whose heart there is no guile.”And this is the plainness and sincerity of the heart, rightly to discern its own plagues, and unfold them to him. David, no doubt, would at any time have confessed that he was a sinner, but mark how heavy the wrath of God was on him for all that, because he came not to a plain, ingenuous, and humble acknowledgment of his particular sins.“I confessed my sin, and mine iniquity I hid not.”While you confess only in general terms, you confess other's sins rather than yours, but this is it—to descend into our own hearts, and find out our just and true accusation, our real debt, to charge ourselves as narrowly as we can, that he may discharge us fully, and forgive us freely.

Next, I say, confession must be universal, that is, of all sin, without partiality or respect to any sin. I doubt if a man can truly repent of any sin, except he in a manner repent of all sin; or truly forsake one sin, except there be a divorcement of the heart from and forsaking of all sin; therefore the apostle saith,“If we confess our sins,”not sin simply, but sins, taking in all the body and collection of them, for it is opposed to that,“if we say we have no sin,”&c. Then there lies a necessity upon us to confess what we have; we have all sin, and so should confess all sins. Now, my meaning is not, that it is absolutely necessary that a soul come to the particular knowledge and acknowledgment of all his sins, whether of ignorance or infirmity, nay, that is not possible, for“who can understand his errors?”saith David,“cleanse thou me from secret sins,”Psal. xix. 12. There are many sins of ignorance, that we know not to be sins, and many escapes of infirmity, that we do not advert to, which otherwise we might know. Now, I do not impose that burden on a soul, to confess every individual sin of that kind; but this certainly must be,—there must be such a discovery of the nature of sin, and the loathsomeness of it in God's sight, and the heinous guilt of it, as may abase and humble the soul in his presence, there must be some distincter and clearer view of the dispositions and lusts of the heart, than men attain generally unto, and, withal, a discovery of the holy and spiritual meaning of God's law, which may unfold a multitude of transgressions, that are hid from the world, and make sin to abound in a man's sight and sense—for when the law enters, sin abounds, and to close up this, as there are many sins now discovered unto such a soul, which lay hid before, the light having shined in upon the darkness, and, above all, the desperate wickedness of the heart is presented, so there is no sin known and discerned, but there is an equal impartial sorrow for it, and indignation against it. As a believer hath respect to all God's commands, and loves to obey them, so the penitent soul hath an impartial hatred of all sin, even the dearest and most beloved idol, and desires unfeignedly to be rid of it. Hence your usual public confessions of sin are wiped out of the number of true and sincere confessions, because you pretend to repent of one sin, and in the meantime, neither do ye know a multitude of other sins that prevail over you, nor do you mourn for them, nor forsake them. Nay, you do not examine yourselves that way, to find out the temper of your hearts, or tenor and course of your ways. You pretend to repent for drunkenness, or such like, and yet you are ordinary cursers, swearers, liars, railers, neglecters of prayer, profaners of the Sabbath, and such like, and these you do not withal mourn for. In sum, he that mourns only for the sin that men censure, knoweth and confesseth no sin sincerely. If you would indeed return unto God from some gross evils, you must be divorced in your affections from all sin.

Then this confession should be perpetuated and continued as long as we are in this life, for that is imported by comparing this verse with those it stands between.“If we say we have no sin, if we say at any time, while we are in this life, if we imagine or dream of any such perfection here,”we lie. Now, what should we do then, since sin is always lodging in our mortal bodies, during this time of necessary abode beside an ill neighbour? What should be our exercise? Even this,—confess your sins, confess, I say, as long as you have them, draw out this the length of that. Be continually groaning to him under that body of death, and mourning under your daily infirmities and failings. That stream of corruption runs continually—let[pg 328]the stream of your contrition and confession run as incessantly, and there is another stream of Christ's blood, that runs constantly too, to cleanse you. Now, herein is the discovery of the vanity and deceitfulness of many of your confessions, public and private, the current of them soon dries up, there is no perpetuity or constancy in them, no daily humbling or abasing yourselves, but all that is, is by fits and starts upon some transient convictions or outward censures and rebukes, and thus men quickly cover and bury their sins in oblivion and security and forget what manner of persons they were. They are not under a duly impartial examination of their ways, take notice of nothing but some solemn and gross escapes, and these are but a short time under their view.

Now, let me apply a little to the encouragement of poor souls, who being inwardly burdened with the weight of their own guiltiness, exoner themselves by confession in his bosom. As you have two suits, and two desires to him,—one, that your sins may be forgiven, another, that they may be subdued, so he hath two solemn engagements and ties to satisfy you,—one to forgive your sins, and another to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. The soul that is truly penitent, is not only desirous of pardon of sin—that is not the chief or only design of such a soul in application to Christ,—but it is withal to be purified from sin and all unrighteousness, and to have ungodly lusts cleansed away. And herein is the great application of such an one's reality,—it will not suffice or satisfy such an one, to be assured of delivery from wrath and condemnation, but he must likewise be redeemed from sin, that it hath no dominion over him. He desires to be freed from death, that he may have his conscience withal purged“from dead works to serve the living God,”Heb. ix. 14. He would have sin blotted out of an accusing conscience, that it may be purged out of the affections of the heart, and he would have his sins washed away, for this end especially, that he may be washed from his sins, Rev. i. 5. Now, as this is the great desire and design of such a heart, in which there is no guile, to have sin purified and purged out of us as well as pardoned, so there is a special tie and obligation upon God our Father, by promise, not only to pardon sin, but to purge from sin, not only to cover it with the garment of Christ's righteousness, and the breadth of his infinite love but also to cleanse it by his Spirit effectually applying that blood to the purifying of the heart. Now, where God hath bound himself voluntarily, and out of love, do not ye lose him by unbelief, for that will bind you into a prison: but labour to receive those gracious promises, and to take him bound as he offers. Believe, I say that he will both forgive you, and in due time will cleanse your heart from the love and delight of sin. Believe his promise, and engagement by promise to both and this will set a seal to his truth and faithfulness. There is nothing in God to affright a sinner, but his justice, holiness, and righteousness, but unto thee who, in the humble confession of thy sins, fliest into Jesus Christ, that very thing which did discourage thee, may now encourage and embolden thee to come, for“he is just and faithful to forgive sins.”His justice being now satisfied, is engaged that way to forgive, not to punish.

Sermon XX.1 John i. 10.—“If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”There is nothing in which religion more consists than in the true and unfeigned knowledge of ourselves. The heathens supposed that sentence, γνωθι σεατον“Know thyself,”descended from heaven. It was indeed the motto of the wisest and most religious amongst them. But certain it is, that the true and sincere understanding of ourselves descends from“the Father of lights,”and is as great a gift as man is capable of, next to the knowledge of God himself. There is nothing more necessary to man, either as a man or as a Christian, either as endowed with reason or professing religion, than that he should be thoroughly acquainted with himself, his own[pg 329]heart, its dispositions, inclinations, and lusts, his ways and actions, that while he travels abroad to other creatures and countries, he may not commit so shameful an absurdity, as to be a stranger at home, where he ought to be best acquainted. Yet how sad is it, that this which is so absolutely needful and universally profitable, should be lying under the manyest difficulties in the attainment of it? So that there is nothing harder, than to bring a man to a perfect understanding of himself:—what a vile, haughty, and base creature he is—how defiled and desperately wicked his nature—how abominable his actions, in a word, what a compound of darkness and wickedness he is—a heap of defiled dust, and a mass of confusion—a sink of impiety and iniquity, even the best of mankind, those of the rarest and most refined extraction, take them at their best estate. Thus they are as sepulchres painted without, and putrified within—outwardly adorned, and within all full of rottenness and corruption,“the imagination of his heart only evil continually.”Now, I say, here is the great business and labour of religion,—to bring a man to the clear discerning of his own nature,—to represent unto him justly his own image, as it is painted in the word of God, and presented in the glass of the law, and so by such a surprising monstrous appearance, to affect his heart to self abhorrency in dust and ashes and to have this representation, however unpleasant, yet most profitable, continually observant to our minds, that we may not forget what manner of persons we are. Truly I may say, if there be a perfection in this estate of imperfection, herein it consists, and if there be any attainment of a Christian, I account this the greatest,—to be truly sensible of himself, and vile in his own eyes.It was the custom of Philip,248king of Macedonia, after he had overcome the famous republic of Greece, to have a young man to salute him first every morning with these words,Philippe homo es,—Philip, thou art a man, to the end that he might be daily minded of his mortality, and the unconstancy of human affairs, lest he should be puffed up with his victory, and this was done before any could have access to speak with him, as if it were to season and prepare him for the actions of the day. But O how much more ought a Christian to train up his own heart and accustom it this way, to be his continual remembrancer of himself, to suggest continually to his mind, and whisper this first into his ear in the morning, and mid day, and evening,—peccator es, thou art a sinner, to hold our own image continually before us, in prayer and praises, in restraints, in liberties of spirit, in religious actions, and in all our ordinary conversation, that it might salt and season all our thoughts, words and deeds, and keep them from that ordinary putrefaction and corruption of pride and self conceit, which maketh all our ointment stink.“If we say we have no sin, we make him a liar.”Why is this repeated again, but to show unto us, even to you Christians who believe in Christ, and are washed in his blood, how hard it is to know ourselves aright? If we speak of the grosser sort of persons, they scarce know any sin, nor the nature and vileness of any that they know, therefore they live in security and peace, and bless themselves in their own hearts, as if they had no sin. For such, I say, I shall only say unto them, that your self deceiving is not so subtile, but it may soon be discerned; your lie is gross, and quickly seen through. But I would turn myself to you Christians, who are in some measure acquainted with yourselves, yet there is something against you from this word. After ye have once got some peace from the challenge of sin, and hope of pardon, you many times fall out of acquaintance with yourselves. Having attained, by the Lord's grace, to some restraint of the more visible outbreakings of sin, you have not that occasion to know yourselves by, and so you remain strangers to your hearts, and fall into better liking with yourselves, than the first sight of yourselves permitted you. Now, my beloved in the Lord, herein you are to be blamed, that you do not rather go to the fountain, and there behold the streams, than only to behold the fountain in the streams. You ought rather, upon the Lord's testimony of man, to believe what is in you, before you find it, and see it breaking out;[pg 330]and keep this character continually in your sight, which will be more powerful to humble you than many outbreakings. I think we should be so well acquainted with our own natures, as to account nothing strange to them that we see abroad, but rather think all the grossness and wickedness of men suitable and correspondent to our spirits,—to that root of bitterness that is in them. The goodness of God in restraining the appearance of that in us, which is within us in reality, should rather increase the sense of our own wickedness, than diminish it in our view.Indeed, self love is that which blinds us, and bemists us in the sight of ourselves. We look upon ourselves through this false medium, and it represents all things more beautiful than they are, and therefore the apostle hath reason to say,“We deceive ourselves, and we make God a liar.”O how much practical self-conceit is there in the application of truth! There are many errors contrary to the truths themselves, and many deceivers and deceived, who spread them, but I believe there are more errors committed by men in the application of truths to their own hearts, than in the contemplation of them, and more self deceiving than deceiving of others. It is strange to think, how sound, and clear, and distinct a man's judgment will be against those evils in others, which yet he seeth not in himself, how many Christians will be able to decipher the nature of some vices, and unbowel the evils of them, and be quick-sighted to espy the least appearance of them in another, and to condemn it, and yet so partial are they in judging themselves,—self-love so purblinds them in this reflection, that they cannot discern that in themselves, which others cannot but discern! How often do men declaim against pride, and covetousness, and self-seeking, and other evils of that kind? They will pour out a flood of eloquence and zeal against them, and yet it is strange they do not advert, that they are accusing themselves, and impannelling themselves in such discourses, though others, it may be, will easily perceive a predominancy of these evils in them.“Who art thou, O man, who judgeth another, and doest the same thing? Canst thou escape God's judgment?”Rom. ii. 1. Consider this, O Christian, that thou mayest learn to turn the edge of all thy censures and convictions against thyself, that thou mayest prevent all men's judgments of thee, in judging thyself all things that men can judge thee, that is, a chief of sinners, that hath the root of all sin in thee, and so thou mayest anticipate the divine judgment too,“for if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged.”Labour thou to know those evils that are incident to thy nature, before others can know them, that is, in the root and fountain, before they come to the fruit and stream, to know sins in the first conceptions of them, before they come to such productions as are visible, and this shall keep thee humble, and preserve thee from much sin, and thou shalt not deceive thyself, nor dishonour God, in making him a liar, but rather set to thy seal to this truth, and his word shall abide in thee.There is a common rule that we have in judging ourselves, by comparing ourselves amongst ourselves, which, as Paul saith,“is not wisdom,”2 Cor. x. 12. When we do not measure ourselves by the perfect rule of God's holy word, but parallel ourselves with other persons, who are still defective from the rule, far further from it than anyone is from another, this is the ordinary method of the judging of self love. We compare with the worst persons, and if we be not so bad as they, we think ourselves good. If not so ignorant as some are, we presume that we know, if not so profane as many, we believe ourselves religious.“Lord, I am not as this publican,”so say many in their hearts,—there is a curser, a swearer, a drunkard, a blind ignorant soul, that neglects prayer in private and public, and upon these ruins of others' sins, they build some better estimation of themselves. But, I pray you, what will that avail you, to be unlike them, if you be more unlike your pattern than they are unlike you? It must be, others will compare with those that are good, but it is with that which is worst in them, and not that which is best. How often do men reckon this way,—here is a good man, here is an eminent person, yet he is such and such, subject to such infirmities, and here self-love flatters itself, and, by flattering, deceives itself. My beloved, let us learn to establish a more perfect rule, which may show all our imperfections. Let our rule ascend, that our hearts may descend in humility. But when our role and pattern descends to men of like infirmities, then our pride and self conceit ascends, and the higher we be that way in our own account, the[pg 331]lower we are indeed, and in God's account, and the lower we be in ourselves we lose nothing by it; for, as God is higher in our account, so we are higher in God's account, according to that standing rule, Matth. xxiii. 12,“Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.”

1 John i. 10.—“If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

There is nothing in which religion more consists than in the true and unfeigned knowledge of ourselves. The heathens supposed that sentence, γνωθι σεατον“Know thyself,”descended from heaven. It was indeed the motto of the wisest and most religious amongst them. But certain it is, that the true and sincere understanding of ourselves descends from“the Father of lights,”and is as great a gift as man is capable of, next to the knowledge of God himself. There is nothing more necessary to man, either as a man or as a Christian, either as endowed with reason or professing religion, than that he should be thoroughly acquainted with himself, his own[pg 329]heart, its dispositions, inclinations, and lusts, his ways and actions, that while he travels abroad to other creatures and countries, he may not commit so shameful an absurdity, as to be a stranger at home, where he ought to be best acquainted. Yet how sad is it, that this which is so absolutely needful and universally profitable, should be lying under the manyest difficulties in the attainment of it? So that there is nothing harder, than to bring a man to a perfect understanding of himself:—what a vile, haughty, and base creature he is—how defiled and desperately wicked his nature—how abominable his actions, in a word, what a compound of darkness and wickedness he is—a heap of defiled dust, and a mass of confusion—a sink of impiety and iniquity, even the best of mankind, those of the rarest and most refined extraction, take them at their best estate. Thus they are as sepulchres painted without, and putrified within—outwardly adorned, and within all full of rottenness and corruption,“the imagination of his heart only evil continually.”Now, I say, here is the great business and labour of religion,—to bring a man to the clear discerning of his own nature,—to represent unto him justly his own image, as it is painted in the word of God, and presented in the glass of the law, and so by such a surprising monstrous appearance, to affect his heart to self abhorrency in dust and ashes and to have this representation, however unpleasant, yet most profitable, continually observant to our minds, that we may not forget what manner of persons we are. Truly I may say, if there be a perfection in this estate of imperfection, herein it consists, and if there be any attainment of a Christian, I account this the greatest,—to be truly sensible of himself, and vile in his own eyes.

It was the custom of Philip,248king of Macedonia, after he had overcome the famous republic of Greece, to have a young man to salute him first every morning with these words,Philippe homo es,—Philip, thou art a man, to the end that he might be daily minded of his mortality, and the unconstancy of human affairs, lest he should be puffed up with his victory, and this was done before any could have access to speak with him, as if it were to season and prepare him for the actions of the day. But O how much more ought a Christian to train up his own heart and accustom it this way, to be his continual remembrancer of himself, to suggest continually to his mind, and whisper this first into his ear in the morning, and mid day, and evening,—peccator es, thou art a sinner, to hold our own image continually before us, in prayer and praises, in restraints, in liberties of spirit, in religious actions, and in all our ordinary conversation, that it might salt and season all our thoughts, words and deeds, and keep them from that ordinary putrefaction and corruption of pride and self conceit, which maketh all our ointment stink.

“If we say we have no sin, we make him a liar.”Why is this repeated again, but to show unto us, even to you Christians who believe in Christ, and are washed in his blood, how hard it is to know ourselves aright? If we speak of the grosser sort of persons, they scarce know any sin, nor the nature and vileness of any that they know, therefore they live in security and peace, and bless themselves in their own hearts, as if they had no sin. For such, I say, I shall only say unto them, that your self deceiving is not so subtile, but it may soon be discerned; your lie is gross, and quickly seen through. But I would turn myself to you Christians, who are in some measure acquainted with yourselves, yet there is something against you from this word. After ye have once got some peace from the challenge of sin, and hope of pardon, you many times fall out of acquaintance with yourselves. Having attained, by the Lord's grace, to some restraint of the more visible outbreakings of sin, you have not that occasion to know yourselves by, and so you remain strangers to your hearts, and fall into better liking with yourselves, than the first sight of yourselves permitted you. Now, my beloved in the Lord, herein you are to be blamed, that you do not rather go to the fountain, and there behold the streams, than only to behold the fountain in the streams. You ought rather, upon the Lord's testimony of man, to believe what is in you, before you find it, and see it breaking out;[pg 330]and keep this character continually in your sight, which will be more powerful to humble you than many outbreakings. I think we should be so well acquainted with our own natures, as to account nothing strange to them that we see abroad, but rather think all the grossness and wickedness of men suitable and correspondent to our spirits,—to that root of bitterness that is in them. The goodness of God in restraining the appearance of that in us, which is within us in reality, should rather increase the sense of our own wickedness, than diminish it in our view.

Indeed, self love is that which blinds us, and bemists us in the sight of ourselves. We look upon ourselves through this false medium, and it represents all things more beautiful than they are, and therefore the apostle hath reason to say,“We deceive ourselves, and we make God a liar.”O how much practical self-conceit is there in the application of truth! There are many errors contrary to the truths themselves, and many deceivers and deceived, who spread them, but I believe there are more errors committed by men in the application of truths to their own hearts, than in the contemplation of them, and more self deceiving than deceiving of others. It is strange to think, how sound, and clear, and distinct a man's judgment will be against those evils in others, which yet he seeth not in himself, how many Christians will be able to decipher the nature of some vices, and unbowel the evils of them, and be quick-sighted to espy the least appearance of them in another, and to condemn it, and yet so partial are they in judging themselves,—self-love so purblinds them in this reflection, that they cannot discern that in themselves, which others cannot but discern! How often do men declaim against pride, and covetousness, and self-seeking, and other evils of that kind? They will pour out a flood of eloquence and zeal against them, and yet it is strange they do not advert, that they are accusing themselves, and impannelling themselves in such discourses, though others, it may be, will easily perceive a predominancy of these evils in them.“Who art thou, O man, who judgeth another, and doest the same thing? Canst thou escape God's judgment?”Rom. ii. 1. Consider this, O Christian, that thou mayest learn to turn the edge of all thy censures and convictions against thyself, that thou mayest prevent all men's judgments of thee, in judging thyself all things that men can judge thee, that is, a chief of sinners, that hath the root of all sin in thee, and so thou mayest anticipate the divine judgment too,“for if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged.”Labour thou to know those evils that are incident to thy nature, before others can know them, that is, in the root and fountain, before they come to the fruit and stream, to know sins in the first conceptions of them, before they come to such productions as are visible, and this shall keep thee humble, and preserve thee from much sin, and thou shalt not deceive thyself, nor dishonour God, in making him a liar, but rather set to thy seal to this truth, and his word shall abide in thee.

There is a common rule that we have in judging ourselves, by comparing ourselves amongst ourselves, which, as Paul saith,“is not wisdom,”2 Cor. x. 12. When we do not measure ourselves by the perfect rule of God's holy word, but parallel ourselves with other persons, who are still defective from the rule, far further from it than anyone is from another, this is the ordinary method of the judging of self love. We compare with the worst persons, and if we be not so bad as they, we think ourselves good. If not so ignorant as some are, we presume that we know, if not so profane as many, we believe ourselves religious.“Lord, I am not as this publican,”so say many in their hearts,—there is a curser, a swearer, a drunkard, a blind ignorant soul, that neglects prayer in private and public, and upon these ruins of others' sins, they build some better estimation of themselves. But, I pray you, what will that avail you, to be unlike them, if you be more unlike your pattern than they are unlike you? It must be, others will compare with those that are good, but it is with that which is worst in them, and not that which is best. How often do men reckon this way,—here is a good man, here is an eminent person, yet he is such and such, subject to such infirmities, and here self-love flatters itself, and, by flattering, deceives itself. My beloved, let us learn to establish a more perfect rule, which may show all our imperfections. Let our rule ascend, that our hearts may descend in humility. But when our role and pattern descends to men of like infirmities, then our pride and self conceit ascends, and the higher we be that way in our own account, the[pg 331]lower we are indeed, and in God's account, and the lower we be in ourselves we lose nothing by it; for, as God is higher in our account, so we are higher in God's account, according to that standing rule, Matth. xxiii. 12,“Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.”

Sermon XXI.1 John ii. 1.—“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,”&c.The gospel is an entire uniform piece, all the parts of it are interwoven through other, and interchangeably knit together, so that there can be no dividing of it any more than of Christ's coat that was without seam. If you have it not altogether by the divine lot, you cannot truly have any part of it, for they are so knit together, that if you disjoin them, you destroy them, and if they cease to be together, they cease altogether to be. I speak this, because there may be pretensions to some abstracted parts of Christianity. One man pretends to faith in Jesus Christ, and persuasion of pardon of sin, and in this there may be some secret glorying arising from that confidence, another may pretend to the study of holiness and obedience, and may endeavour something that way to do known duties, and abstain from gross sins. Now, I say, if the first do not conjoin the study of the second, and if the second do not lay down the first as the foundation, both of them embrace a shadow for the thing itself, because they separate those things that God hath joined, and so can have no being but in men's fancy, when they are not conjoined. He that would pretend to a righteousness of Christ, without him, must withal study to have the righteousness of the law fulfilled within him, and he that endeavours to have holiness within must withal go out of himself, to seek a righteousness without him, whereupon to build his peace and acceptance with God, or else, neither of them hath truly any righteousness without them, to cover them, or holiness within, to cleanse them. Now, here the beloved apostle shows us this divine contexture of the gospel. The great and comprehensive end and design of the gospel is, peace in pardon of sin, and purity from sin.“These things I write unto you, that you sin not,”&c. The gospel is comprised in commands and promises, both make one web, and link in together. The immediate end of the command is,“that we sin not,”nay, but there is another thing always either expressly added, or tacitly understood—“but if any man sin,”that desires not to sin,“we have an advocate with the Father.”So the promise comes in as a subsidiary help to all the precepts. It is annexed to give security to a poor soul from despair, and therefore the apostle teacheth you a blessed art of constructing all the commands and exhortations of the gospel, those of the highest pitch, by supplying the full sense with this happy and seasonable caution or caveat,“but if any man sin,”&c. Doth that command,“Be ye holy as I am holy,”perfect as your heavenly Father, which sounds so much unattainable perfection, and seems to hold forth an inimitable pattern, doth it, I say, discourage thee? Then, use the apostle's art, add this caution to the command, subjoin this sweet exceptive,—“but if any man,”that desires to be holy, and gives himself to this study, fail often, and fall and defile himself with unholiness, let him not despair, but know, that he hath“an advocate with the Father.”If that of Paul's urge thee,“present your bodies a living sacrifice,—and be not conformed to the world,”but transformed, and“glorify God in your bodies and spirits,”which are his, (Rom. xii. 1, 2, 1 Cor. vi. 20,)—and, cleanse yourselves“from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,”(2 Cor. vii. 1,)—and,“walk in the Spirit,”and“walk as children of the light,”&c.,—if these do too rigorously exact upon thee, so as to make thee lose thy peace, and weaken thy heart and hands, learn to make out a full sentence, and fill up the full sense and meaning of the gospel, according as you see it done here. But if any man,—whose inward heart-desires, and chief designs are toward these things, who would think himself happy in holiness and conformity to God, and estimates[pg 332]his blessedness or misery, from his union or separation from God,—“sin”then“we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous,”who hath all that we want, and will not suffer any accusation to fasten upon us, as long as he lives“to make intercession for us.”On the other hand, take a view of the promises of the gospel. Though the immediate and next end of them is to give peace to troubled souls, and settle us in the high point of our acceptance with God, yet certainly they have a further end, even purity from sin, as well as pardon of sin, cleansing from all sin and filthiness as well as covering of filthiness.“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”What things? Consider what goes before, and what follows after, even the publication of the word of life, and eternal life in him, the declaration of our fellowship with God in Christ the offering of the blood of Christ, able to cleanse all sin, the promise of pardon to the penitent, confession of sin,—all these things I write,“that ye sin not,”so that this seems to be the ultimate end and chief design of the gospel, unto which all tends, unto which all work together. The promises are for peace, and peace is for purity, the promises are for faith, and faith is for purifying of the heart, and performing the precepts, so that, all at length returns to this, from whence, while we swerved, all this misery is come upon us. In the beginning it was thus,—man was created to glorify God, by obedience to his blessed will, sin interposeth and marreth the whole frame, and from this hath a flood of misery flowed in upon us. Well, the gospel comes offering a Saviour, and forgiveness in him. Thus peace is purchased, pardon granted, the soul is restored unto its primitive condition and state of subordination to God's will, and so redemption ends where creation began, or rather in a more perfect frame of the same kind. The second Adam builds what the first Adam broke down, and the Son re-creates what the Father in the beginning created, yea, with some addition. In this new edition of mankind, all seems new—“new heavens, and new earth,”and that because the creature that was made old, and defiled with sin, is made new by grace. Now, hence you may learn the second part of this lesson that the apostle teaches us; as ye ought to correct, as it were, precepts of the gospel, by subjoining promises in this manner, so ye ought to direct promises towards the performance of his precepts, as their chief end. Whensoever you read it written,“The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin,”—“If we confess, he is faithful to forgive our sins,”—“God so loved the world that he gave his Son,”—“He that believeth hath everlasting life,”&c.—then make up the entire sense and meaning after this manner,“These things are written that we sin not.”Is there a redemption from wrath published? Is there reconciliation with God preached? And are we beseeched to come and have the benefit of them? Then say, and supply within thine own heart, These things are written, published, and preached, that we may not sin. Look to the furthest end of these things, it is,“that we sin not.”The end of things, the scope of writings, and the purpose of actions, is the very measure of them, and so that is the best interpreter of them. The scope of scripture is by all accounted the very thread that will lead a man right in and out of the labyrinths that are in it. And so it is used as the rule of the interpretation in the parts of it. Now, my beloved in the Lord, take here the scope of the whole scriptures, the mark that all the gospel shoots at,“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”You hear, it is true, of pardon of sin, of delivery from wrath, of not coming into condemnation, of covering offences, of blotting them out as a cloud, all these you read and hear of, but what do they all aim at? If you consider not that attentively you shall no more understand the plain gospel, than you can expound a parable without observing the scope of it. Do you think these have no further aim, than to give you peace, and to secure you from fears and terrors, that you may then walk as you list, and follow the guiding of your own hearts? Nay, if you take it so, you totally mistake it. If you do not read on, and had all these things written to this end,“that ye sin not,”you err, not understanding, or misunderstanding, the scriptures.“These things I write unto you, little children.”To enforce this the more sweetly, he useth this affectionate compellation,“little children,”for in all things affection hath a mighty stroke, almost as much as reason. It is the most suitable way to prevail with the spirit of a man, to deal in love and tenderness with it, it speaks[pg 333]more sweetly, and so can have less resistance, and therefore works more strongly. It is true, another way of terrors threatening, and reproofs, mingled with sharp and heavy words of challenges, may make a great deal of more noise, and yet it hath not such virtue to prevail with a rational soul. The Spirit of the Lord was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still and calm voice which came to Elijah, 1 Kings xix. 11, 12. These suit not the gentle, dove-like disposition of the Spirit; and though they be fit to rend rocks in pieces, yet they cannot truly break hearts, and make them contrite. The sun will make a man sooner part with his cloak than the wind, such is the difference between the warm beams of affection, and the boisterous violence of passions or terror. Now, O that there were such a spirit in them who preach the gospel, such a fatherly affection, that with much pity and compassion they might call sinners from the ways of death! O there is no subject, in which a man may have more room for melting affections, nothing that will admit of such bowels of compassion as this—the multitude of souls posting to destruction, and so blindfolded that they cannot see it! Here the fountain of tears might be opened to run abundantly. The Lord personates a tender hearted father or husband often,“Oh, why will ye die? Ye have broken my heart with your whorish heart. O Jerusalem, how oft would I, but thou wouldst not!”When he, who is not subject to human passions, expresseth himself thus, how much more doth it become us poor creatures to have pity on our fellow-creatures? Should it not press out from us many groans, to see so many perishing, even beside salvation. I wish you would take it so, that the warning you to flee from the wrath to come, is the greatest act of favour and love that can be done to you. It becomes us to be solicitous about you, and declare unto you, that you will meet with destruction in those paths in which you walk; that these ways go down to the chambers of death. O that it might be done with so much feeling compassion of your misery, as the necessity of it requires! But, why do many of you take it so hard to be thus forewarned, and have your danger declared unto you? I guess at the reason of it. You are in a distempter as sick children distempered in a fever, who are not capable of discerning their parents' tender affection, when it crosseth their own inclinations and ways.

1 John ii. 1.—“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,”&c.

The gospel is an entire uniform piece, all the parts of it are interwoven through other, and interchangeably knit together, so that there can be no dividing of it any more than of Christ's coat that was without seam. If you have it not altogether by the divine lot, you cannot truly have any part of it, for they are so knit together, that if you disjoin them, you destroy them, and if they cease to be together, they cease altogether to be. I speak this, because there may be pretensions to some abstracted parts of Christianity. One man pretends to faith in Jesus Christ, and persuasion of pardon of sin, and in this there may be some secret glorying arising from that confidence, another may pretend to the study of holiness and obedience, and may endeavour something that way to do known duties, and abstain from gross sins. Now, I say, if the first do not conjoin the study of the second, and if the second do not lay down the first as the foundation, both of them embrace a shadow for the thing itself, because they separate those things that God hath joined, and so can have no being but in men's fancy, when they are not conjoined. He that would pretend to a righteousness of Christ, without him, must withal study to have the righteousness of the law fulfilled within him, and he that endeavours to have holiness within must withal go out of himself, to seek a righteousness without him, whereupon to build his peace and acceptance with God, or else, neither of them hath truly any righteousness without them, to cover them, or holiness within, to cleanse them. Now, here the beloved apostle shows us this divine contexture of the gospel. The great and comprehensive end and design of the gospel is, peace in pardon of sin, and purity from sin.“These things I write unto you, that you sin not,”&c. The gospel is comprised in commands and promises, both make one web, and link in together. The immediate end of the command is,“that we sin not,”nay, but there is another thing always either expressly added, or tacitly understood—“but if any man sin,”that desires not to sin,“we have an advocate with the Father.”So the promise comes in as a subsidiary help to all the precepts. It is annexed to give security to a poor soul from despair, and therefore the apostle teacheth you a blessed art of constructing all the commands and exhortations of the gospel, those of the highest pitch, by supplying the full sense with this happy and seasonable caution or caveat,“but if any man sin,”&c. Doth that command,“Be ye holy as I am holy,”perfect as your heavenly Father, which sounds so much unattainable perfection, and seems to hold forth an inimitable pattern, doth it, I say, discourage thee? Then, use the apostle's art, add this caution to the command, subjoin this sweet exceptive,—“but if any man,”that desires to be holy, and gives himself to this study, fail often, and fall and defile himself with unholiness, let him not despair, but know, that he hath“an advocate with the Father.”If that of Paul's urge thee,“present your bodies a living sacrifice,—and be not conformed to the world,”but transformed, and“glorify God in your bodies and spirits,”which are his, (Rom. xii. 1, 2, 1 Cor. vi. 20,)—and, cleanse yourselves“from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,”(2 Cor. vii. 1,)—and,“walk in the Spirit,”and“walk as children of the light,”&c.,—if these do too rigorously exact upon thee, so as to make thee lose thy peace, and weaken thy heart and hands, learn to make out a full sentence, and fill up the full sense and meaning of the gospel, according as you see it done here. But if any man,—whose inward heart-desires, and chief designs are toward these things, who would think himself happy in holiness and conformity to God, and estimates[pg 332]his blessedness or misery, from his union or separation from God,—“sin”then“we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous,”who hath all that we want, and will not suffer any accusation to fasten upon us, as long as he lives“to make intercession for us.”

On the other hand, take a view of the promises of the gospel. Though the immediate and next end of them is to give peace to troubled souls, and settle us in the high point of our acceptance with God, yet certainly they have a further end, even purity from sin, as well as pardon of sin, cleansing from all sin and filthiness as well as covering of filthiness.“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”What things? Consider what goes before, and what follows after, even the publication of the word of life, and eternal life in him, the declaration of our fellowship with God in Christ the offering of the blood of Christ, able to cleanse all sin, the promise of pardon to the penitent, confession of sin,—all these things I write,“that ye sin not,”so that this seems to be the ultimate end and chief design of the gospel, unto which all tends, unto which all work together. The promises are for peace, and peace is for purity, the promises are for faith, and faith is for purifying of the heart, and performing the precepts, so that, all at length returns to this, from whence, while we swerved, all this misery is come upon us. In the beginning it was thus,—man was created to glorify God, by obedience to his blessed will, sin interposeth and marreth the whole frame, and from this hath a flood of misery flowed in upon us. Well, the gospel comes offering a Saviour, and forgiveness in him. Thus peace is purchased, pardon granted, the soul is restored unto its primitive condition and state of subordination to God's will, and so redemption ends where creation began, or rather in a more perfect frame of the same kind. The second Adam builds what the first Adam broke down, and the Son re-creates what the Father in the beginning created, yea, with some addition. In this new edition of mankind, all seems new—“new heavens, and new earth,”and that because the creature that was made old, and defiled with sin, is made new by grace. Now, hence you may learn the second part of this lesson that the apostle teaches us; as ye ought to correct, as it were, precepts of the gospel, by subjoining promises in this manner, so ye ought to direct promises towards the performance of his precepts, as their chief end. Whensoever you read it written,“The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin,”—“If we confess, he is faithful to forgive our sins,”—“God so loved the world that he gave his Son,”—“He that believeth hath everlasting life,”&c.—then make up the entire sense and meaning after this manner,“These things are written that we sin not.”Is there a redemption from wrath published? Is there reconciliation with God preached? And are we beseeched to come and have the benefit of them? Then say, and supply within thine own heart, These things are written, published, and preached, that we may not sin. Look to the furthest end of these things, it is,“that we sin not.”The end of things, the scope of writings, and the purpose of actions, is the very measure of them, and so that is the best interpreter of them. The scope of scripture is by all accounted the very thread that will lead a man right in and out of the labyrinths that are in it. And so it is used as the rule of the interpretation in the parts of it. Now, my beloved in the Lord, take here the scope of the whole scriptures, the mark that all the gospel shoots at,“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”You hear, it is true, of pardon of sin, of delivery from wrath, of not coming into condemnation, of covering offences, of blotting them out as a cloud, all these you read and hear of, but what do they all aim at? If you consider not that attentively you shall no more understand the plain gospel, than you can expound a parable without observing the scope of it. Do you think these have no further aim, than to give you peace, and to secure you from fears and terrors, that you may then walk as you list, and follow the guiding of your own hearts? Nay, if you take it so, you totally mistake it. If you do not read on, and had all these things written to this end,“that ye sin not,”you err, not understanding, or misunderstanding, the scriptures.

“These things I write unto you, little children.”To enforce this the more sweetly, he useth this affectionate compellation,“little children,”for in all things affection hath a mighty stroke, almost as much as reason. It is the most suitable way to prevail with the spirit of a man, to deal in love and tenderness with it, it speaks[pg 333]more sweetly, and so can have less resistance, and therefore works more strongly. It is true, another way of terrors threatening, and reproofs, mingled with sharp and heavy words of challenges, may make a great deal of more noise, and yet it hath not such virtue to prevail with a rational soul. The Spirit of the Lord was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still and calm voice which came to Elijah, 1 Kings xix. 11, 12. These suit not the gentle, dove-like disposition of the Spirit; and though they be fit to rend rocks in pieces, yet they cannot truly break hearts, and make them contrite. The sun will make a man sooner part with his cloak than the wind, such is the difference between the warm beams of affection, and the boisterous violence of passions or terror. Now, O that there were such a spirit in them who preach the gospel, such a fatherly affection, that with much pity and compassion they might call sinners from the ways of death! O there is no subject, in which a man may have more room for melting affections, nothing that will admit of such bowels of compassion as this—the multitude of souls posting to destruction, and so blindfolded that they cannot see it! Here the fountain of tears might be opened to run abundantly. The Lord personates a tender hearted father or husband often,“Oh, why will ye die? Ye have broken my heart with your whorish heart. O Jerusalem, how oft would I, but thou wouldst not!”When he, who is not subject to human passions, expresseth himself thus, how much more doth it become us poor creatures to have pity on our fellow-creatures? Should it not press out from us many groans, to see so many perishing, even beside salvation. I wish you would take it so, that the warning you to flee from the wrath to come, is the greatest act of favour and love that can be done to you. It becomes us to be solicitous about you, and declare unto you, that you will meet with destruction in those paths in which you walk; that these ways go down to the chambers of death. O that it might be done with so much feeling compassion of your misery, as the necessity of it requires! But, why do many of you take it so hard to be thus forewarned, and have your danger declared unto you? I guess at the reason of it. You are in a distempter as sick children distempered in a fever, who are not capable of discerning their parents' tender affection, when it crosseth their own inclinations and ways.

Sermon XXII.1 John ii. 1.—“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,”, &c.Christ Jesus came by water and by blood, not by water only, but by blood also, and I add, not by blood only but by water also, chap. v. 6. In sin there is the guilt binding over to punishment, and there is the filth or spot that defileth the soul in God's sight. To take away guilt, nothing so fit as blood for there is no punishment beyond blood, therefore saith the apostle,“without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin,”Heb. ix. 22, and for the stain and spot, nothing is so suitable as water, for that is generally appointed for cleansing. And some shadow of this the heathens had, who had their lustrations in water, and their expiations by blood,249but more significantly and plainly, the Jews, who had their purifications[pg 334]by sprinkling of water, (Num. viii. 7.) and expiations by sacrificing of slain beasts. But all these were but evanishing shadows; now the substance is come, Jesus Christ is come in water and blood; in water, to cleanse the spots of the soul, to purify it from all filthiness; and in blood, to satisfy for sin, and remove the punishment. You have both in these words of the apostle, for he labours to set out unto us the true Christ, whole and entire,“these things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”Here is the proper end of the water—and“if any man sin, we have Christ a propitiation for our sins.”Here is the blood—the end of the blood is to save us, the end of the water is that we sin not, since we are saved. He came in the blood of expiation, because we had sinned. He came in the water of sanctification, that we might not sin. His blood speaks peace to the soul, and the water subjoins,“but let them not return to folly.”His blood cries,“behold thou art made whole.”And the water echoes unto it,“sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee,”John v. 14. These two streams of water and blood, which are appointed for purity and pardon, run intermingled all along, and so the proper effects of them are interchangeably attributed to either of them;“he hath washed us in his blood,”(Rev. i. 5; vii. 14.)“and the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin.”Then, certainly, this blood cannot be without water, it is never separated from it. The proper effect of blood is to cover sin; but because the water runs in that channel, and is conveyed by the blood thither, therefore it doth cleanse sin, as well as cover it.“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”This then is the design of the whole gospel, the great and grand design,—to destroy sin, and save the sinner. There is a treaty of peace made with the sinner, and“Christ is the peace-maker.”A tender of life and salvation is made to him, but there is no treaty, no capitulation or composition with sin; out it must go, first out of its dominion, then out of its habitation. It must first lose its power, and then its being in a believer. Yea, this is one of the chief articles of our peace, not only required of us as our duty, that we should destroy that which cannot but destroy us; for, if any man will needs hug and embrace his sins, and cannot part with them, he must needs die in their embracements, because the council of heaven hath irrevocably passed a fatal sentence against sin, as the only thing that in all the creation hath the most perfect opposition to his blessed will, and contrariety to his holy nature,—but also, and especially, as the great stipulation and promise upon his part,“to redeem us from all our iniquities, and purify us to himself, a people zealous of good works;”and not only to redeem us from hell, and deliver us from wrath, Tit. ii. 14. He hath undertaken this great work, to compesce250this mutiny and rebellion that was raised up in the creation by sin, else what peace could be between God and us, as long as his enemy and ours dwelt in our bosom, and we at peace with it.Now, take a short view of these things that are written in the preceding chapter, and you shall see that the harmonious voice of all that is in the gospel, is this,“that we sin not.”Let me say further, as“these things are written that we sin not,”so[pg 335]all things are done“that we sin not.”Take all the whole work of creation, of providence, of redemption,—all of them speak one language,“that we sin not.”“Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge: there is no speech or language where their voice is not heard,”Psalm xix. 2, 3. And, as in that place, their voice proclaims the glory, majesty, and goodness of God, so they, with the same sound, proclaim and declare, that we should not sin against such a God, so great, and so good. All that we see suggests and insinuates this unto our hearts; all that we hear whispers this unto our ears,“that we sin not, that he made us, and not we ourselves, and that we are the very work of his hands.”This speaks our absolute and essential dependence on him, and therefore proclaims with a loud voice, that sin, which would cut off this subordination, and loose from this dependence upon his holy will, is a monstrous, unnatural thing. Take all his mercies towards us, whether general or particular, the transcendent abundance of his infinite goodness in the earth, that river of his riches that runs through it, to water every man, and bring supply to his doors, that infinite variety that is in heaven and earth, and all of them of equal birth-right with man; yet by the law of our Maker, a yoke of subjection and service to man is imposed upon them, so that man is, in a manner, set in the centre of all, to the end, that all the several qualifications and perfections that are in every creature, may concentre and meet together in him, and flow towards him. Look upon all his particular acts of care and favour towards thee, consider his judgments upon the world, upon the nation, or thine own person. Put to thine ear, and hear. This is the joint harmonious melody, this is the proclamation of all,“that we sin not,”that we sin not against so good a God, and so great a God. That were wickedness, this were madness. If he wound, it is“that we sin not:”if he heal again, it is“that we sin not.”Doth he kill? It is“that we sin not!”Doth he make alive? It is for the same end. Doth he shut up and restrain our liberty, either by bondage, or sickness, or other afflictions? Why, he means“that we sin not.”Doth he open again? He means the same thing,“that we sin no more, lest a worse thing befall us.”Doth he make many to fall in battle, and turn the fury of that upon us? The voice of it is, that you who are left behind should“sin no more.”Is there severity towards others, and towards you clemency? O the loud voice of that is,“sin not!”But alas, the result of all is, that which is written, Psal. lxxviii. 32.—“Nevertheless they sinned still.”In the midst of so many concurring testimonies, in the very throng of all the sounds and voices that all the works of God utter, in the very hearing of these, nevertheless to sin still, and not to return and inquire early after God,—this is the plague and judgment of the nation.But let us return to the words,“these things,”&c.“That which is written of the word of life, that which was from the beginning, and was manifested unto us,”that is written“that we sin not:”For, saith this same apostle, chap. iii. 5, 8,“And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin;”yea, for this very purpose, saith he,“that he might destroy the works of the devil.”Now, this is the great business, that drew the Son out of the Father's bosom,—to destroy the arch-enemy and capital rebel, sin, which, as to man, is a work of Satan's, because it first entered in man by the devil's suggestion and counsel. All that misery and ruin, all those works of darkness and death, that Satan had by his malice and policy wrought upon and in poor mankind, Jesus was manifested in the flesh without sin, to destroy and take away sin out of our flesh, and to abolish and destroy Satan's work, which he had builded upon the ruins of God's work, of the image of God, and to repair and renew that first blessed work of God in man, Eph. iv. 23, 24.Now, O how cogent and persuading is this; one so high, come down so low, one dwelling in inaccessible glory, manifested in the flesh, in the infirmity and weakness of it, to this very purpose, to repair the creation, to make up the breaches of it, to destroy sin, and save the sinner! What force is in this to persuade a soul that truly believes it,“not to sin!”For, may he think within himself, shall I save that which Christ came to destroy, shall I entertain and maintain that which he came to take away, and do what in me lies to frustrate the great end of his glorious and wonderful descent from heaven? Shall I join hands, and associate with my lusts, and war for them,“which war against my soul,”and him that would save my soul? Nay, let us[pg 336]conclude, my beloved, within our own hearts,—Is the Word and Prince of life manifested from heaven, and come to mar and unmake that work of Satan, that he may rescue me from under his tyranny? Then God forbid that I should help Satan to build up that which my Saviour is casting down, and to make a prison for myself, and cords to bind me in it for everlasting. Nay, will a believing soul say, rather let me be a worker together with Christ. Though faintly, yet I resolve to wrestle with him, to pull down all the strongholds that Satan keeps in my nature, and so to congratulate and consent to him, who is the avenger and assertor of my liberty.Then consider the greatest end and furthest design of the gospel, how it is inseparably chained and linked into this,“that we sin not.”We are called to fellowship with the Father and the Son, and herein is his glory and our happiness. Now, this proclaims with a loud voice,“that we sin not,”for, what more contrary to that design of union and communion with God, than to sin, which disunites and discommunicates the soul from God. The nature of sin you know, is the transgression of his law, and so it is the very just opposition of the creatures will to the will of him that made it. Now, how do ye imagine that this can consist with true friendship and fellowship, which looseth that conjunction of wills and affections, which is the bond of true friendship, and the ground of fellowship?Idem velle atque idem nolle, hæc demum vera amicitia est.251The conspiracy of our desires and delights in one point with God's, this sweet coincidency makes our communion, and what communion then can there be with God, when that which his soul abhors is your delight, and his delight is not your desire?“What communion hath light with darkness?”Sin is darkness. All sin but especially sin entertained and maintained, sin that hath the full consent of the heart, and carrieth the whole man after it, that is Egyptian darkness, an universal darkness over the soul. This being interposed between God and the soul, breaks off communion, eclipses that soul totally. Therefore, my beloved, if you do believe that you are called unto this high dignity of fellowship with God, and if your souls be stirred with some holy ambition after it, consider that“these things are written that ye sin not.”Consider what baseness is in it, for one that hath such a noble design, as fellowship with the Highest, to debase his soul so far and so low, as to serve sinful and fleshly lusts. There is a vileness and wretchedness in the service of sin, that any soul, truly and nobly principled, cannot but look upon it with indignation, because he can behold nothing but indignity in it.“Shall I who am a ruler,”saith Nehemiah,“shall such a man as I flee? and who is there that being as I am, would flee?”Neh. vi. 11. A Christian hath more reason. Shall such a man as I, who am born again to such a hope, and called to such a high dignity, shall I, who aim and aspire so high as fellowship with God, debase and degrade myself with the vilest servitude? Shall I defile in that puddle again, till my own clothes abhor me, who aim at so pure and so holy a society? Shall I yoke in myself with drunkards, liars, swearers, and other slaves of sin? Shall I rank myself thus, and conform myself to the world, seeing there is a noble and glorious society to incorporate with, the King of kings to converse with daily? Alas, what are these worms that sit on thrones to him? But far more, how base are these companions in iniquity, your pot companions? &c. And what a vile society is it like that of the bottomless pit, where devils are linked together in chains?

1 John ii. 1.—“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,”, &c.

Christ Jesus came by water and by blood, not by water only, but by blood also, and I add, not by blood only but by water also, chap. v. 6. In sin there is the guilt binding over to punishment, and there is the filth or spot that defileth the soul in God's sight. To take away guilt, nothing so fit as blood for there is no punishment beyond blood, therefore saith the apostle,“without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin,”Heb. ix. 22, and for the stain and spot, nothing is so suitable as water, for that is generally appointed for cleansing. And some shadow of this the heathens had, who had their lustrations in water, and their expiations by blood,249but more significantly and plainly, the Jews, who had their purifications[pg 334]by sprinkling of water, (Num. viii. 7.) and expiations by sacrificing of slain beasts. But all these were but evanishing shadows; now the substance is come, Jesus Christ is come in water and blood; in water, to cleanse the spots of the soul, to purify it from all filthiness; and in blood, to satisfy for sin, and remove the punishment. You have both in these words of the apostle, for he labours to set out unto us the true Christ, whole and entire,“these things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”Here is the proper end of the water—and“if any man sin, we have Christ a propitiation for our sins.”Here is the blood—the end of the blood is to save us, the end of the water is that we sin not, since we are saved. He came in the blood of expiation, because we had sinned. He came in the water of sanctification, that we might not sin. His blood speaks peace to the soul, and the water subjoins,“but let them not return to folly.”His blood cries,“behold thou art made whole.”And the water echoes unto it,“sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee,”John v. 14. These two streams of water and blood, which are appointed for purity and pardon, run intermingled all along, and so the proper effects of them are interchangeably attributed to either of them;“he hath washed us in his blood,”(Rev. i. 5; vii. 14.)“and the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin.”Then, certainly, this blood cannot be without water, it is never separated from it. The proper effect of blood is to cover sin; but because the water runs in that channel, and is conveyed by the blood thither, therefore it doth cleanse sin, as well as cover it.

“These things I write unto you, that ye sin not.”This then is the design of the whole gospel, the great and grand design,—to destroy sin, and save the sinner. There is a treaty of peace made with the sinner, and“Christ is the peace-maker.”A tender of life and salvation is made to him, but there is no treaty, no capitulation or composition with sin; out it must go, first out of its dominion, then out of its habitation. It must first lose its power, and then its being in a believer. Yea, this is one of the chief articles of our peace, not only required of us as our duty, that we should destroy that which cannot but destroy us; for, if any man will needs hug and embrace his sins, and cannot part with them, he must needs die in their embracements, because the council of heaven hath irrevocably passed a fatal sentence against sin, as the only thing that in all the creation hath the most perfect opposition to his blessed will, and contrariety to his holy nature,—but also, and especially, as the great stipulation and promise upon his part,“to redeem us from all our iniquities, and purify us to himself, a people zealous of good works;”and not only to redeem us from hell, and deliver us from wrath, Tit. ii. 14. He hath undertaken this great work, to compesce250this mutiny and rebellion that was raised up in the creation by sin, else what peace could be between God and us, as long as his enemy and ours dwelt in our bosom, and we at peace with it.

Now, take a short view of these things that are written in the preceding chapter, and you shall see that the harmonious voice of all that is in the gospel, is this,“that we sin not.”Let me say further, as“these things are written that we sin not,”so[pg 335]all things are done“that we sin not.”Take all the whole work of creation, of providence, of redemption,—all of them speak one language,“that we sin not.”“Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge: there is no speech or language where their voice is not heard,”Psalm xix. 2, 3. And, as in that place, their voice proclaims the glory, majesty, and goodness of God, so they, with the same sound, proclaim and declare, that we should not sin against such a God, so great, and so good. All that we see suggests and insinuates this unto our hearts; all that we hear whispers this unto our ears,“that we sin not, that he made us, and not we ourselves, and that we are the very work of his hands.”This speaks our absolute and essential dependence on him, and therefore proclaims with a loud voice, that sin, which would cut off this subordination, and loose from this dependence upon his holy will, is a monstrous, unnatural thing. Take all his mercies towards us, whether general or particular, the transcendent abundance of his infinite goodness in the earth, that river of his riches that runs through it, to water every man, and bring supply to his doors, that infinite variety that is in heaven and earth, and all of them of equal birth-right with man; yet by the law of our Maker, a yoke of subjection and service to man is imposed upon them, so that man is, in a manner, set in the centre of all, to the end, that all the several qualifications and perfections that are in every creature, may concentre and meet together in him, and flow towards him. Look upon all his particular acts of care and favour towards thee, consider his judgments upon the world, upon the nation, or thine own person. Put to thine ear, and hear. This is the joint harmonious melody, this is the proclamation of all,“that we sin not,”that we sin not against so good a God, and so great a God. That were wickedness, this were madness. If he wound, it is“that we sin not:”if he heal again, it is“that we sin not.”Doth he kill? It is“that we sin not!”Doth he make alive? It is for the same end. Doth he shut up and restrain our liberty, either by bondage, or sickness, or other afflictions? Why, he means“that we sin not.”Doth he open again? He means the same thing,“that we sin no more, lest a worse thing befall us.”Doth he make many to fall in battle, and turn the fury of that upon us? The voice of it is, that you who are left behind should“sin no more.”Is there severity towards others, and towards you clemency? O the loud voice of that is,“sin not!”But alas, the result of all is, that which is written, Psal. lxxviii. 32.—“Nevertheless they sinned still.”In the midst of so many concurring testimonies, in the very throng of all the sounds and voices that all the works of God utter, in the very hearing of these, nevertheless to sin still, and not to return and inquire early after God,—this is the plague and judgment of the nation.

But let us return to the words,“these things,”&c.“That which is written of the word of life, that which was from the beginning, and was manifested unto us,”that is written“that we sin not:”For, saith this same apostle, chap. iii. 5, 8,“And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin;”yea, for this very purpose, saith he,“that he might destroy the works of the devil.”Now, this is the great business, that drew the Son out of the Father's bosom,—to destroy the arch-enemy and capital rebel, sin, which, as to man, is a work of Satan's, because it first entered in man by the devil's suggestion and counsel. All that misery and ruin, all those works of darkness and death, that Satan had by his malice and policy wrought upon and in poor mankind, Jesus was manifested in the flesh without sin, to destroy and take away sin out of our flesh, and to abolish and destroy Satan's work, which he had builded upon the ruins of God's work, of the image of God, and to repair and renew that first blessed work of God in man, Eph. iv. 23, 24.

Now, O how cogent and persuading is this; one so high, come down so low, one dwelling in inaccessible glory, manifested in the flesh, in the infirmity and weakness of it, to this very purpose, to repair the creation, to make up the breaches of it, to destroy sin, and save the sinner! What force is in this to persuade a soul that truly believes it,“not to sin!”For, may he think within himself, shall I save that which Christ came to destroy, shall I entertain and maintain that which he came to take away, and do what in me lies to frustrate the great end of his glorious and wonderful descent from heaven? Shall I join hands, and associate with my lusts, and war for them,“which war against my soul,”and him that would save my soul? Nay, let us[pg 336]conclude, my beloved, within our own hearts,—Is the Word and Prince of life manifested from heaven, and come to mar and unmake that work of Satan, that he may rescue me from under his tyranny? Then God forbid that I should help Satan to build up that which my Saviour is casting down, and to make a prison for myself, and cords to bind me in it for everlasting. Nay, will a believing soul say, rather let me be a worker together with Christ. Though faintly, yet I resolve to wrestle with him, to pull down all the strongholds that Satan keeps in my nature, and so to congratulate and consent to him, who is the avenger and assertor of my liberty.

Then consider the greatest end and furthest design of the gospel, how it is inseparably chained and linked into this,“that we sin not.”We are called to fellowship with the Father and the Son, and herein is his glory and our happiness. Now, this proclaims with a loud voice,“that we sin not,”for, what more contrary to that design of union and communion with God, than to sin, which disunites and discommunicates the soul from God. The nature of sin you know, is the transgression of his law, and so it is the very just opposition of the creatures will to the will of him that made it. Now, how do ye imagine that this can consist with true friendship and fellowship, which looseth that conjunction of wills and affections, which is the bond of true friendship, and the ground of fellowship?Idem velle atque idem nolle, hæc demum vera amicitia est.251The conspiracy of our desires and delights in one point with God's, this sweet coincidency makes our communion, and what communion then can there be with God, when that which his soul abhors is your delight, and his delight is not your desire?“What communion hath light with darkness?”Sin is darkness. All sin but especially sin entertained and maintained, sin that hath the full consent of the heart, and carrieth the whole man after it, that is Egyptian darkness, an universal darkness over the soul. This being interposed between God and the soul, breaks off communion, eclipses that soul totally. Therefore, my beloved, if you do believe that you are called unto this high dignity of fellowship with God, and if your souls be stirred with some holy ambition after it, consider that“these things are written that ye sin not.”Consider what baseness is in it, for one that hath such a noble design, as fellowship with the Highest, to debase his soul so far and so low, as to serve sinful and fleshly lusts. There is a vileness and wretchedness in the service of sin, that any soul, truly and nobly principled, cannot but look upon it with indignation, because he can behold nothing but indignity in it.“Shall I who am a ruler,”saith Nehemiah,“shall such a man as I flee? and who is there that being as I am, would flee?”Neh. vi. 11. A Christian hath more reason. Shall such a man as I, who am born again to such a hope, and called to such a high dignity, shall I, who aim and aspire so high as fellowship with God, debase and degrade myself with the vilest servitude? Shall I defile in that puddle again, till my own clothes abhor me, who aim at so pure and so holy a society? Shall I yoke in myself with drunkards, liars, swearers, and other slaves of sin? Shall I rank myself thus, and conform myself to the world, seeing there is a noble and glorious society to incorporate with, the King of kings to converse with daily? Alas, what are these worms that sit on thrones to him? But far more, how base are these companions in iniquity, your pot companions? &c. And what a vile society is it like that of the bottomless pit, where devils are linked together in chains?

Back to IndexNext