Gospel Remission

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin is covered (Ps 32:1).

As you may remember, I have tried in many sermons to show you the malignity and dreadful evil there is in sin. And what more seasonable and suitable subject could we take up now than the blessedness of the pardon of sin? How sweet and welcome this will be to those souls whom the former subject has made aware of sin’s dreadful evil! How readily they will say with the prophet, “How beautiful are the feet of those that bring (such) good tidings!” (Isa 52:7). So it seems to me that while I am reading this text, I should be like a man standing at an echo, who hears its words sounded back to him by every brokenhearted sinner in this congregation: “O blessed, blessed is the man indeed whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sin is covered!”

“A word spoken in season,” says Solomon, “is like apples of gold in pictures of silver” (Prov 25:11). Considering how fully I have opened the evil of sin to you, if ever a word was spoken in due season, I hope this word out of this text may be one: the word of reconciliation and of the pardon of sin. And if God enables me to make clear to you the excellency of the truths contained in this scripture, I hope that in all your eyes they will prove to be like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

The words I have read are the first words of one of David’s penitential psalms. They are indeed the genuine voice of a true penitent, the very character of a humble, penitential soul: he is one who has admiring thoughts of the blessedness of the pardon of sin. I will not spend time analyzing the whole psalm, because the sweetness and blessedness of the subject draw my heart to come to it at once.

And blessed may your ears be, who after hearing of the dreadful evil of sin may now come to hear the blessed doctrine of pardon. This is something God has denied to many thousands. And who knows whether many even of those in this congregation who heard the sorrow of that doctrine are now gone (perhaps to their own place), where they feel what they heard then, and much more, and are past ever hearing the message of pardon and forgiveness of sin? That blessed sound will never come to their ears, but only the horrid noise of the yelling, roaring and cursing of damned spirits, because of the wrath of God that lies heavy on them for their sin.

The title of this psalm calls it a psalm of David, Maschil; that is, a psalm of instruction, or a psalm meant to instruct. And what instruction is more useful than to instruct the soul where true blessedness lies? And what instruction is better than to tell people the way to the pardon and forgiveness of sin, which is the way to true happiness? Many wise men thought they would find out what the happiness of the reasonable creature is. But after all their searching they were greatly puzzled and left in the dark, and with all the wisdom of the flesh they could never find where it lay.

Only the rational creature is capable of blessedness, because it is capable of the act of reflecting upon itself. That is why the rational creature is capable of blessedness above all other creatures. No creature can truly be called a blessed creature except the rational one, because no other creature can reflect upon its own condition so as to know itself. But then, to know not only ourselves but also our own happiness, and where our blessedness lies, must surely be a profitable instruction.

No philosopher ever gave such a description of happiness as this: “Blessed is the man whose …” Indeed David, who had the comforts of this world to the full, as if he held a monopoly on them, and who had the crown upon his head, does not say, “Blessed is he who is crowned and has a kingdom.” David, who had the riches of this world, does not say, “Blessed is he who has this world’s goods.” David, who had honors and was counted among the mighty men, does not say, “Blessed is he who has worldly honors.” David, who won many victories over his enemies, does not say, “Blessed is he who rides in triumph over his enemies.” David, who had splendid palaces and the delights of this world, does not say, “Blessed is he who has them.” But in the midst of all the outward good things David enjoyed in this world, he finds his blessedness to consist in this: the pardon and forgiveness of his sins. He pronounces them, and them only, blessed whose sin is pardoned.

This instruction in the blessedness of the pardon of sin, as it is set before us here, is weighty indeed and of infinite concern. Luther says, “The subject of free justification and remission of sin is what makes a theologian.” And to that this may be added: it is this that makes a Christian. To be rightly instructed in the justification of a sinner is what makes a Christian. Even if we had ten thousand instructors in other things, not only in natural knowledge but in divinity too, in every point of it, we still could never be wise unto salvation unless we were instructed with this instruction, in the blessedness of justification and the pardon of sin. Luther says, “Let this doctrine lie dead, and all the whole knowledge of other truths is to little purpose.” Well may the title of the psalm be “a psalm of instruction,” then: “Blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose iniquities are covered.” So our point of doctrine, according to the words, is this:

Doctrine. The blessedness of a man, or of any soul, consists in the free grace of God forgiving his sin.

That is our point. The blessedness of any man or woman does not consist in the enjoyment of anything in all this world, but in the free grace of God forgiving his sin. It does not consist in anything we can do or have, but in the free grace of God forgiving sin. And that is the meaning of Romans 4:6-7, where St. Paul cites this very place of Scripture. Observe it, for it is to this very purpose: “Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.” The apostle’s aim in this place is to declare that the blessing of Abraham, the father of the faithful, did not consist in anything he had or did, but in the free grace of God forgiving his sin.

In Galatians 4:15 Paul says, “Where is the blessedness you spake of? for, I bear you record, if possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes, and given them to me.” Where is then the blessedness you spake of? What is the meaning of this blessedness? Certainly it is this blessedness in my text. It was this blessed doctrine, which St. Paul was the first to bring to the Galatians: the doctrine of the free justification of a poor soul by faith in Jesus Christ, in the free pardon and remission of his sin by faith in Christ. This is the blessedness spoken of.

Now, at their first hearing of this doctrine, the Galatians were so mightily taken with it that they cried out, “Oh, this is a blessed doctrine! Remission of sin by the free grace of God through faith in Christ! Oh, this is the most blessed doctrine we ever heard!” They were so taken with it, at their first hearing and receiving of it, that if it had been possible they would have plucked out their eyes for Paul, who brought them such a doctrine as this. But afterward the Galatians were turned aside by false teachers, who had taken the edge off their affection for this blessed truth.

So Paul, coming to reprove them, says, “Where is then the blessedness you spake of?” As if he said, “There was a time when I first taught you the doctrine of the free forgiveness of sin by faith in Christ, and you said it was a blessed doctrine, and your hearts were mightily taken with it. Where is it now? How does it come about that your hearts are so drawn away from the esteem you had for it then? Where is then the blessedness you spake of?”

This is how it usually goes. The ministers of Christ come and preach a doctrine to people, and their hearts are taken with it; their spirits are stirred, and they are mightily affected at the first hearing of it. But afterward, through some sin or the company of carnal friends, their hearts are drawn away, even though while they were hearing such and such a truth their hearts glowed and burned within them.

God grant it may not be so with some of you. When you lately heard the doctrine of the evil of sin, your hearts were mightily affected, and you said, “Oh, what a dreadful evil there is in sin, in the least sin!” And being convinced of it, you began to reform; yet afterward you fell off again. May it not be said of you, “Where is the sense of the evil of sin you spoke of? Where is that bitterness upon your hearts from the convictions you had of the evil of sin? Where is it? What has become of it?” As St. Paul says, “the blessedness you spake of,” where is it? What has become of all that strength and power the doctrine of the remission of sin had upon your hearts?

Take another scripture. Remission of sin is the special blessedness of the second covenant, the one God made with Abraham when he came to Abraham and told him that in his seed all nations should be blessed. Compare Galatians 3:17 with verse 24. In verse 17 he speaks of the covenant made with Abraham, and says that the law, which came 430 years after, could not annul the promise so as to make it of no effect. Then: “Wherefore then served the law?” (Gal 3:19). Why, he says, “It was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ” (Gal 3:24). The apostle’s aim is to show that there is a covenant of grace beyond that of the law, and that the covenant of the law serves to bring us to the covenant of grace. And the principal thing in the covenant of grace is in verse 24: “The law,” he says, “was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ,” that we might be justified by faith, and so receive the remission of our sins.

That the Scripture places blessedness in the remission of sin is, I suppose, clear enough. The main business we have to do is to show how it is so; that is, to open to you what the blessedness of the pardon of sin consists in, and to show you in what particulars the blessedness of the pardon of sin may appear to you. And on that, many things may be said.

The Negative Blessedness of Pardon: The Evil It Frees Us From

1. What has lately been delivered concerning the evil of sin may be of great use in discovering where the blessedness of the pardon of sin lies: it lies in deliverance from so great an evil as you heard the evil of sin to be. Surely, Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven. If sin is as dreadful an evil as you heard, then surely blessed is the man who is delivered from all that evil. If it remains fresh in your minds what the evil of sin against God was, and what it brought upon yourselves, you cannot help saying that this is one principal thing in which it appears that the man or woman who has their sin pardoned is blessed. If any man or woman is in some great danger, or under some great evil or misery, and is then delivered from it, we say that he is a blessed man, or she a blessed woman, to be rid of such a woeful evil as was upon them. You count yourselves happy to be delivered from dangerous storms and to have a calm. Are not they happy, then, who are delivered from the evil of sin?

Let me speak a little to a poor sinner who understands what sin means, and understands something of its dreadful evil. I would ask you, poor sinner, what do you see? The answer will be: “What do I see? Oh, I see the angry face of an infinite God set against me, whose eyes are as a flaming fire, looking on me with indignation! I see a black, dismal cloud of the Almighty’s displeasure hanging over me! I see a most hideous and dreadful sentence of wrath ready to fall upon me! I see woe, misery and destruction pursuing me! I see blackness of darkness and desolation surrounding me on every side! I both see and feel the woeful accusations of a guilty conscience within me, condemning me, continually grating on my soul, and terrifying me with dreadful visions of the eternal miseries that will befall me! I see the chain of black guilt and horror on my soul, which I carry with me wherever I go! I see the bottomless gulf of eternal horror and despair with its mouth wide open, ready to swallow me up!”

Now then, when this sight has been set before an enlightened and awakened conscience, in comes the pardon and forgiveness of sin. By it this dreadful cloud is scattered and the tempest is gone; the darkness and misery vanish away, and the soul is set free from all evil whatever: from sin, and from all its dreadful consequences. Is this not a blessed man? Compare his former condition with his present state. Look at him as he was just now, with the sense of the dreadful evil of sin on his conscience and its heavy burden on his back, ready to sink under it into the gulf of misery; and now pardon of sin comes. Oh, what a blessed change this is! Oh, blessed is the man whose sin is pardoned! Now whatever had been laid to his charge, whether by God or by his own conscience, by the law, the devil or the world, it is all done away; all is discharged and gone. Blessed is the man who is delivered like this. “Old things are passed away, and all things are become new” (2 Cor 5:17). This is meant not only of sanctification but of justification also: he is a new creature; “Old things are passed away, and all become new.”

Brothers and sisters, because of the sin of man there is a curse upon the whole creation, and this old creation must come to ruin. Therefore it is an evil thing for anyone to seek their happiness in anything here in the old creation, for there is a curse upon it, and it will come to ruin. But there is a new creation of all in Christ, of all spiritual things in Christ. Now when a sinner comes to have his sin pardoned and to be justified, he comes into a new state, a state that comes in by the new creation. The happiness of God’s children comes by the new creation and consists in it. Old things are done away, and he comes to be seated in the new creation in Christ. This is the first thing in which a man or woman is blessed, negatively: in being delivered from so great an evil.

The Positive Blessedness of Pardon

2. Positively, he is a blessed man whose sins are forgiven, if we consider the excellence of the mercy God makes that soul partake of whose sins are forgiven. “To thee Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses” (Dan 9:9). Forgiveness is the fruit of glorious mercies: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity” (Exod 34:6-7). Now I shall open this positively and show the riches of mercy in the forgiveness of sin.

When the Scripture applies mercy to the forgiveness of sin, it uses various expressions. Sometimes it calls it riches of mercy (Eph 1:7); sometimes plenteous mercy (Ps 86:5); sometimes God’s fullness of compassion (Ps 78:38); sometimes a multitude of mercies (Ps 51:1). I might give various other places, but these may suffice. It is rich, plenteous, fullness of compassions, and a multitude of mercies; when God forgives sin, he shows mercy in all these expressions. To open it to you, I shall show you what abundance of mercy God shows in the forgiveness of sin. Consider the mercy, first, in the efficient cause of forgiveness, and second, in its final cause.

(1) First, for the efficient cause: God shows abundance of mercy in the forgiveness of sin. He abounds in his mercy. There is a sea, an infinite, vast ocean of mercy, in which the sins of the elect come to be swallowed up. Though their sins are many and great, and committed with many grievous aggravations, yet when they come to God for an act of justification, to be forgiven, I say, God comes to the soul as an infinite ocean of mercy that swallows up all the evil in sin. Pay attention to this. Look: in the mighty ocean, whether you throw in a load of earth or a shovelful, the vast ocean makes little difference between them. So when a soul comes to God in Christ, when it comes to pardon and justification, whether its sins are little or great, it is all one; the mercy of God makes no difference at all.

Take heed of what I say. While I am speaking of the forgiveness of sin, I shall make known so much grace that if you abuse it, it will be one of the most dreadful things you ever did. Therefore, as I go along, take heed of abusing it, especially you who desire to hear of the pardoning mercy of God. Whether your sins are little or great, when you come to pardoning mercy, it is an infinite ocean that swallows up all. For those who do not have their sins pardoned, whether their sins are little or great makes no difference: they are truly damned for little sins as well as for great; both sink down into hell, and the infinite ocean of wrath and horror swallows up all. So in the matter of justification, whether your sins are little or great, it does not matter; pardoning mercy swallows up all.

(2) But further, as mercy is an infinite ocean that swallows up sin, so mercy is the final cause. It is to this end, that God might display the riches of his grace. When God forgives any one sin, this forgiveness comes from God’s mercy, and it is to this end: that God may declare before men and angels, to all eternity, what the greatness and infinite riches of his grace are, and what the grace of God is able to do when God comes to pardon sin. It is for this end, as if he were saying, “Well, I am now about to pardon your sin, and this work I am about to do is for this very end: that it may be known to men and angels to all eternity what the infinite riches of the infinite grace of God are able to do for poor sinners.”

Now certainly that man is a blessed man. If the man whose sins are pardoned has such mercy shown him, and such a blessed work done upon him, as serves this end, that God may declare to all eternity what the glorious riches of the grace of an infinite God are, surely this is a great blessedness. When God sets apart a man or woman for this end, it must be very glorious. Certainly, therefore, pardon of sin is no light or trivial thing; it must be a most glorious work of God wherever it is.

And this consideration is a mighty argument to uphold a poor soul under trouble for sin, and a great encouragement to them to come in for pardon. Do you see God’s wrath against you, troubled soul? Do you stand trembling at the thought of the evil of sin? Do not let your heart sink. Come in, and cast yourself on the free grace of God; there is a possibility of the pardon of your sin. For when God comes to pardon sin, the mercy he shows in pardoning any one sin he shows to this end, that he might magnify the riches of his grace to all eternity; and mercy that serves that end must surely be glorious. And will not such mercy meet your need, mercy that must set forth the infinite, rich grace of God? God is pleased to show this much mercy for the forgiveness of your sin; and wherever a sinner is forgiven, it is this mercy that is shown.

When men judge of God by themselves, they think slightly of him; they judge God’s thoughts by their own. What is the reason sinners have such slight thoughts of sin, but that they judge of God by themselves? They think he abhors sin no otherwise than man does, and so they hope they may do well enough, measuring the infinite hatred God has for sin by their own. So, on the other side, the sinner who is convinced of the dreadful evil of sin is ready to despair. Why? Because he judges of God by himself, as if the mercy of God were no other than the mercy of man, not considering that the mercy of God in pardoning sin is such mercy as serves to show his grace in its riches to all eternity. Well then, the man to whom such mercy is shown must surely be very blessed.

Argument 3. Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven, because there is a glorious mystery of godliness in the forgiving of sin. The work of God in forgiving a sinner has an abundance of glorious mysteries in it. The argument stands like this: the man or woman for whom God works a work that has a multitude of glorious mysteries in it is blessed. But wherever sin is forgiven, God works such a strange work for that soul, the strangest he ever did, a work that has so many wonderful mysteries in it that opening them will show in every way that this soul is blessed. And this is the business I want to do now: to open the mysteries that are in the forgiveness of sin. My purpose is that, as I set before you the great work of God in pardoning sin, you also might have higher thoughts of it than you ever had before. For that is what I aim at: to raise people’s thoughts to a right understanding of this great point, the justification of a sinner, so that you may sanctify God’s name by having such thoughts of it as the thing itself calls for.

The First Mystery: Pardon Comes Through a Mediator

1. Where sin is forgiven, it is by means of a Mediator between God and the soul; it is through the mediation of the Son of God. Observe this, for there is no point in all religion of greater use to understand than this point of God’s way of pardoning sin, because of the many mysteries of God contained in it. I hope I will make it clear that it is no slight work and business. Notice, then: when God pardons sin, it is always done through the mediation of the Son of God. God never pardons any sinner the way an earthly prince does. When a criminal has offended a prince, he comes and humbles himself, throws himself down at his feet, and cries, “Please, sir, forgive me,” and the prince says, “Well, I will forgive you.” God never forgives any sin like this. And yet this is how it is with people when they come to God for pardon; most of them never think of any other way.

Friends, there must be a great deal more than that. For whoever has his sins forgiven, it must be by virtue of the mediation and intercession of the Son of God. He must stand up before the Father and mediate for your soul. If all the angels in heaven stood up to mediate, it would not be enough; the Son of God alone must do it. It is as if a criminal’s case were such that the mediation of all the nobles could not prevail with the king for a pardon, but the mediation of the prince himself, the king’s own son, was needed to obtain it.

So I say, poor soul, you may think it a slight business, but know this: if you are ever forgiven, it must be by the mediation of the Son of God. He must stand up to mediate for you and plead, “O Father, let this poor soul who has been a Sabbath-breaker, a liar, a drunkard, an unclean person, let his sins be forgiven, and do not let him be damned. Father, put his name in for pardon.” I will not speak of how Christ mediates, but this is and has been his work from all eternity: to mediate and make intercession for those whom he foresaw in the eternal counsel of God would live in such times. Whatever pardon is obtained from God, it is through him. And if you, poor man, ever come to be pardoned, know that Christ has been mediating with God the Father for you: “O Father, such a poor creature, who lives perhaps in such a cottage, or in such an obscure place, let his name be put in for forgiveness.”

And now, is this not a blessed thing, that you, poor creature, should have the Son of God mediating for your name to be put in for pardon! This is truly so. If there is any truth in the theology of the Word, it is this: that all the forgiveness and pardon any creature has comes by the mediation of the Son of God, and his heart was set on it from all eternity. Surely there is an abundance of grace in this one thing; take heed of abusing it. This is the first mystery: you must not look for pardon of sin in a natural way, just crying out for forgiveness, but you must go in the name of the Mediator, in this mystical way.

The Second Mystery: Christ Takes the Debt on Himself

2. The second mystery is this: Christ’s entreating the Father is not enough. If any sin is ever forgiven (I beg you, take notice of this, for I speak in the name of God, and therefore must take care to speak nothing but the truths of God to you), if any sin is pardoned, it is not for the prayer of Christ; that will not do it. But God the Father says, “Son, if you want the sins of poor souls forgiven, you must take the debt on yourself. You must be their surety, and you must bind yourself to pay every last penny of the debt the sinners owe. You must pay all if you will undertake for them. That is how it is, for I will never come after them for it, but after you.” Certainly there have been these transactions between God the Father and God the Son from all eternity about the pardoning of any sin. Yet you commit a sin and think nothing of it, and cry, “Lord, have mercy on me,” and so you are done with it; that is the end of it, and you think that is all.

But I tell you, if your sin is pardoned, Christ must take the debt on himself and be your surety. “He made him to be sin for us that knew no sin” (2 Cor 5:21). The way of pardon is by a transfer of all our sins onto Christ. Christ himself, God blessed forever, the delight of the Father, must be made sin for the soul that has sinned. Consider this: all the sins you have committed, if they are ever pardoned, must be pardoned by virtue of the covenant between God the Father and the Son. All your sin must be transferred onto Christ; all your oaths, drunkenness, and wickedness must be put on him, and he must stand charged with them all. Oh, you who are so lavish in sin and take such liberty to do wickedly! I say, if your sin is ever pardoned, it must be laid on his shoulders. Run on as fast as you like; if you are ever saved, at best your sin must still be set on him and charged to his account.

I remember that expression of Nathan to David: “The Lord hath put away thy sin” (2 Sam 12:13). In the original the words are to be read, “The Lord hath made thy sin to pass over”: to pass over from you to his Son. He has laid them to his charge. This is the second mystery in justification: you, a poor soul, stand charged with your sin and are in danger of eternal damnation, and rather than have you perish eternally, God is content to pass your sins over onto his own Son. Now those for whom God does so much must surely be blessed; and know this: if your sin is ever pardoned, God does this much for you.

The Third Mystery: Pardon Comes Through Christ’s Sufferings

3. Wherever sin is pardoned, Christ stands charged not only with the sin, but also to suffer as much punishment for your sin as if you were eternally damned for it. It is not the kind of pardon in which no punishment is suffered at all. Whoever’s sins are pardoned, there is this agreement between God the Father and the Son: that his own Son will suffer as much punishment as if you were to suffer the wrath of God eternally for your sin. This is done for you. And surely that man is a blessed man for whom Christ is willing to suffer as much as your sins amount to; otherwise you would have been eternally damned. This is what religion and the gospel teach us: that we can never come to be pardoned in any other way.

The Fourth Mystery: The Pardoned Soul Stands Righteous Before God

4. There is this mystery in it: wherever sin is pardoned, God does not only pass by sin and forgive it, but he makes the soul stand righteous before him. Every justified person stands righteous before the Lord. A criminal may come to a prince and be forgiven his offense, and yet not be counted a righteous man; he may still be looked on as a wicked wretch, even though the prince forgives him out of free grace. But God never forgives the offense of any one sin without setting that man righteous before the Lord. This is done by an act of justification; I am not speaking of sanctification. A prince may forgive a traitor, but the law is not satisfied. But when God forgives sin, he takes such a course that the offense is not only forgiven, but the law is satisfied, and the soul stands before God as a righteous person. And surely the one who is righteous must be blessed.

The Fifth Mystery: This Righteousness Is Another’s

5. This righteousness is in another, and it is a higher righteousness than Adam’s ever was in innocence. This is a great mystery: that a soul should stand righteous before the Lord, and yet in the righteousness of another, not his own. St. Paul counted his own righteousness as dung, that he might be found in him, that is, in Christ, “Not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness of God that comes in by faith” (Phil 3:8-10). And so, at the end of Romans 5, Christ is said to be our righteousness: “As by the disobedience of one many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous” (Rom 5:19).

It is a righteousness transferred onto us, beyond our own. Notice: in forgiveness, as our sins are transferred and put on Christ, so the righteousness of Christ is transferred onto a justified soul, and that soul comes to be righteous before God. Surely, then, blessed is the man who comes to have the shining garments of Christ’s righteousness on him. Ahasuerus could think of no better way to honor Mordecai than to clothe him in the king’s royal apparel and proclaim before him, “This shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor” (Esth 6:9, 11). Surely that man or woman is honored indeed whom God clothes with the shining robes of the righteousness of his own Son. You were clothed with the filthy rags of your own sin and wickedness, and had no other garments in which to stand in the presence of God; now he puts the righteousness of his own Son on you, and so your iniquity comes to be covered. Oh, that is a glorious garment! All the garments in the world, studded with diamonds, are but filthy garments in comparison with the garments of Christ’s righteousness that are put on a man when his sins are forgiven.

The Sixth Mystery: A Close Union Between Christ and the Soul

6. When God comes to forgive sin, the way he takes is this: he brings a man into such a close union with his own Son as makes you one with him. Yes, so one with Christ that no two things in the world are joined together as you and Christ are. This is how God pardons the soul he pardons. It is not, “You have sinned, and I will pardon you.” There is no such slight business, if I may put it that way, in a sinner’s pardon. No, for when God forgives you, he makes you one with his own Son, so that no two things in the world are so close together as you and Christ. Therefore the Scripture expresses it by the union of branch and root, and of body and members. That is a close union, of bones and flesh in one body. So also the union between husband and wife is a close union. But the union between Christ and a justified soul is closer than any of these.

There is one expression in Scripture that Christ uses: “You in me, and I in you” (John 14:20). No two things are so closely united. Though the members are in the body, the body is not in the members. So with the branch: though the branch is in the root, the root cannot be in the branch. But the union between Christ and us is Christ in us, and we in him. “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor 6:17). It is a spiritual union, and the union of spiritual things is the closest there can be. Now, blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven, because by this means God brings the soul and Christ into such a close union that all natural unions are only dark shadows of it.

The Seventh Mystery: Pardon Is by Faith, Yet Boasting Is Excluded

7. It must be by faith, and that is the most glorious work God ever enabled a poor creature to do; yet boasting must be excluded. The Scripture excludes boasting from both, not only from the law of works, but from the law of faith. But you may say, “How can boasting be excluded from both the law of works and the law of faith?” Some say works may be excluded because works are our own, but faith is the gift of God. God enables us to believe, they say, and therefore there can be no boasting of faith, because it is the gift of God; but works are our own. This answer is only a fiction. For if we are enabled to perform any work, that is from God too. The work of any grace is the gift of God as really and truly as faith is the gift of God; all gracious works are performed by the grace and gift of God. Adam could not do what he did in innocence except by the gift of God. And therefore, to say that boasting is excluded by faith because faith is the gift of God will not do.

Therefore the mystery of justification is a great mystery: that although faith is such a glorious work, one of the most glorious works any creature ever did, yet boasting should be excluded by it. From this I cannot help being persuaded that there is more in the work of faith than in anything Adam ever had, and that faith, the power of believing, was not in Adam in the state of innocence. Why? Because it is now made such a grace as excludes every kind of boasting. For if it were only the stirring up of some power we had in Adam, it would no more exclude boasting than if God stirred up any other grace, such as love, hope, fear, and the like.

But as to why it excludes boasting, this may be the most satisfactory answer. Why could works not exclude boasting? Because, though they came from the grace and gift of God, they still belonged to man’s nature. For if God makes a rational creature, he must give it the perfections that are due to that nature, and the image of God was in some respect due to such a nature. But now, when God comes to give faith, he gives a higher thing than was ever due to the nature of man. Hence there is a greater mystery in faith than in any other grace. And therefore it is a great mystery that God should justify a man by faith, and yet that this excludes boasting more than anything else.

Objection. Yes, but the Scripture says God imputes faith for righteousness. And when God enables us to believe, is it not our own?

Answer. Yes, when we have it, it is our own; and when we are justified, it is imputed to us for righteousness. But notice what I am about to say; it will be useful for understanding that text in Romans 4:22, where it says, “faith was imputed to him for righteousness.” You must not understand it this way: that God, through the grace of Christ, now accepted Abraham’s faith as his righteousness, by which he would stand justified in the sight of God. God did not accept faith for righteousness in that way; no, not through the mediation of Christ, nor by virtue of any covenant made by God with Christ. God never made any covenant with Christ to this effect: that whereas man owed obedience to the whole law, and that would have been his righteousness had he continued in it, now, since man is unable to perform it, God would be so favorable to him as to accept faith for righteousness.

That is not the meaning of it. For the word in the original translated “for righteousness” is really this: it was imputed “unto righteousness.” It is the same word used in Romans 10:10: “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Now confession with the mouth is not made salvation itself, but is made unto salvation; so faith is not righteousness itself, but unto righteousness; that is, by faith we come to obtain righteousness.

Objection. But why does the Scripture say that God imputed it unto righteousness?

Answer. I take it this way. Faith is so glorious a principle, infused by God, above anything of our own, that God is pleased to account it as if it were our own, and so imputes it unto righteousness. The truth is, it is not our own; no, not even so much our own as other graces are our own. But in the matter of justification God is pleased to impute it as our own, so that we may come to have righteousness by it, as if it were our own. Now this is a great mystery: that God, in the work of pardoning sin, should do it by the grace of faith; that this excludes all boasting; and yet that it is imputed unto righteousness as if it were our own.

Hence, by the way, let us beware of the opinion of those who say that faith itself is imputed for righteousness, and that God through Christ accepts faith as the matter of our righteousness. The Papists say we are justified by works, and that God is pleased through Christ to accept not faith only, but also humility, fear, love, repentance, joy, and the rest; though these are imperfect, yet he is pleased to accept them for our righteousness. The other opinion says that faith is our righteousness: though God might require exact obedience to the whole law, yet he is pleased to accept faith. Both these opinions are beside the truth. There is the same danger in the one as in the other, and therefore both are to be avoided.

The Eighth Mystery: Infinite Justice and Infinite Mercy

8. The eighth point that shows pardon of sin to be a great mystery is this: wherever God pardons sin, he is infinitely just, and yet infinitely merciful. There is an admirable reconciliation between God’s justice and his mercy, which shows it to be a great mystery. There are three great mysteries in religion. The first is the great mystery of the Trinity: that there should be several Persons, and yet only one God. The second is that in the Person of Christ there should be two natures, and yet only one Person. And the third is the reconciliation of the mercy and justice of God in the forgiveness of a sinner.

When many people seek pardon of sin, they think only of God’s infinite grace and mercy, and not of his justice. But certainly, whoever comes to be pardoned, God shows himself infinitely just in it as well as merciful. That he is merciful is clear to everyone. But how does it appear that he is so infinitely just? For that there is a clear text: “To declare at this time his righteousness that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom 3:26). So God, in justifying the one who believes in Christ, is just as well as merciful.

Now then, poor sinner, put these things together: that God should work so wonderfully in bringing about the pardon of your sin, in such a mysterious way as this. Certainly it demonstrates that you are a blessed man. I beg you, think about what has been said, and lay it up in your hearts. Go away with this upon your spirits: “Lord, I have indeed heard much of the evil of sin, and that it was a greater evil than I ever thought it to be; and now that I have begun to hear of the mighty work of God in the pardon of sin, I hope I shall forever keep higher thoughts of it than I had before.”

Brothers and sisters, there is nothing in the world that people think more lightly of than the pardon and forgiveness of sin; they think it a slight matter. But if there was ever any work that took up the heart of God from all eternity, and shows God to be God, it is this work of the pardon of sin. This is a great doctrine, the doctrine of the work of God in the justification of a sinner; it is one of the greatest doctrines in divinity. Therefore, so that you may sanctify the name of God in it, and give him the glory that is due to him in this great work, it is necessary to search, so that we may find out what the work of God in it is.

The Ninth Mystery: Present Pardon Covers Sins to Come

9. The ninth mystery is this, and it may seem one of the strangest of all: when God forgives a sinner any one sin for the present, he likewise forgives him all the sins that he shall ever commit afterward. This is a mighty mystery. When God takes a poor soul and forgives him his sin, he does not only forgive his present and past sins, but lays in a pardon for all the sins that he shall ever commit afterward. This is a way of pardoning sin proper to God alone. No creature pardons another’s offense in the way that God pardons here. Therefore the prophet cries out, “Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgressions of the remnant of his heritage?” (Mic 7:18). Who is a God like you? Who in all the world can pardon sin as God does? No father pardons the sin of a child, and no prince the sin of a subject, as God does.

Now, because this is a point of wonderful comfort to all the saints of God, it is fitting that it be opened and proved: that when God pardons sin at first, he gives in a pardon for all the sins they shall commit afterward. I show it this way. The apostle says, “There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1). From this I argue: unless God, when he justifies a sinner, pardoned whatever sins should later be committed, then whenever a justified person sins, until he renews an act of faith for pardon, there must be condemnation for him. For whoever is in such a state as to have any sin unpardoned is, for that instant, in a state of condemnation. But there is no instant of time when it can be said of any justified person that he is in a state of condemnation.

I say no instant of time; for though a justified person may fall into sin after he is justified, yet at the very instant he falls into that sin, God applies a pardon that was laid in before, even though an act of faith is not renewed with regard to that particular sin. That is the point I would prove. It is true that an act of faith to lay hold on our pardon is required of us as our duty. Yes, it is also required for our comfort, for we cannot have comfort in the pardon of a new sin we have committed unless there is a renewed act of faith. But though this renewal of an act of faith is necessary, because it is commanded and for our comfort, yet it is not absolutely necessary to free us from condemnation. Once we are justified by Christ, a pardon is laid up, so that upon any act of sin newly committed, this pardon is applied by God himself, even when we are not able, by renewing a present act of faith, to plead for and obtain a fresh pardon for ourselves.

Indeed, the truth is that if this were not so, there could be no instant of time in which a believer was not in a state of condemnation; for there is no instant of time in which a believer does not sin against God in some way or other. Further, it is plain and undeniable that there is no necessity of renewing an act of faith upon every sin committed in order to have it pardoned. This argument cannot be denied, because otherwise there must be a necessity of renewing an act of faith after the last act a believer does; for in the last action a believer does in this world there is some sin. Now if there is some sin in the very last act of all, then there cannot of necessity be required another act to apply the pardon of the sin that the believer committed in the very last act he did in this world.

Some who hold that a believer cannot fall away finally still say that he may fall away totally. Many hold that once a man is justified he can never go to hell, but they still hold this: that he may sin so as to be brought into a state of condemnation. He may be brought into such a state that if he died at that moment he would perish. “But,” they say, “God takes care that he shall not die until there is a renewed act of faith for pardon.” I answer: there is nothing in Scripture to prove that there is any instant of time in which a believer cannot die; and yet, by their view, if he did die at such a time he must perish, because an act of faith was not renewed.

“True,” they say further, “but not all sins bring a believer into a state of condemnation. There may be pardon as a matter of course for sins of infirmity; but with other sins, which lay waste a man’s conscience, a believer is brought into a state of condemnation until a new act of faith is renewed for pardon.” I answer: if any one sin brings a believer into a state of condemnation after conversion, where shall we set the limits? Shall we say, “If you go only this far, you are not in a state of condemnation, but if you go a little further, you are”? God sets no such limits in Scripture. Rather, all sin in its own nature brings into a state of condemnation, and yet no sin brings a believer into a state of condemnation.

Therefore this is a great mystery of God in pardoning sin: when God pardons the sin of a believer, he does not only pardon what he has done at present, but for what he shall do he lays in a pardon; and Christ has purchased it for us, for all sins yet to come. It is like a son who runs into debt. His father comes and pays his debts; but because he sees that his son will run further into debt, he lays in enough to pay everything for the time to come, so that if he runs into debt he shall not be cast into prison. It is just so with God. God pardons all our sins at first, and then he lays up a pardon, so that if we run into debt we shall not lie in prison to be condemned and suffer for them. This is a great mystery, and those who teach otherwise rob the people of God of a great deal of comfort that they might otherwise have, if this truth were made clearly known to them.

Objection. Is not this a doctrine of license? If people know that God, when he pardons the sins that are past, lays in a pardon for the sins that are yet to come, may they not take liberty from this to sin? May they not say, “Though we do sin, a pardon is laid in for us beforehand”?

Answer. You who object this way speak as one who does not understand the grace of the gospel. It is quite another kind of thing than you realize; there is no such malignity in the grace of the gospel as to produce such effects in the hearts of believers. Luther compares sin to lime, and the law to water, which makes the lime hotter; but the grace of the gospel, he says, is like oil, and oil will quench lime, though water will not. So the oil of the gospel will quench the sins of men. And certainly, the more of the grace of God revealed in the gospel there is, the more the lusts remaining in the heart of a believer come to be quenched.

This is a clear argument of the great difference between the mercy of God revealed in the gospel and received by faith, and the mercy that is received only in a natural way. You who are unbelievers, and receive the gospel only in a natural way, may have your lusts nourished, and you may take liberty for wickedness. But if once you come to receive the mercy of God in and through Christ Jesus, then that mercy will be as great an opposer of your lusts and sin as anything in the world can be. Certainly, if you reason this way, you do not know the work of God in Christ forgiving sin.

I will show you plainly that the knowledge of the great work of propitiation by Christ brings the soul to hate all sin, and is no nourisher of it. The apostle speaks of the wonderful grace of God in Christ toward us: if we confess our sins, he is not only ready to forgive, but to cleanse us from them (1 John 1:9). And in the next chapter: “My little children I write unto you that you sin not” (1 John 2:1); that is, that you take no liberty in any sin. They might say, “You write these things so that we may not sin; but we have sinful natures, and so we shall certainly fall into sin for all this.”

Well, for the comfort of the saints, “If any man sin,” he says, “we have an Advocate with the Father.” Jesus Christ is an Advocate at once, even though you sin through ignorance and negligence and do not renew present acts of faith to plead for a pardon. Yet, says the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ is an Advocate with the Father. The Lord Christ stands before the Father pleading that no evil may befall you for your sin. This is the wonderful privilege of the saints of God, a most blessed privilege they have by the covenant of grace. When they commit a sin, and perhaps take no notice of it, and perhaps their conscience is so benumbed for the present that they do not go to God to seek a pardon, but perhaps lie in sin a long time together, yet, as the text says, you have one who pleads your cause. And it is because of this that God’s wrath does not break out against you: you have an Advocate with the Father.

Well, he says in verse 2, “And he is the propitiation not only for our sins, but the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2); he means believers. Now in verse 3 he says, “Hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3). It is as if he had said, “If we do not take heed of sin and keep his commandments, we do not know this grace of pardon.” If any who hear us ministers teaching this doctrine say that they know him, and yet have no care to keep God’s commandments, it is quite contrary to what the apostle says. He says, “Hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.” This knowing of him is a means to keep his commandments, and so it is also an argument that we do know him when we do keep his commandments.

In verse 4: “He that says I know him,” that is, knows Christ to be a propitiation and an Advocate, “and keeps not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4). Take the man who reasons this way and says, “Well, I believe in Jesus Christ, and I know my sins are pardoned through faith in him; yes, and a pardon is laid in for all the sins that I shall commit, and I shall never come into condemnation.” Do you say so, and yet not keep God’s commandments? Do you not have the conscience to keep God’s commandments, and all the more because you know this? The Holy Spirit says you are a liar, and there is no truth in you; and you were never acquainted with this mystery of godliness.

When it is understood in a natural way, men may abuse it. So that you may know what I mean by a natural way (and God knows you need to be informed), by a natural way I mean by the light of natural reason, and by all the other helps of learning short of the work of the Holy Spirit. But when men understand it by a powerful work of the Holy Spirit, those who know it this way will be made by this knowledge more careful and conscientious to keep God’s commandments. And if any man says he knows it this way, and does not keep God’s commandments, “he is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”

Further, suppose a man should reason this way: “Well, if there is such a mystery in the pardon of sin, and God, when he pardons sin at first, lays in a pardon for all sin afterward, this will make way for more sin.” Take note here of the infinite perverseness of the heart of man. Suppose it were not so, but the contrary were true: that God indeed pardoned the sins of a believer who came to him, but if ever he sinned after pardon, let him look to it, he would then be under the sentence of death and condemnation. Upon this a man’s heart would not be more engaged to seek after Christ, but would reason this way: “Well, I may labor and take pains and suffer much to get a comfortable assurance of the pardon of sin; but what is all this worth? The next day, the next hour, I may sin again and be in the same case I was in before.” So whichever way things go, men will reason against God for the sake of their lusts.

I put it to you, or to any heart that may be supposed to have waited on God, yes, and to have received grace: which of these doctrines engages the heart most for God, this doctrine or the other? Is it that you believe God will pardon sin, but that if you fall into any new sin you are under a sentence of condemnation? Or is it this: that God is so gracious that he not only pardons sin for the present, but for your encouragement pardons it in such a way that, though you fall into sin again through infirmity, he will not cut off his kindness from you? Which of these is the greater encouragement? Certainly to a slavish spirit the one may count for more than the other. But to a spirit that may be supposed to have any nobleness or generosity in it, the latter must far more engage him to walk with God all his days.

“What! Is God’s grace so free? Would he have such pity on poor creatures, not only at their first coming in and casting themselves on Christ, as to pardon all their sins, however many and great they are, but also make such a covenant upon my coming in, that God will discharge all the sins that shall be committed for the time to come, so that though I am ready to fall into sin daily, yet I shall not come into condemnation?” Oh, what will so infinitely engage a gracious and generous spirit as this does! Surely nothing like this. Now if this is true, that the man who is forgiven is forgiven in this way, not only for time past but also for time to come, then blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose iniquities are pardoned.

The Tenth Mystery: Pardoned in Order to Be Changed

10. The tenth mystery is this (for I would try to show you what a mighty work the pardon of sin is, and to raise your hearts to higher thoughts of it than you ever had before): God does not pardon because a sinner has his heart and nature changed, but so that he might be changed. And in this the pardons of God differ from all other pardons. A prince pardons a criminal, or a father a child; but on what terms? A prince expects his subject to be changed, as far as he can discern; and a father, however tender he is, will not pardon a child unless he comes in and shows a change in his disobedient spirit, and then he pardons. God does not pardon because we are changed, but so that we might be changed. His pardon comes first. There is a very striking place for this, which may encourage any poor soul who is troubled for sin to come in and lay hold on God’s mercy in Christ: “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted unto him for righteousness” (Rom 4:5).

Notice: when God comes to justify a sinner, he looks on him as ungodly. He does not wait until the sinner is made godly and then justify him, as a prince waits until a criminal’s heart is changed and he becomes a loyal subject, and then pardons him. God is not like that in justifying souls; he justifies the ungodly. One who is ungodly coming to him, he justifies. This is a mighty argument, and I mention it for this purpose: because I would teach people that, notwithstanding any sin or guilt that lies upon their spirits, they still have liberty to come in and lay hold on Christ for justification.

Do not say, “I am ungodly, I am a great sinner, I have a vile heart, and I do not find my nature changed; so how dare I lay hold on God’s grace for mercy and pardon?” Yes, you may, because God justifies the ungodly, even though your nature is not changed and sanctified, as you say. Take it this way: you must lay hold of God’s grace for justification so that you may be sanctified; not only pardoned, but sanctified. Only come with your heart disposed in this way to close with the grace of God, so that you may be sanctified as well as pardoned. Then, though for the present you feel no sanctification, yet you may have as much right to lay hold on Christ as anyone whatsoever.

Objection. Will it not be presumption for a sinner to lay hold on Christ in this way?

Answer. If faith were merely a persuasion that Christ died for them, or, as many people think, simply this, “Well, God is merciful, and since Christ has died, he will pardon me,” then there might be presumption in laying hold on Christ. But now, as justification is a great mystery, so is faith. Faith is a mighty work of the Spirit of God in the soul, which causes the soul to roll and cast itself on the free grace of God in Christ, and to venture itself and all its hopes of good and happiness on him. There is not only a coming to Christ for pardon, but for grace, holiness, light, good and happiness here, and for whatever it expects hereafter; it looks for all from him.

Now when there is such a work of God on the soul, casting itself on God in Christ, though nothing appears in him at present but ungodliness, yet such a one may come to God for pardon, and has a right to; for God justifies the ungodly. “Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom 5:6); and again, “If when we were enemies, we were reconciled by the death of his Son” (Rom 5:10). When we were enemies, and had base hearts full of enmity against God, even then Christ died to reconcile us to God. You may venture, then, to come to him for pardon, and it is no presumption; though you see no change in yourself, yet he pardons so that you may be changed. Now here is a glorious work of God in pardoning a sinner: that God should pardon, justify and reconcile us when we were enemies to him. Here is a glorious work of God, for a sinner to be justified and reconciled, and that while the sinner was an enemy to him.

The Eleventh Mystery: God Himself Purchases the Pardon

11. When God pardons a sinner, he himself has to purchase the pardon. And this differs from the way pardons are given among men. A prince pardons a criminal, but the prince himself does not purchase the pardon. And if someone has offended you, you pardon the offender, but you who are offended do not purchase a pardon for the offender. Possibly some friend may come and purchase a pardon at the king’s hands for an offender, but the king himself does not purchase it. Yet this is how it is with God: God does not pardon any one sin without its costing God himself dearly before he obtains it. Therefore it is no slight thing to be pardoned. You must not think that you can go to God and cry for mercy, and that he will pardon you like that. God never pardons sin in that natural way.

No, it costs God dearly, yes, something worth more than all the world. If the world could have done it, God would rather have dissolved heaven and earth than have given what he did give. What was that? It was the blood of his own Son. God gave him up to death for the sin of mankind, and to purchase a pardon for man.

But someone may say, “What need had God to purchase a pardon for man? Could he not have forgiven him by his absolute prerogative?” I answer, there was need, because of the satisfaction of justice. He purchased it out of the hands of justice. God had to lay down a price to justice before he himself could pardon one sin; justice must be satisfied before he could give out one pardon. Well, take all these together: Christ must be our surety, take the debt upon himself and suffer as much punishment as we would have suffered in hell to all eternity; the soul must be made to stand righteous before God, and yet this righteousness must be in another; yes, a close union is made between Christ and the soul. And further still, it is by faith, and yet boasting is excluded; God is infinitely merciful, and yet infinitely just; when he pardons one sin, he lays in a pardon for all sin for time to come; he justifies the ungodly; he pardons sin, and yet he purchases the pardon. These eleven meditations on the pardon of sin show it to be a wonderful work of God. Put them together, and the conclusion, according to the point, will be clear and full: Blessed is that man whose sins are forgiven. And surely, if there is such a mysterious and glorious work of God in pardoning sin, the man for whom God works such a glorious work is a blessed man indeed. And now, having finished this argument of the great mystery of godliness in the forgiveness of sin, I go on to another, and it is this.

Argument 4. Pardon of sin makes a man blessed. Why? Because it is the foundation of abundance of other mercies. It is an inlet to many other mercies, and therefore it is a great mercy. It is a leading mercy; it is like the queen of mercies, who has a great and glorious train of other mercies attending her. Indeed, it is the very foundation of all the mercies of the covenant of grace. It is the principal mercy, the very foundation of all the mercies that are in the covenant, and the inlet and opening to them all. The covenant of grace is a rich treasury with an abundant store of mercy in it, and this opens the way to all of it.

The current of all God’s mercies was stopped by man’s sin. Though God had an infinite ocean of mercy, yet the source and outlet of all his mercies was stopped up. Now when God pardons sin, he takes away the stoppage and opens the sluice, so that his infinite grace and goodness may flow out plentifully and sweetly to the soul, the body and the estate, yes, to all that belongs to a believer.

You may think of God’s mercy as an infinite stream of goodness running with a full current toward his creatures, for God delights to communicate himself to his creatures. But man’s sin made a dam and stopped the pipe, so that not one drop of mercy could come through, not one drop of all that mercy which God in his eternal purpose has appointed to come in time to this or that poor creature. But when he comes to pardon and justification, he pulls out the plug and pulls up the floodgates and sluices, and then mercies come flowing in at full force. When sin is pardoned, the full streams of all the mercies in the covenant of grace come flowing into the soul. Well then, if this is so, that pardon of sin is an inlet to other mercies, then the one who has his sin pardoned is a truly blessed man.

Let me open this point, that pardon of sin is the foundation of all other mercies and opens the sluice to let them all in. “Behold, the days come that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and the house of Judah” (Jer 31:31). Here God opens his goodness and tells them that he will make a new covenant, not like the one he made with their fathers (Jer 31:32). “But this shall be the covenant,” he says, and he gives some particulars: “I will put my law into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother; saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me …” (Jer 31:33-34).

But what is the foundation of all this? At the end of verse 34: “For I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more” (Jer 31:34). I will make a new covenant with them, God says, and put my law into their inward parts, and they shall all know me; I will come in with all my mercies and blessings, with illumination and sanctification. He mentions these in place of all the rest, just as in a grant of great things some particulars are named; but then he comes in with a general clause: “For I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” It is as if someone should ask, “Why, Lord? Will you come to your people in this way, with such abundant mercy, more than before, and let in these graces of your covenant? Why?” Here is the ground of it all: “for I will forgive their iniquity.” So forgiveness of iniquity is the special inlet of the mercies of the covenant.

Now I will show you more particularly what those special mercies are to which pardon of sin is the inlet. That will show still further the blessedness of those whose sins are pardoned, since pardon of sin is an inlet to so many other mercies. They are these.

Peace with God

1. Peace with God. “Being justified,” that is, pardoned, “through faith.” What follows? “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:1). The ground of our justification and reconciliation is not our humiliation, no, nor our sanctification. Observe this: the very bottom and foundation of our justification and reconciliation is neither of these (though we ought to be using and exercising them both). Rather, pardon of sin comes through the free grace of God applied by faith, and this is the ground of all our peace and reconciliation with God.

And this is how men and women should seek their peace with God. The main thing on which they should lay the weight of obtaining peace with God is the work of faith applying the righteousness of Christ for pardon, rather than any work of humiliation or of sanctification by the Spirit of God. Yet both of these are sweet and comforting when we lay the bottom and main foundation of all our peace on the free grace of God pardoning our sin and justifying us through faith in Christ.

God does not say, “You who are great sinners, wait until you are humbled and brought to hate sin, and then you shall have peace with God.” No; you may be greatly troubled for sin, and may leave it, and reform in many things, and live better lives than before, and yet your peace may not be made with God. How then shall it be? Like this: being justified by faith, looking up to the free grace of God in Christ for the pardon of sin, we come to have peace with God. This is a great privilege. Consider the other side: a creature that is not reconciled cannot look on the infinite Creator without terror, and shaking and trembling of spirit. He cannot think of God at all without thinking of him as his enemy, and that all the excellencies of God are at work to bring misery and ruin on him. This is a sad thing.

But when pardon of sin comes, God is reconciled, and all fears and terrors from the Almighty are gone. The fears by which the soul was afraid that God was secretly working its ruin are driven away. Before, if any judgment of God came close and near, and fell on anyone within sight and hearing of a guilty soul, he would think, “God is coming to me next.” But a justified soul may say, “Though the judgments of God are ever so terrible, in the world and in the Word, and once terrified my conscience, yet now that my sin is pardoned, my soul is reconciled. The Word of God speaks nothing but good to me, and all those fears that once so terrified me are driven away.”

Objection. But may not a pardoned man have these fears, or something of their nature, still resting on his spirit after he is pardoned?

Answer. Yes, he may, but the ground of them is taken away and gone. It is not the work of God’s Spirit that causes these fears, as it was before. “You have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption, whereby ye cry Abba Father” (Rom 8:15). Perhaps you may have some fears, but being justified by faith, you have not received the spirit of bondage again. If from now on you have any fears of God’s judgments and wrath against you, it is not the Spirit of God, as the spirit of bondage, that causes them; you yourselves may be mistaking the matter. For those who have once received the spirit of bondage never receive it again. You may have fears through your own mistakes, but not from the Spirit of God acting as the spirit of bondage, showing us our bondage through our sins and working terrors in the soul because of it. Those fears are driven away.

For in our peace with God through the pardon of sin, the ground of enmity between God and the soul is taken away. And there is something in this which might have been added among the mysteries. When a prince pardons a criminal, he gives him his life, and the man is glad and goes away; but the prince takes no further notice of him, and the man may possibly still have enmity in his heart against the prince. But when God pardons a sinner, not only is the enmity taken away, but that soul is immediately brought into a state of infinite friendship. God receives the soul into his very heart, so that there will be a greater and more intimate love and friendship between his Majesty and that soul than there ever was between the greatest and dearest friends in the world. This is wonderful, and yet it is so.

For just as, when God comes to pardon sin, he does not only take away the guilt of sin but makes the soul actually righteous in justification, so also he does not only take away the enmity that was there before between God and the soul, but receives the soul into infinite love and takes him into infinite friendship with himself. Oh, the sweetness and blessedness of the state of the man whose sins are pardoned! Reconciliation with God follows from it, and God takes the soul into the love of his own bosom. Further, two things follow from this: peace in conscience, and peace with the creatures. Being justified by faith, he has peace with God, and as the immediate consequence of that, peace in conscience and peace with all the creatures.

(1) Peace in conscience. Those fears and grating terrors that arose from guilt in the conscience are gone; those dismal accusations of conscience are silenced. It is true that a man’s conscience may trouble him after pardon and justification, but that is through mistake; the ground of all those troubles of conscience is gone. It is with trouble of conscience after the pardon of sin as it is with the sea. You who are mariners see the wind at sea raising the boisterous waves on high, and yet after the wind has quite died down, it is a long while before the waves are still and quiet. So in men’s souls, it is the guilt of sin that causes woeful disturbances. But when God pardons sin, he comes into the soul as Christ came into the ship, and bids everything be still.

And though, through our weakness, conscience is still troubled after the sting and guilt are removed, yet God is pleased to help the weakness of his people sooner or later, pardoning sin not only in the court of heaven but in the court of conscience too; and then all fears and troubles are gone. Certainly those who know what the burnings, throbbings and aches of an accusing conscience mean know what a blessing it is to have peace of conscience. It is a great blessing to have all well there, because the soul has much to do with conscience, and conscience has much to do with God, yes, has to do only with God. And if all is well with that which has so much to do with the Almighty, that is a great blessedness. Blessed is the man who is pardoned in this way.

(2) There follows this also: peace with the creatures. If I were to meet with these in a full text, each of them might require a sermon of its own, to show the excellence of a quiet conscience and of peace with the creatures. But I can only touch on it here. God is the Lord of hosts, and all the creatures stand armed, ready to avenge God’s quarrel. And not only do they stand ready; there is a kind of cry in the creatures to God to make them the executioners of his wrath. “Shall I go and strike this drunkard?” says one. “And shall I strike this blasphemer?” says another. All the creatures in heaven and earth cry out against you every day. But when God pardons your sin, all the creatures at once become your friends.

When the judge has acquitted a criminal, the lower officers have nothing more to do with him. Conscience and the creatures are the lower officers, and when God is at peace, they are at peace too. When Joab came and stabbed Absalom, the ten young men who were his armor-bearers did the same (2 Sam 18:15). So if God comes to an unpardoned sinner and gives him a stab, all the creatures will be ready to stab him too. But when God comes and pardons your sin, he makes a league between you and the stones of the field, as the Scripture speaks (Job 5:23). That is the first great mercy that flows into the soul upon the pardon of sin: peace with God.

God Reveals His Secrets to Those He Pardons

2. This also follows upon the pardon of sin: God comes in a wonderfully gracious way to reveal himself to that soul. He comes to reveal his secrets to the soul he pardons, and pardon of sin is the very ground on which the Spirit reveals the secrets and mysteries of God to that soul. Among the other particulars in the new covenant, God promises that they shall be all taught of God (Jer 31:34). In Hebrews that text is quoted somewhat more fully than in the prophet: “They shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest” (Heb 8:10-11). Mark this: “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb 8:12). Pardon of sin is made the ground of God’s teaching them his covenant: “They shall know me from the least to the greatest.”

You little ones and young ones, if God is pleased to bring you to Christ and pardon your sin, a glorious light will come into your souls. God will show himself to you in a glorious manner; a different kind of light will shine into your hearts than ever before. The mysteries of God will be opened to you, and you will understand more than many of your fathers who have not had this mercy of being rightly acquainted with the justification of a sinner.

And therefore, you young ones who greatly desire knowledge, the main thing to become acquainted with is this great doctrine of justification and the pardon of sin. As Luther said, “Three things, prayer, meditation and temptations, make a theologian”; so I say that the right knowledge of justification makes a Christian. Those who do not have a clear knowledge of this point only bungle, and are extremely weak in all other points of religion. But once the soul comes to be justified, what a glorious light is let into it, as all of you know who have been made partakers of this grace!

And you young ones may come to have your sin pardoned as well as others, and to have the knowledge of the mysteries of God revealed to you. Compare 1 John 2:12 with verse 13. “I write unto you little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake” (1 John 2:12). Even to little children he says, I write to you; your sins are forgiven. Oh, it is a happy thing for young children to have faith worked in them and to have their sins forgiven them early! And then in verse 13: “I write unto you little children, because you have known the Father” (1 John 2:13). Oh, what a wonderful light springs up in the souls of little children when their sins are pardoned! They come to the knowledge of the Father.

And this is the reason why many great and learned men, men of excellent understanding in the knowledge of natural things, are not acquainted with the mysteries of godliness and think only meanly of them. Do not marvel at it, for the knowledge of the mysteries of godliness comes in through the pardon of sin. When God pardons sin and justifies a soul by faith in Christ, then he opens the covenant and all its glorious mysteries to that soul. A prince does not reveal the secrets of state to a traitor who lies in bolts and chains. But if a prince is pleased to pardon him, knock off his bolts and chains, raise him to favor, bring him into his private chamber, and open his whole heart and all the mysteries of the kingdom to him, here is a great change! This is what God does for the poor sinners he pardons.

A soul lying under the guilt of sin is, for all the world, like a criminal lying in a dungeon with bolts and fetters on him. The guilt of sin is like bolts and fetters on your soul. Well, there you lie, fast bound. But when God comes with pardoning mercy, he sends to you in this dungeon and knocks off your bolts by pardon; and not only that, he calls you into his private chamber, opens his heart and bosom to you, and reveals those things that were kept secret from the beginning of the world. Princes do not always deal this way with criminals. If they pardon them, they think they have done enough for them; afterward they may go and shift for themselves. They are not called into the private chamber to have the king open his secrets to them. But it is certainly so with every soul God pardons. He pardons no one whom he does not call into his private chamber, revealing to him the great counsels of his will and what the great thoughts of his heart have been, from all eternity, for the good of that soul.

Though some souls have more light than others, yet there is no pardoned soul to whom God does not come with a great and glorious light; compared with the light of nature, it may well be called a glorious light. Even the weakest and poorest creature in the world who is pardoned understands more of the light of God’s grace and covenant than the greatest doctors or rabbis in the world. And though he cannot speak or talk so much about these things, yet he dares to venture his soul on the thoughts he has of God’s goodwill made known to him in the covenant. No rabbi in the world, though he can talk much of these things, dares to venture his soul, for its eternal welfare, and his estate on God, for God to do with him as he pleases. But a believing soul dares to venture his name, his estate, his life, yes, his eternal life, on God; he dares to put them all into his hands. And to such a soul God will reveal his covenant (Ps 25:14). God will grant this mercy: he will reveal his covenant, and all its secrets will be made known to him.

You who complain of dullness of understanding say, “I hear excellent mysteries and do not understand them. There is surely much in them; I see some weight and excellence in them still to be found out, and I hope that in time God will make them known to me, but for now I know little.” You take a course to get understanding by attending on the outward ordinances. It is good to use all means, such as reading, conferring with other Christians, and praying over what you hear; these are excellent. But the great and special means of getting saving understanding of the mysteries of the gospel is this: cast down your souls at God’s footstool and cry for the pardon of sin. It may be that the guilt of sin is on your heart. Make it your work to get rid of the guilt of sin, and cry for God’s justifying mercy in Christ. Once the guilt is removed, God will let out to your soul the revelation of his covenant in a glorious manner; he will reveal his secrets to you.

And so, upon this, a sinner comes to have a holy boldness in the presence of God. Suppose a criminal comes to court still under his guilt, not pardoned. Alas, he hardly dares to look in at the court gate; and when he does come, he keeps to some outer room and dares not stir any further than he is called. But take another man who is pardoned: he comes in boldly and goes from one room to another, yes, into the very presence chamber, and there he can open his mind fully to the king and speak out all his heart. This is a great difference between one who is under the guilt of sin and another who is pardoned. The one under the guilt of sin hardly dares to go to prayer; he thinks God casts away his person and his services, and that nothing he does is regarded. But when God comes to pardon, he calls the poor sinner who was in trouble before to come and draw near to him, and says, “Fear not; open your mind and heart to me.”

Look at Lamentations 3:55-57: “I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.” And verse 57: “In the day that I called upon thee thou drewest near, and saidst, Fear not.” Every poor soul that is justified may say, “God knows that when I was under the guilt of sin I was cast into the low dungeon, and the chains of guilt were on me there; but through your grace, ‘thou hast heard my voice, hide not thy ear at my breathing, at my cry’” (Lam 3:56). You cannot cry? Yet if you are one whom God has received into mercy, you may be confident that God will hear the voice of your breathing. You come to prayer and cannot tell what to say. But mark this: can you breathe? God’s ear lies open to the breathings of a soul he has received into mercy. Such a soul may say, “You came to me; I was a great way off, shaking and trembling, and you drew near to me and said, ‘Fear not’” (Lam 3:57).

So a poor soul under the guilt of sin stands shaking and trembling. But when God comes to pardon, he says to you, “Fear not”; and because you dare not come to him, he comes to you and says, “Peace be to you; fear not.” In Hebrews 10:16 the apostle speaks of the covenant that God will make. Then he says, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb 10:17); and next, “Where remission of sin is, there is no more offering for sin” (Heb 10:18). From this he infers that now, therefore, “We have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Heb 10:19); and, “Having an high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb 10:21-22). Since God has made a new covenant and said that he will remember their sins and iniquities no more, therefore, says the apostle, we have boldness to enter into the Holy of Holies.

In the time of the law, under the Jewish tutelage, no one might enter the Holy of Holies except the high priest; there was very little access into the holiest place in the time of the law. But now that the gospel has come, Christ has offered himself up as a sacrifice, and there is need of no more sacrifices; having purged away sin once for all by his own blood, he has opened a new and living way, so that we may now come with boldness into the holiest. So a believing soul now need not stand far off, shaking, but may come into the private chamber, enter the Holy of Holies, and draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. And this comes from sin being pardoned.

Oh, blessed is the one who has his sin pardoned, with such a privilege following from it! “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him” (Eph 3:12). Christ being our high priest, we have boldness, or liberty of speech, as the original word means. A great many people do not know how to pray, and they think the prayers of the saints have nothing in them but a great deal of nonsense, because they do not understand what the work of God is in the hearts of his people.

The saints, by faith in him, have liberty of speech. A gracious heart, once justified by Christ, has a blessed freedom to open its soul to God, which cannot be had in any other way in the world. To have liberty to pour out our whole souls into his bosom comes from faith; it comes in as a fruit of justification. David pardoned Absalom, but would not let him see his face. But God never pardons any soul without giving that soul free liberty to come into his presence and open itself fully to him. This is a second privilege: pardon of sin is an inlet to many other mercies.

Pardon Makes All Other Mercies Truly Mercies

3. Pardon of sin is not only an inlet to many other mercies; it is such a mercy as makes all other mercies to be mercies, and without it no other mercies would be mercies. By this all other mercies are mercies. Once a soul comes to be pardoned, it may look on everything it has in a far sweeter way than it ever could before. By this a man may look on house and land, wife and children, estate and friends, as mercies indeed. Why? Because he has a pardon; his sins are pardoned.

Suppose a man is charged, found guilty and condemned. He has a fine house, rich furniture, a sweet wife and children, and everything he could desire. But he says, “What are all these to me, seeing I am a condemned man?” Well, he goes and unexpectedly gets a pardon, and now he returns to his house, his wife and his family again, and all of them are sweet to him. When he enjoys them with a pardon, he looks on them with a different eye than he did before.

There is this same difference between enjoying outward comforts in this world when sin is pardoned and enjoying them before it was pardoned. You have houses and land, a sweet spouse and children, trade by sea and land, and everything you can desire. But what is all this to you while the guilt of sin lies grating on your conscience? Well, God comes to you with pardoning mercy and takes away your sin, whose guilt lay corroding your conscience. Then you may look on your estate, your wife, your children and all your income as coming from the same eternal fountain of God’s eternal love that Jesus Christ himself came from.

This is a mighty argument to persuade people to seek the pardon of their sin: so that your comforts and enjoyments in outward things in this world may be sweet to you. If there were no other reason to persuade you to seek forgiveness, this might be enough: that you may have all your outward mercies in mercy to you. You may have an estate, a sweet spouse, sweet children and everything you can desire, and these are mercies; but they are only such mercies as God may give to those who are his enemies. At best they are only outward mercies, not coming to you as fruits of the covenant, and so they are not the sure mercies of David (Isa 55:3); no, they are not even worthy to be counted mercies. Just consider two things.

First, the guilt of sin on your soul is so great an evil that, take all these things at their best, they are only like a grain of sugar put into a cask of gall. Fill a cask with bitter gall and put one grain of sugar into it; would not all its sweetness be swallowed up in the cask of gall? So, even if the monarchy of the whole world were made over to you, yet if your sin is unpardoned, there is so much evil in it that all you can enjoy is only like one grain of sugar put into a cask of gall. The evil of sin would swallow it all up.

Second, you do not know whether what you have comes from God’s love or from his hatred. No, you have more reason to conclude that it comes from God’s anger and hatred than from his love. How then can you count it a mercy, when all the comforts you have may come from God’s infinite anger and hatred toward you rather than from his love? Therefore, until you are assured of pardon, you have no mercy that you can be assured is in mercy to you. This shows:

(1) The great folly of men and women who look for the pardon of sin, but only at times when God takes away all their other comforts from them. For example, they think to satisfy themselves with the creatures while they can enjoy them, while they can go up and down among friends, eat good food and have everything coming in. But when God takes all these away, as on a sickbed, then they will cry for pardon: “Oh, mercy, Lord! Oh, mercy! I am a wretched, miserable sinner; oh, mercy!” Well, now you want mercy. Why now, and not before? Before, you had other things, and you quieted your hearts with them. And why not now? Were they not mercies? “But I do not know whether they came out of love or hatred”; well, yet you quieted your hearts with them. And now that they are all going, do you think this a fit time to cry for mercy? Oh, how infinitely mistaken you were not to cry for mercy before! You think now is a fit time to cry for mercy. Why? You had no mercy that you could take comfort in as a mercy unless your sins were pardoned, and therefore you have cause to cry for pardon now. When sickness comes, and God takes away this mercy and that, you think you are left naked; if you knew all, you are naked now. And therefore, if you would live a comfortable life in this world, and have your house, your estate and all your relations be mercies to you, never be at rest until you have your sins pardoned and forgiven. This, if it were considered, might be a mighty argument and means to draw the hearts of men to seek pardon, so that all their outward things might be sweetened to them.

(2) If no outward good is a mercy unless sin is pardoned, then what good will you, or anyone, get by the increase of sin? You think it is a good. Why? All that you have now is not a good, is not a mercy; and do you think to get good by the increase of sin? When a temptation comes to draw you to sin, think like this: “I have heard this day that nothing I have is a mercy unless my sin is pardoned, and therefore I can never get any mercy by the increase of sin.” Certainly, if men and women understood themselves, they would easily answer the devil by this kind of reasoning.

Pardon Makes All Afflictions Easy to Bear

4. Wherever sin is pardoned, this follows: anything that befalls that man or woman is very easy to bear. It is an easy matter for anyone who has his sin pardoned to bear any affliction, and this is a great blessedness. Or rather, take it this way: such a one may be assured that his afflictions shall either be removed or else be made easy to bear. For pardon of sin delivers us from an abundance of afflictions that might otherwise befall us in this world. It is true that God lays many afflictions on his people after their sins are forgiven; yet, for all they know, if their sins had not been forgiven they might have had a far different kind of miseries from those they now meet with. Perhaps you meet with some now, and more than you did before. But for all you know, the miseries you meet with now might have been seven times greater than they are, and another kind of wrath than you now think of. “Cry, her warfare is accomplished, for her iniquity is pardoned” (Isa 40:2). Where iniquity is pardoned, there warfare is accomplished. If afflictions are not quite removed, yet they are made very easy to bear, and that upon two grounds.

First, because the greatness of the good there is in the pardon of sin makes the bitterest and saddest evil there is in affliction to be as nothing. To give an instance: suppose a criminal who is condemned to some grievous and hideous death has a friend at court to sue for his pardon, or he comes up himself to get it. Well, he comes, and is admitted into the king’s presence; and the king receives him graciously, pardons him freely, clears him fully of all his guilt, and puts him wholly out of all the danger he was in. Perhaps, as he is coming away from the king, he loses his glove or his handkerchief. Would it not be an unseemly thing for a man who has just obtained his pardon to whine and wring his hands because he has lost his glove? Would that not be an unreasonable thing?

Certainly it is just as unreasonable for any man or woman who has the pardon of their sin to wring their hands and whine, and make a fuss as though they were undone, because they are afflicted. For the greatest affliction that can befall anyone in this world, compared with the good of the pardon of sin, is not so much as the loss of a glove compared with having one’s life saved by the king’s pardon. Your afflictions may be more than the loss of a glove; yet your pardon of sin is greater than any king’s pardon in the world. Put these together, and see by this how unreasonable you are. And when you have any assurance of the pardon of your sin, check yourself that you should be so troubled at any affliction, when you have so much good from God in the pardon of your sin.

Further, to those who are troubled at afflictions, I would put this: either they are pardoned or they are not pardoned. If you are pardoned, why are you so troubled? If you are not pardoned, then you need to set aside your grief over afflictions and spend the strength of your spirits in seeking the pardon of your sins.

Second, pardon of sin will make afflictions easy because the soul may be assured that the evil of affliction is gone. He who has his sin pardoned may be assured that nothing can befall him in this world but what, if he knew all, he himself would be willing with all his heart to have so. And is not this a blessed condition for any man while he lives here in this world, where there is an abundance of evil: to be in such a condition that we shall certainly know that nothing shall befall us as long as we live in this world but what, if we knew all, we ourselves would choose, and would count a better condition than any other? It is a blessed estate to be in such a condition as this, for God to testify to us from heaven that it shall not be in the power of any creature in the world to do us any hurt. And certainly so it is once a man or woman is justified. God does as good as speak from heaven to that poor soul, saying, “Soul, now you are safe. Be certainly assured that there is no creature in all the world that can do you any hurt.”

You may say with David in Psalm 116:7, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.” God has pardoned your sin and delivered you from death, “and now, my soul, return unto thy rest.” In the original, the word translated rest is plural: “return unto thy rests.” There are rests enough for a soul whom God has delivered and pardoned. All afflictions are to him but like the viper on Paul’s hand, which he may shake off; they will do him no hurt. The sting of death is sin, and the sting of afflictions is that they are the beginnings of death. But to one who has his sin taken away, the nature of affliction is changed. Afflictions come to him not as acts of avenging justice but as effects of love and mercy; the principle from which they come and the end toward which they tend are different from what they were before. When trespasses are forgiven, deliverance from evil will follow after, as it does in the Lord’s Prayer.

It is true, as you heard before under the former point, that if we once come to have afflictions as the fruits of sin, then they are heavy and grievous indeed. In this case, when affliction comes for sin, and sin comes to prey upon a man in the time of his affliction, it is just like a bailiff set on by a cruel creditor, who comes to a poor man in debt as he lies sick. The bailiff takes away his stools, his table, his bed and his pillow, and everything he has to help and comfort him; he does not leave him so much as a pillow to rest his weary head upon. So when you, a sinner, lie sick and under affliction, the guilt of sin comes and takes away all your comforts. If you have any promise, as a pillow to rest your head upon, the guilt of sin will take it away. The guilt of sin pulls and tears away every comfort and every good that sinners should have to refresh themselves with in affliction.

But when the guilt of sin is gone, you may lay your head down in quiet and rest upon a promise, and it will make affliction very easy, so that you shall have no cause to complain as you formerly had. “The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick”; mark the ground of it: “for the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity” (Isa 33:24). When God comes to bestow this great mercy of pardon, the inhabitants shall not make such doleful complaints of the affliction and trouble that are upon them. Luther says, “Strike, Lord, strike, for I am absolved from my sin.” If God has once absolved you, or any poor creature, from their sin, it is not in the power of any affliction to disturb them. “When he gives quietness, who can give trouble? and when he hides his face, who then can behold him?” (Job 34:29). When God gives quietness, as he does in the forgiveness of sin, who then can make trouble? Let there be ever so many rumors in the world of war, blood and miseries, as if heaven and earth were coming together; yet if God gives quietness to the heart in the assurance of the forgiveness of sin, who can bring trouble? It is not in the power of all the world to disturb the soul of the one whose sins are forgiven. Pardon of sin is that peace the world cannot take away. Therefore blessed is the man who has his sins pardoned.

Healing, the Fruit of Pardoning Mercy

5. Where God pardons sin, he heals that soul and sanctifies it by the immediate fruits of the Spirit, wherever pardon is; and this is a great blessedness. Who is there that understands the evil of sin and does not see this as a great blessedness: to be delivered not only from the guilt of sin but from the uncleanness of sin too? And it will appear from various texts of Scripture that sanctification, or freedom from the power and slavery that lie in the bondage of sin, is a fruit of the forgiveness of sin. I shall not speak to them all, but only to some that make this blessing the consequence, or immediate fruit, that flows in upon forgiveness.

In Jeremiah, God promises to put his law into our inward parts (Jer 31:33). But what is the ground of it? The next verse: “I will forgive their iniquities and remember their sins no more” (Jer 31:34). The writing of God’s law in our inward parts, delivering us from the power of sin and sanctifying our hearts, comes in as a fruit of God’s forgiving us our iniquities. “Sin shall not have dominion over you.” Why? “Because you are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14). Now this is the great grace of the gospel, the forgiveness of sin. You are under that, and that is why sin cannot have dominion over you. It is as if the apostle had said, “You may resolve against sin, and do what you can to oppose it, and strive as much as you possibly can to subdue it; yet as long as you remain under the law, sin will certainly have dominion over you, and you will be under its slavery, until you come under the grace of the gospel and partake of it.”

“And you hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (Col 2:13). So being made alive and sanctified is a fruit of having all their trespasses forgiven. “The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:56-57). The strength of sin is the law: God’s justice in the law giving men up to sin, there lies the strength of sin. But now, when God comes to men through Christ in the grace of the gospel, there comes deliverance from the strength of sin.

Perhaps some of you have lain under the burden and power of sin, and you have thought the only way to get the victory was to resolve and strive against it. You have done so, and yet you cannot get power over your sins. I remember someone writing to Luther, who told him that he had vowed and covenanted against his sin, and yet his sin prevailed against him until he understood the grace of the gospel. And perhaps you have done the same, and yet your sin prevails because you do not take this course. Try the work of faith in the matter of justification. Renew your faith in God for the forgiveness of your sin through Jesus Christ; that is the ready way. Try that course.

You who have been tired out with laboring against corruption, who have resolved and prayed and shed tears, and yet that will not do: try this way. Renew your faith daily in the matter of justification, by laying hold of the infinite riches of the grace of Christ in the gospel for pardon, so that healing power may come in to help you against what holds you. This will not hinder your duties. You may pray, resolve and fast as much as before; but be sure that your great care is to renew your faith in the matter of justification, and more healing power will come into your souls by that than by anything else. If you can once touch Christ, the bloody flow of your sins that ran before will be dried up, which you could not dry up though you spent your time and pains and did all you could do.

Here is a great difference between God’s forgiveness and man’s. A king may forgive, but he cannot change and heal. But when God forgives, he heals, and takes away from you that evil disposition that so weakened you for all good. When Christ comes, he comes with healing in his wings (Mal 4:2). Now blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven, for there follows deliverance from the power of sin and a healing of the soul.

Comfort Against Death, the Fruit of Pardoning Mercy

6. Blessed is he whose sins are forgiven, because such a man may look death and judgment in the face with comfort. When death comes to a natural man, he comes as God’s messenger to arrest the soul at God’s suit. But where sin is forgiven, death is made a means to bring you to rest. What would have arrested you becomes a means to bring you to your rest. Christ came to die. Now what was the great business he came to die for? It was to purchase a pardon for sin, and by his death to take away the power of the devil, “and deliver them that through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb 2:14-15). Through the fear of death: and nothing in all the world can deliver from the fear of death but the forgiveness of sin.

And then this makes a man look on the day of judgment with comfort. For one special end of that day is that there may be a declaration of the infinite mercy of God in forgiving sin. “Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19), when he shall send Jesus again, who was preached to you before. Certainly, as soon as ever a man comes to believe, his sins are blotted out. Yes, but when the times of refreshing come, they shall appear blotted out to your own selves, and to all the world, men and angels, more fully than ever before. Some interpreters think, and I dare not deny it, that there will be a time of refreshing in this world before the great and terrible day, when Christ will make it appear that the sins of the elect believers are blotted out in a different manner than now appears.

But however that may be, it will fully appear at that day; and then that day which will be so terrible to the ungodly will be refreshing to the saints. Why? Because they shall find their sins blotted out then, and that will make that day a day of refreshing to them. Although the heavens are all on fire and shriveled up like a scroll, and there are dreadful shriekings of ungodly men, yet it shall be a day of refreshing to the saints, because their sins are blotted out. Oh, blessed is the man who has his sins pardoned now, for that day shall be a day of refreshing to him! But woe to you, O soul, whoever you are, who do not have your sin pardoned. If but one sin stands on the account not blotted out, woe, woe will betide you forevermore. But those who find their sin pardoned shall find that day a day of greater refreshing than any they ever beheld. And therefore blessed is the man who has his iniquities forgiven.

Security Against the World’s Reproaches, the Fruit of Pardoning Mercy

7. Where God has forgiven sin, such a one need not care for the censures of all the world and the reproaches they cast upon him. The men of the world cast many reproaches on the saints. They say they are hypocrites: that though they will not swear, yet they will lie; that they are false, proud and the like. Why, now, the soul that finds itself acquitted before the Lord need not care for all the censures and condemnations that the men of the world can cast upon him. In Romans 8:33, having spoken before of the great grace of God in justification, the apostle speaks as if he were throwing out a challenge to all the world: let them all come in, and let me see “Who can lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect?” Why? Because “it is God that justifies.” Many will charge them with grievous things; yes, but it is God who justifies. What will a man care, if the prince has given him a pardon, though some kitchen boy, some good-for-nothing hanging about the court, should rail against him, as long as the king has pardoned him?

Bernard has a notable saying about David when Shimei railed at him: “David was not troubled,” he says; “he did not feel the injury heaped upon him, because he had felt before the grace of God toward him.” The feeling of God’s grace toward him in pardoning kept him from feeling the railings of Shimei. So it was with Christ himself. In Isaiah 50 he first said, “I gave my back to the smiters, and hid not my face from shame and spitting” (Isa 50:6): they spat upon him. This is plainly spoken of Christ. But what upheld him? “For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded,” for all this; “therefore have I set my face like a flint” against all the scorns, railings and accusations in the world (Isa 50:7). But what was at the bottom of all this? Mark: “He is near that justifies me, who will contend with me? let us stand together: Who is my adversary? let him come near to me” (Isa 50:8). Let my adversary come and do his worst; he is near who justifies me.

It is true that Christ had no sin of his own to be pardoned; but he had the sins of all the elect charged upon him, and for that he suffered death. Now we are to know that Christ is justified as well as the believer; and the very reason why a believer is justified is that Christ himself is justified. Christ being justified, a believer comes to be justified. This might have been opened among the mysteries of the pardon of sin: there is a justifying first in Christ as in a common, public person, and then by faith in our own persons. Now although the Father, in justifying Christ, justifies us, yet he does not justify us as particular persons, but in Christ as a common person, in the name of all the elect. And faith comes in so that we might be justified in our own particular persons, as before we were justified in Christ as a common person.

Now Christ is justified first, and acquitted from all our sins, and this acquittal is made the ground of his challenge to all his adversaries in the world. Though the prince of devils comes with all his power, yet Christ says, “He is near that justifies me, and he will make my face as a flint. It is God who acquits me; who is my adversary? Let him come near.” Oh, it is a blessed thing when you have obtained the pardon of your sin! You need not care for all the reproaches the world can cast upon you. You may go up and down and challenge anyone in the world to come against you. “I pass not for man’s judgment, he that judgeth me is the Lord” (1 Cor 4:3-4). The word translated judgment is, in the Greek, man’s day. Man has his day here, and he thinks to wear out the people of God. “Why,” says Paul, “I care nothing for man’s day. He who has the supreme judgment in his hands has acquitted me, and I am well enough.”

Pardon Lays the Foundation of Eternal Life

8. Blessed is the man who has his iniquities forgiven, for this is the foundation of eternal life. Whoever has this mercy has a sure pledge of eternal life put into his hands. “Whom he predestinated, them he called: whom he called, them he justified: and whom he justified, them he glorified” (Rom 8:30). You who are justified and have your sin pardoned shall certainly be glorified. A prince may pardon a man, but though he gives him his natural life, he cannot assure him of eternal life. But if God pardons, he makes it known to that soul that he shall live eternally with him in glory. Oh, blessed then is he who has his iniquities forgiven, for this is a pledge to him of eternal life.

Pardon of Sin, the Ground of All True Comfort

9. Blessed is he who has his sin pardoned, for pardon of sin is the very ground of all true comfort. “Be of good comfort; your sins are forgiven” (Matt 9:2). If Christ speaks but this word to a soul, however dejected it may be, it is enough to raise any drooping soul from the very gates of hell. Be of good comfort, O soul; your sins are forgiven you. “Speak you comfortable to her, for her iniquities are pardoned” (Isa 40:2). God calls for her to be comforted when her iniquities are pardoned; this is the foundation of all true comfort. If you lay any other foundation to build your comforts on, that building will certainly totter and come to nothing, if this is not its foundation.

You would gladly have comfort, and every one of you is looking out for comfort; and indeed it is as natural for the soul of man to seek comfort as it is for fire to burn. There is no man who would not gladly have comfort. Now look to the foundation: if you would not have the building totter, lay a good foundation. Many lay the foundation of their comforts in their sins, and others in created things. But you must lay it in the pardon of your sin, in the free grace of God justifying your soul, and that building will hold. Lay it there, and you shall be comforted here, and forever hereafter. And so we have finished with that particular: that pardon of sin is a great mercy because it is a foundation of, and an inlet to, many other mercies. Blessed is the man who has his iniquities forgiven, who has such a grand mercy, upon which many other mercies follow.

Argument 5. Blessed is the man who has his sins forgiven, for indeed it is a mercy that passes through many difficulties before it comes to the soul. Whatever passes through many difficulties is strong and great indeed. Therefore this mercy makes the man blessed, because it is grace that passes through so many difficulties. When grace passes through many difficulties, that is an argument of a great deal of strength of grace, just as it is an argument of the great strength of sin when sin passes through many difficulties to bring forth. When a soul is set upon some sin, a great many difficulties lie in the way; yet because the lust for that sin is strong, it will break through all difficulties to get to it. So it is with mercy. When God comes with mercy to forgive a soul, this mercy of God must go through an abundance of difficulties before it gets to you. That shows it to be wonderfully strong mercy, and therefore it makes the one who partakes of it blessed.

When God made the world, it was done by speaking a word. God said, “Let there be light, and there was light” (Gen 1:3). But when God comes to pardon a sinner, heaven and earth must be moved. There must be a greater work of God in pardoning a sinner than in making the world. Certainly the work is greater and passes through more difficulties, as follows.

First, all the wrongs you have ever done to God stand between you and pardon. Never did any man in the world wrong another man as you have wronged God. How sin wrongs God has in part been set before you in what I have said about the evil of sin, and how contrary sin is to the infinite holiness of God; yet mercy breaks through that. Yes, above all, there is that great and difficult work of satisfying the infinite justice of God; yet mercy breaks through that too. And in that work these difficulties stand.

(1) There is this difficulty: before you can be pardoned, God must be made man, and yet must remain the same God he was before. You cry for pardon of sin, or you are undone. Suppose now that God’s very heart of mercy were yearning toward you to pardon your sin. Yet before this is done, this great work must be done: God must be made man, and yet remain the same God he was before. Here is a mightily difficult work, a greater work than making the world, and yet mercy breaks through this.

(2) This also stands between sin and pardon: when God is made man, he must die and be made a curse. And not only so, but God the Father must do it. He must take his own Son and stab him for you. He himself must take him and put him to death, and he himself must pour out his wrath upon his own Son, before your sins can be pardoned. Now that God the Father should take his own Son, the Son of his delight, stab him to the heart, and himself put him to death, this is a mighty work indeed. And yet this must be done before you can be pardoned.

Second, there is this difficulty in the way: before sin can be pardoned, the blind, dead, wicked, carnal, senseless heart of man must be raised up to perform the most glorious act that any creature ever did, which is the act of believing. Yet God says, “So that your sin may be pardoned, I will put forth my infinite power to bring it about. I will raise that blind, dead, senseless, carnal, wicked heart of man, so full of all wickedness, to perform the greatest work that any creature ever did.” For that is what believing is. God’s mighty power is put forth to bring this about.

Now all these difficulties lie in the way, and yet mercy passes through them all to pardon sin. Surely, then, that soul must be blessed who has his sin pardoned, since God sets his heart on him so much that, rather than not show him mercy, he will pass through all these great difficulties that lie in the way. And truly, in considering this, before I go any further, there are three meditations that may be gathered from it, and they may come with a great deal of power upon all our souls.

First, then it must be a great taking of the name of God in vain for any man or woman to have slight thoughts of such a mercy as pardon of sin, which comes through so many difficulties.

Second, this may come with power upon our hearts: if God’s mercy passes through so many difficulties for the pardon of your sin, you may well be content to endure much difficulty in seeking the pardon of your sin. You see what an evil sin is, and you are more aware of it than you ever were before. Well, you are seeking pardon, and you complain that you have waited long for it, perhaps three months, or half a year, or perhaps twelve months, and you have gained little assurance of pardon. You find it much more difficult than you thought it would be. Temptations come stronger than ever, and the devil suggests more evil thoughts than ever. You find duties hard for flesh and blood, and you are wearied and worn out with temptation. These are some difficulties. But are you engaged in that great work of seeking pardon of sin? Then be content to suffer some difficulties, yes, ten times more than you have, if God sees fit to lay them on you. For God’s mercies pass through difficulties to pardon your sin, and if you get through, though you meet with difficulties, you have no cause at all to complain.

Why should you not be willing to pass through difficulties in seeking pardon, when God’s mercies pass through many difficulties to come to your soul? You are going to God and seeking mercies from him, and many difficulties lie in the way. When God was coming to you, many difficulties lay in the way, and yet he passed through them all. Therefore you may be content, though you meet with some difficulties in seeking the pardon of your sins.

Third, this may make us willing to go through any services, even hard ones, if you are in the way of getting pardon. Suppose God sets us to some hard work that has many difficulties in it. Do not complain as if God were a hard master when he sets you to any hard work. For be it known to you, you are never set to any such hard work for God in all your life that has as many difficulties in it as the work of God in pardoning your sin has. There are more difficulties when God comes to pardon your soul for sin than in any service whatever that God requires of you. You look on the service of God, and there are many difficulties in it; be content, do not complain, for God passed through many difficulties to pardon your sin. And this is another consideration: the difficulties God passes through to pardon sin are a great argument that the soul that has its iniquities forgiven is blessed.

Argument 6. When God comes to pardon sin, it is a mercy that comes from the fountain of God’s everlasting love. Other mercies do not, and without this you cannot make them evidences of God’s eternal love. If God gives you health of body, good voyages at sea, and a good income in worldly things, you cannot draw arguments from these that God bears eternal love to your souls. But when he comes to pardon your sins, it is a certain evidence that God has set his love on you from all eternity.

If a chain were let down from heaven, and you could take hold of just one link, it would certainly bring you there; both ends would come together. Here in Romans 8:30 is a chain of many links let down, and if you can catch hold of the link of justification, you may certainly catch hold of predestination, for they all hang together. If you are justified, then know for certain that you are a predestinated man or woman, one on whom God has set his heart from all eternity to do you good.

And this is a great happiness for a poor creature while he lives in this world: to know that God has set his heart on him from all eternity to do him good. Indeed, we can never be at rest until we come to this. If your heart is right, you cannot be at rest in enjoying such poor fare as God throws to reprobates; you must have other comforts than anything the world can afford. If your heart is right, you will never rest until you come to know God’s thoughts toward you in his eternal purposes. It is no fussy nicety or vain curiosity for men and women to seek to know what God’s thoughts toward them were from all eternity. It may be known, and God has revealed it. Especially in the times of the gospel, God has opened his bosom to reveal to his people the thoughts he had of them from all eternity. And this is what makes a pardoned sinner so blessed.

This is more than any criminal can have from a prince. A prince may be persuaded to pardon him, and yet even at that very time the prince’s heart may be as much set against him as against any man. Still, having gotten his pardon, the man thinks himself blessed and goes his way. But when God pardons, it is not the act of a day. It is an act God has set his heart on doing from all eternity, an act that the infinite wisdom of God has been set to work from all eternity to bring about. If a criminal comes to a prince for pardon, and the prince says, “I have been setting my thoughts to work on pardoning you ever since I heard of your crime,” this will bring some comfort. But what is this compared with the comfort God brings to the soul he pardons? When God comes to a soul, he does not only pardon. He does not merely say, “Soul, I pardon you,” but, “Know, O soul, for your comfort, that this is a work that my wisdom and the counsels of my will have been contriving from all eternity, to bring about your pardon together with my own honor. Here it is for you; take it as a fruit of my eternal counsels.” Therefore blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven, because such purposes have been taken up in God’s eternal counsels to bring it about.

Argument 7. Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven, because, as there is no one thing that has taken up the heart of God more than this, so this is a work that all three Persons of the Trinity are engaged in, and in nothing more: God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let me give instances.

1. For God the Father: in Isaiah 43:25 he claims this as his own glory: “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for my name’s sake, and will not remember thy sins.” It is his prerogative: “I am he.” God glories in it as something peculiar to himself, belonging to none but him. In Exodus 33:18 Moses desired to see the glory of God, and God promised to “make all his goodness pass before him.” And in Exodus 34:6 he proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,” and then, to the point in hand, “forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.” Here is the glory of God.

Would you have a real demonstration that God’s heart was set upon this as the greatest work that was ever done? Take it in this: the very thought of accomplishing this by the death of his own Son made God very well pleased and delighted with his death. Surely, then, his heart was much set upon it; for rather than fail to accomplish it, he would part with his own Son. There was never such a hideous thing as the death of the Son of God. And therefore, if there was any delight to be taken in it, and God the Father did take delight in it, there must be some great thing to sweeten it. Such a horrid thing as the death of the Son of God needed some great thing to sweeten it. What, then, sweetened this to God the Father, that his own Son should be put to death? Why, nothing but this: that by it sinners might come to be redeemed, justified and pardoned. Nothing else would sweeten it to God the Father, but this does.

“It pleased the Lord to bruise him” (Isa 53:10); and again, “the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” The Scripture says that God takes no delight in the death of a sinner; and yet God did take delight in the death of his Son. It pleased God to see his Son bruised. When God the Father saw his Son under his wrath, sweating drops of water and blood under the curse of the law, it pleased God well. Certainly, then, there must be some mighty thing to sweeten this and to make the death of his own Son a delightful object to him. What was it? The very thing that did it was this: that Christ, being made a curse, thereby redeemed us from the curse, procured the pardon of our sins, and reconciled us to God. This very thing sweetened the death of the Son of God to God the Father; therefore the heart of God was much in it.

2. For Christ: what was the business that brought him from the Father’s bosom, and made him content to take our nature upon him, to suffer, and to be a man of sorrows, so as even to delight in it? For there was a kind of delight to Christ in enduring the wrath of God. “With desire,” says Christ, “have I desired to eat this passover” (Luke 22:15), because it was the preparation for his death and for his suffering the wrath of God, in all its fruits and effects, for the sin of man. And when Christ came to institute the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and to give his blood for the remission of sins, the text says, “He gave thanks.” What did he give thanks for? Surely the thing he gave thanks for (and this is why the Lord’s Supper is called the Eucharist, from the Greek word that means thanksgiving) was this: that by his death remission of sins should be obtained.

When Christ was about to die and suffer all the wrath of God that was due for our sins, Christ blessed God and thanked God the Father for it. Surely there must be some great matter to sweeten it, that he should be so moved as to bless God the Father for what cost him his life; and yet he did. Mark what it is that satisfies Christ for all this: “It pleased the Lord to bruise him, and his soul was made an offering for sin” (Isa 53:10). All was laid upon Christ. Well, but what did Christ look for in return for all this? “He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied” (Isa 53:11). What shall satisfy Christ for all his pains, labor and sufferings shall be to see of the travail of his soul. What is that? What is the travail of Christ’s soul? What? Why, “by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many.”

It is as if Christ had said, “This is the very thing my soul travails for in all that I have done or suffered in all my life: that I might only bring this great business to pass, to justify some souls, to get the sins of those poor souls who are your elect pardoned and their persons justified. This is what my soul travails for; and O Father, let me only see this, the travail of my soul, and I am satisfied.” Christ counted it worth all the travail of his soul, in all he did and suffered, that he might justify some souls. It is as if he had said that he would ask no other favor from his Father but only this: “Father, if you will only repay all my travail with this, I shall forever count myself satisfied and have enough.”

How satisfied, then, we should be with Christ, when Christ counts the pardon of our sins satisfaction enough! Shall Christ say, “Notwithstanding all my sorrows, let your sin be pardoned, and I have enough,” and will you not now say, “Let me have Christ, and I have enough”? Christ says to God the Father, “Let me have those souls pardoned, and I have enough.” Oh, then, you must say, “Let me have Christ, and I have enough.” Surely Christ is enough to satisfy you, when the pardon of your sin is enough to satisfy him.

3. As the heart of God and of Christ is in this business, so the heart of the Holy Spirit is in it too. The great work the Holy Spirit has to do in this world, and the great business for which he was sent, is to convince poor souls of the righteousness that is to be had in Christ for justification. Christ will send the Comforter, and he will convince the world, first, of sin, and second, of righteousness (John 16:8-10). What does that mean? It means that when the Spirit comes, he will make it clear to believers and convince them that the righteousness in which they must stand righteous before God is the righteousness of Christ alone. This is a mighty work of the Spirit of God, and a work that would never have been done had he not come to do it.

It is such a great mystery that we should be righteous by another’s righteousness that it is above the reason of all men and angels. All men and angels were never able to fathom this infinite depth; it is beyond their understanding that we should ever come to be righteous in Christ. And even where Christ is made known, very few are yet convinced of it. Those who take up religion in a natural way are never convinced of the righteousness of Christ; it is a riddle and a mystery to them. Only to those few souls whom God intends eternally to save is the Spirit of God sent from the Father and the Son, to make it clear to them that the righteousness in which they must stand righteous before God is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. This is the great work of the Spirit of God, and he comes on purpose to enlighten you in this great point and to witness this great truth to you.

“Whereof the Holy Ghost is a witness: for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make …” (Heb 10:15-16); and then, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb 10:17), as the principal part of the covenant; and of this the Holy Spirit is a witness. The Holy Spirit comes to bear witness to this great truth of the forgiveness of sins, and to seal it to your soul that your sins are forgiven. This is the great work of the Holy Spirit after we believe: to seal up the forgiveness of sin. And this is one great reason why the Holy Spirit has the title of Comforter: because, as he comes to convince of sin, so he also comes to witness and seal up the forgiveness of sin to the soul. And indeed, as it shows the excellence of the mercy of forgiveness that the Holy Spirit is so much in it, so it shows the greatness of it, that it must have so high a Person to witness it.

And indeed, the soul is not satisfied until it has this special witness of the Holy Spirit. It is true that probable arguments may be drawn from signs of God’s love to us, and the Holy Spirit may come in those signs. But besides that, there is the immediate witness of the Holy Spirit; to limit him to witnessing by signs only is more than any man has warrant for. And this I say further: all the signs of God’s favor that we can have will not satisfy the soul until there is this special work of the Holy Spirit sealing and witnessing the favor of God to us. In 1 John 3 there are many signs of God’s favor: “He that is born of God doth not commit sin” (1 John 3:9). And, “Hereby we know we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him” (1 John 3:19). And, “He that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him” (1 John 3:24); that is another sign. But the conclusion of all is this: “Hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us” (1 John 3:24).

It is the Holy Spirit who must convince and satisfy the soul of God’s love. There are many who would gladly have their sins pardoned and would gladly have some signs of it; and perhaps I may give some signs hereafter. But for now, know that all the signs in the world will not serve to quiet the heart; it may still return to its former doubts, until God comes to calm the spirit by the witness of the Holy Spirit. For once the soul understands the infinite breach that sin has made between God and itself, it is so great a matter that it must be more than an ordinary work to assure the soul of God’s reconciliation to it, and nothing can do it satisfactorily but the Holy Spirit. He must come to the soul to assure it of this.

Perhaps the case of a poor soul is like this. Suppose a prisoner lies in jail, bound in fetters for some great offense against his prince, and some friend comes and tells him there is hope of pardon. “Oh,” he says, “it is too good news to be true.” Well, another comes to the grate of the prison and tells him that he hears from the court that the king has sealed pardons and put so-and-so’s name in. This is some comfort, but it still does not free him from fears and doubts. But now suppose the prince’s favorite comes from the king himself: one of the king’s bedchamber, one to whom the king opens his whole soul, so that he is acquainted with everything the king does. He comes to this poor man and bids him be of good comfort: “I come from the king, and bring you a pardon from him.” He shows it to him and says, “There it is; take it.” Oh, this revives his spirit, when such a special messenger is sent to him!

So in this case I may compare all signs to some friend or other who goes by the grate and speaks of the happiness of such a man, that he is pardoned. But the soul is under such blindness and fears, because of the guilt of sin, that God knows it is no easy matter to persuade it of pardon. But now God, for the comfort of those to whom he intends good will, sends his own Spirit, who lies in his own bosom and knows all his secrets, to declare the mind of God and to say to such a soul, “Peace be to you; your sins are forgiven.” Now this satisfies the soul.

Objection. But it may be objected here, “How may I know that it is the Spirit of God that witnesses, and not my own fancies or the delusions of Satan?”

Answer. I answer: as we know the sun by its own light, so we may know the Spirit by his own testimony. And though there may be some ebbs, yet it will rise again. There is such a witnessing work of the Spirit, by a kind of sweet and secret interchange between God and the soul, by which God overpowers all doubts and fears. I do not say that everyone has it in an equally sensible measure. Yet this I do say: when this full assurance comes, although there may have been doubts and many questions in the soul beforehand, for fear of being deluded (for certainly many are deceived and deluded), yet then the Spirit overpowers all doubts and fears and witnesses to the soul his own work. Do not say that because some are deluded with fancies, there is no witness of the Spirit; for there is scarcely any point in the gospel that the Scripture speaks about more than this of the witness of the Spirit.

Indeed, those who judge the mysteries of the gospel by human reason, and understand no further than reason reaches, and who are little acquainted with the converse that passes between God and a believing soul, may slight this witness of the Spirit. But you must know that there is no soul that has assurance that it shall go to heaven that is not wrought upon in a high, supernatural and mysterious way. If there were no other way to make this evident to the soul but by some signs, this would be no higher evidence than the way of reason. But we are to know that as “great is the mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh,” so also “great is the mystery of godliness, God justified in the Spirit” (1 Tim 3:16). God justified in the Spirit is a great mystery. Christ’s incarnation is a great mystery, and a believer’s justification is a great mystery as well as Christ’s incarnation; so also the witness of justification is a great mystery. And therefore I beg you, look higher than such signs as reason can reach, and beg God to reveal this to you, that you may have the witness of the Spirit of God to testify to you that your sins are pardoned.

Now blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven, seeing that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are so much in it.

Argument 8. Blessed is he whose iniquities are forgiven, for this mercy is a perfect mercy. That is, where God pardons any sinner, that person stands as perfect before God in point of justification as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or any of the prophets or righteous men who ever lived in the world. You poor soul, man or woman, young person or servant: if God comes to you and pardons any of your sins, you stand as fully justified as Abraham, Paul, Peter, or any of the apostles and prophets. Though in sanctification you fall short of them, yet you are justified as perfectly as ever they were. Justification is an act that is done altogether and at once, and therefore it is a perfect work. And this is an argument of infinite consolation to the saints of God, that the great business between God and them in point of justification is perfected.

David prays to God that he would purge him with hyssop, and he would be clean (Ps 51:7). That is, he prays that he might be cleansed by justification, by having the guilt of sin taken from his conscience by a renewed act of pardon. And then, as it follows, “I shall be whiter than snow.” The saints of God, though they are sanctified, are not whiter than the snow in sanctification; but in justification they are whiter than the snow, with no spot at all in them. Christ presents his church to himself without spot (Eph 5:27). In point of justification every believing soul is without spot before the Lord: “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob” (Num 23:21). That is, though God knows there is iniquity there, yet he does not see it so as to charge them with it or impute it to them. All is done away in that regard by justification.

It is worth observing, to this purpose, what we have in the Song of Songs: “Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee” (Song 4:7). No spot in you! There are spots with respect to sanctification; yes, but with respect to justification it may be said of her, “There is no spot at all in thee; Thou art all fair, my love.” These are the words of Christ. He comes forth and says, “Thou art all fair, my love.” Alas, when the believer looks upon himself, upon his own duties and performances, he sees nothing at all but spots; he is all besmeared and bespattered all over. Why, though you look upon yourself as spotted, yet Christ looks upon you without spot, and God the Father looks upon you through Christ without spot, and says, “Thou art all fair, there is no spot in thee.” Perhaps you think that if God were to lay your heart open to all your Christian friends and acquaintances, you would appear so foul that they would cast you out of their company and never have anything to do with you again. Yet for all this, Christ says, “Thou art all fair, there is no spot at all in thee.”

Justification admits of no degrees, no, not in heaven. You are not more justified there than you are here; you are now as perfectly justified as ever, and as fully accepted by Christ as ever. Sanctification is renewed day by day: it is a work of God within us, and we increase in it daily. But justification is a work of God outside us, and so it is perfected at once. Hence, then, this makes a pardoned soul blessed: pardon of sin is of such a nature that it is a perfect work. From this, then, though I will only touch on it, we have:

1. Abundance of comfort for a pardoned soul. Though you are weak in sanctification, and it troubles you to think how far you come short of Abraham’s faith, Moses’s meekness, David’s love, Paul’s zeal, Solomon’s wisdom, and Job’s patience, yet know this: you are equal in justification with Abraham, Moses, David, and all the prophets. And this may be a mighty comfort to you against the weakness of your sanctification.

2. This should lay a mighty obligation upon your spirit. Has God made you equal to them in justification? How you should labor to be like them in sanctification! Think this way with yourself: “Has the mercy of God come so rich and glorious that I, a poor, wicked, wretched, vile sinner, should be made equal to the greatest saints in justification? Oh, how I should labor to follow hard after them, and get as near to them as I can in point of sanctification!” This argument should come with power and strength upon our hearts, to stir up all our endeavors to be like them in point of sanctification, we who are equal with them in point of justification. How we should imitate Moses’s meekness, David’s love, Paul’s zeal, and Job’s patience!

Argument 9. Blessed are they that have their iniquities forgiven, for it is an irrevocable mercy. When God pardons sin, he never revokes it again. It is true that the soul that is pardoned may afterward commit many offenses that may provoke God’s displeasure against him. Yet he will never so provoke God as to make him revoke this mercy of pardon, to all eternity. If you are once pardoned, you are pardoned forever. It is not with God in pardoning as it is with men. A king pardons a criminal on condition of his good behavior afterward. It is true that a believer will be more careful not to offend after he is pardoned than ever he was before. But still, God does not pardon me so much on condition of my good behavior as out of his free grace, and therefore the pardon abides. He does not say to a poor soul, “I will pardon you, but it will be on this condition: that you behave yourself well; and if you are found tripping in any one thing, I will call my pardon back again.”

That is how it is with a prince’s pardon. Take a man who has been pardoned for his life. Suppose that man afterward offends, perhaps by breaking the peace. In another man this would not be so great a matter, for he could soon satisfy the law for it. But if the man who lives under a pardon for his life breaks the peace, it costs him his life. If another man strikes someone, it is only an assault and battery in him. But for the man who holds his pardon for his life, such a deed may get his pardon revoked, and it may cost him his life.

I hope you will not abuse this grace of God. I do not know how to open it to believers without a great deal of danger to others. But however much danger it may be to others, it must still be opened and delivered to believers. It is God’s mind that his grace should be made known to them. He would have them know it to the full, that his pardoning mercy is irrevocable. Therefore a believer should not question his justification at every failing in his sanctification. It is a dishonor to the free and rich grace of God if at every failing we call in question that great work, the justification of our souls, either saying or thinking, “I did indeed hope before that God had pardoned the sins of my youth and all my old sins. But now that I have fallen into sin again, I am afraid all is undone. All that God has done for me is undone again, and I must answer for all my sins.” I confess this will come upon the conscience, especially when some new sin is committed. But though it does, yet if you have ever been assured of the pardon of your sin, know that this mercy will never be called back again. “The foundation of God standeth sure” (2 Tim 2:19), and this is a fundamental mercy that always abides.

Therefore, as we observed in Song of Songs 4:7, Christ says, “Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee.” But in Song of Songs 5:2 you will find that she was in a sleepy, complacent, and sinful condition. She was like a man or woman asleep: people could do what they would with her. They might impose whatever they would on her and put her in whatever posture they pleased, and still she was insensible. Yet even in this condition her heart was awake: “I sleep, but my heart waketh.” There remained a principle of grace alive in her. But notice what Christ said. Though she confessed she was asleep, Christ still says, “Open to me my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled.” This was spoken when the church was in a complacent, sinful condition. Yet this is the voice of Christ calling the church his sister, his love, his dove, his undefiled one, while she was in that complacent condition. This shows that the grace of God in pardoning sin is not called back again.

And because this is a point in which much treasure lies, I will open a little the irrevocableness of God’s mercy in his pardoning and justifying grace. For this I will give you some places of Scripture. Once they are opened, they will show the greatness of the mercy, and they will also yield abundant matter of consolation and encouragement to every believing soul.

1. The first Scripture expression I will name is in Isaiah 43:25, where the Lord tells his people that he blots out their transgressions. God seems to take much delight in this phrase, and therefore he doubles it: “I, even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for my own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” Now this phrase of blotting out is taken from the custom of tradesmen who keep account books, in which they enter all the debts owed to them by such and such people. When these debts come to be paid, the entry in the debt book is crossed or blotted out. If any of you owe a debt, when you come to pay it you call for the debt book to see it crossed or blotted out, and then you are sure you will never hear of it again.

Now you must understand that all sinners are debtors to the Lord. They are in a debt of punishment for lacking or failing to pay him a debt of obedience. Many people run into debt with God daily by their sin. Because God does not call for the debt immediately, they think there is nothing between God and them, and they carry on as if all were well. They are like many fine gallants who run into debt with tradesmen to hang fine clothes on their backs and strut up and down in the world. They never think of their debts until their creditors come and arrest them and throw them into jail, and there they lie in prison, for all their strutting up and down in the world. Just so, men and women run into debt with God by their sin. And though God does not call for the debt immediately, their sins are recorded in heaven. It is as certain that every sin of any man or woman is set down in God’s debt book as that any debt you owe is set down in your creditor’s book. And your debts must as certainly be called for, and satisfaction and payment made to God for them, as any tradesman will call for payment of his debt.

Now this is the work of justification between God and your souls, if you want to know its nature. When Jesus Christ sees a poor soul whom God the Father has given him to save run into debt like this, Christ comes and lays down a price before God the Father to pay this debt, and Christ sees to it that the debt is blotted out of the book. And when God comes with pardoning mercy to a soul, God shows the debt book to the believer and causes him to see all his debts blotted out. By that he certainly assures the soul that its debt will never be called for again. This is a mercy that is irrevocable. It will not be brought back again; the debt, once paid, will never again be called for. This is the first expression, and it is a blessed one. Think of the many people who have run into debt and are in danger every hour of being arrested by bailiffs. They cannot look out of their doors without the bailiffs ready to fall upon them. They would think themselves happy if anyone would come and lay down the whole sum and satisfy the debt, so that they might see the debt blotted out. They would think themselves happy indeed. Well, know that this is how it is with God when he comes to pardon sin: the debt book is blotted out, and all bonds are canceled.

2. Though sins are blotted out, they may still be before God’s face, and God may see them, though he will not call for them again. Therefore the Scripture tells us that God will deal with the sins of believers in this way: he will cast them behind his back, and never so much as lay the debt before his face to look upon them. “Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back” (Isa 38:17). What Hezekiah said of himself is true of every believing soul: God casts the sins of every believer behind his back. When a man casts a thing behind his back, he does it for this end, that he might take no further notice of it. But though God casts a person’s sins behind his back, yet if they are not very far off, he may easily turn his face and look upon them whenever he wishes. Therefore notice what follows.

3. Here is another Scripture expression: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us” (Ps 103:12). God expresses himself this way to satisfy the souls of his people that their sins will never be called for again. East and west is an expression to signify the utmost distance. The east and the west are so remote that those two points can never come together. So too, the sins that God has pardoned to any soul will never be called for again.

4. Though they are removed as far as the east is from the west, yet God’s eyes can look a great way off. Though those points are at so great a distance to our eyes, they are not so to the eye of God. Therefore there is another expression that may make it more full, showing that God will never again look upon the sins he has once pardoned. He blots them out, he casts them behind his back, he removes them as far as the east is from the west; and if that is not enough to satisfy you, he will cast them into the bottom of the sea (Mic 7:19). Things that are cast into the bottom of the sea are utterly thrown out of sight, never to be looked for again. Well, but though God casts them into the bottom of the sea, he may still think about them. Therefore:

5. Notice another expression, to satisfy you further. God says he will remember them no more. They will be so far from being thought about that God says he will not remember them any more. But you will say, “It is impossible for God not to remember them.” Yes, but when God pardons, it will be as irrevocable as if God never remembered them at all. There are various remarkable texts for this. “I will blot out thy transgressions, … and will not remember thy sins” (Isa 43:25). “Yes, perhaps not now,” you may say, “but he will hereafter.” See what is said in Jeremiah 31:34: “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Neither now nor hereafter: “I will remember their sin no more.”

6. They will be so forgiven that there will be no more mention of them. There will never be the least mention of a believer’s sins before God. For that, see Ezekiel 33:16. It is spoken in general terms of every godly man who turns to God and is a believer: “None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him.” By the way, let people take heed how they upbraid the people of God for any of their former sins. Perhaps you knew someone in the time of his ignorance, and you say he was a liar, a drunkard. But now God has revealed his mercy to him in the pardon of his sin, and God says he will not mention those sins any more. Take heed how you throw their sins, committed in the time of their ignorance, in their teeth, saying, “Oh, you are so strict now! I knew what you were a little while ago.” Will the God of heaven say he will not mention them any more, and yet will you do it? God will take it very ill at your hands. This is wonderful comfort to every believer, that God will not remember their sin any more. He would have you remember your sins, to humble your soul for them and to renew your repentance. But he will not remember them to upbraid you with them, nor would he have others do it.

Beza, speaking of himself, tells how when he was young he wrote some vain and sinful poems, which his enemies afterward upbraided him with and threw in his teeth. “These men,” he says, “envy me the grace of God.” That is, because God had granted him his grace, they envied him and threw in his teeth the evil he had formerly done. Oh, what a comfort and privilege this is to you!

O believing soul, though you were ever so wicked and abominable before, yet I tell you this day from God, in whose presence you stand, that he will never remember your sin any more. And this may be a mighty encouragement for men and women to believe and turn from all their wicked ways. Though you have been ever so vile, abominable, and wicked, yet be it known to you this day that if you will come in and believe, God will never mention any of your wickednesses again. They will be so forgotten that they will never be mentioned.

Perhaps you are afraid that all your sins will be charged on you, either here in this life or at the day of judgment. Well, do not be afraid. Perhaps there are many of you who are conscious of great sins you have committed, and you would give a thousand worlds to be discharged of them. “Oh,” some say, “such and such sins have been committed that are so great they cannot be forgiven. I may mourn and grieve for them, but what will I be the better for it? The sins of my youth lie so heavy on me, and God and my own conscience upbraid me. What comfort can I have in my life, when God and my own soul upbraid me?” Well, be of good comfort, and be encouraged this day to come in and believe these blessed tidings: where God pardons sin, he will mention those sins no more, and he will take it very ill at the hands of anyone who mentions them to upbraid you for them.

7. Yet further, to set forth the fullness of this mercy: when God pardons sin, the sins will be so done away that they will not be found. “In those days, … the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve” (Jer 50:20). And if God pardons them, then they will be so done away that they will not be found.

Yet further, the righteousness believers have in Christ is called an everlasting righteousness, and therefore it abides forever and cannot afterward be taken away: “Seventy weeks are determined … to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness” (Dan 9:24). The righteousness that is put upon your soul by Christ in the pardon of your sin is an everlasting righteousness, and it will abide everlastingly.

Yet further, in Hebrews 10:14 it is said that “Christ by one offering hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified,” that is, justified. Justification is here called by the name of sanctification, “them that are sanctified”; that is, those set apart to be made partakers of the great blessing of the new covenant, to have a share in the blood of Christ for justification. Christ by one offering has perfected forever those who are sanctified. Therefore, since they are perfected in justification, there is no calling this mercy back again.

Once more, this mercy is set forth by the service of the scapegoat, which was a type (Lev 16:20). On its head they were to put all the sins of the people, all their transgressions and all their iniquities, and send it into the wilderness, or land of forgetfulness, among wild beasts, never to be looked for again. In the same way the sins of all believers are laid upon Christ and carried into a land of forgetfulness, and they will never come to be charged any more. So much for this particular, the irrevocableness of the pardon of sin, which shows that blessed is the man or woman who has their sins pardoned, because they will never be called back again.

Argument 10. Blessed is the man who has his iniquities forgiven (Ps 32:1), for this is a mercy that God has denied to the fallen angels.

In pardoning your sin, God does more for you than he would do for those thousands upon thousands of millions of angels. It is a mercy that God has denied to those millions of angels who sinned against him.

Suppose a poor, wretched man is guilty of treason against the king, and a great part of the chief nobility of the land are guilty too, just as he is. But now, when the king comes to look upon them, he sets his heart on this poor man (who perhaps begged from door to door) and says, “This poor creature shall be forgiven. I will pass by his offense, and not only that, but I will advance him into high and great favor at court.” And the king condemns all the nobles. Now suppose this poor man sees all the noblemen in chains, who were guilty of only one offense, while he perhaps has been guilty of acting in a treasonable way for forty, fifty, or seventy years. The noblemen are guilty of only one offense, and this poor, wretched creature sees them in chains and knows that every one of them is condemned to suffer the most dreadful tortures, to die a most dreadful, torturing, tormenting death. What a mighty heightening this is of the mercy of the king who pardons the offense of this poor creature! How he will stand amazed, marveling at the greatness of it! “I am guilty of the same offense, yes, more guilty than they are, and yet I shall be pardoned, while the chief of the nobility of the kingdom must die a most torturing, tormenting death for their offense! What a difference the king’s favor has made between me and them!”

This is exactly the case with any poor soul whose sins are pardoned. God has done every bit as much for you. The angels were the most glorious creatures God ever made, and you are only a poor worm in comparison with them. They sinned against him only once, and you are guilty of millions of transgressions. And yet God sets his heart on you and says, “I will do great things for you, though I pass by thousands, even millions, of angels. I will magnify my rich grace to this poor creature in pardoning his sin, and I will advance him to high favor, though I condemn them to everlasting chains of darkness.”

Now when a poor creature comes to see the infinite riches of God’s grace, which has made such a difference between him and the angels, how he will stand marveling at it! I think this should work mightily on the hearts of all poor sinners and make them say, “What! Shall God pass by such excellent creatures as the angels, the most excellent creatures God ever made, and come to me, a poor worm, to set his heart on me and show mercy to me? Oh, let me pass by all the excellencies of the creatures to do my duty to him! Has God passed by the most excellent of his creatures so that mercy might come to me? Oh, let me pass by all the glories and excellencies of anything in this world, so that my soul may come in to him in the way of duty and service! Shall God leave the glorious angels to show mercy to me and to do me good, and shall I not leave my base lusts for him? Shall I not be content to leave anything to serve him? Shall I satisfy any base lust and neglect him? God forbid!”

This is another argument that they are blessed who have their sins pardoned: God does for them what he will not do for the fallen angels.

Argument 11. Further, blessed is he who has his iniquities forgiven, because this is a mercy given to only a little handful of the world. “The whole world lies in wickedness” (1 John 5:19), like carrion in a ditch, or like prisoners under the chains of the guilt of sin. And yet that God should pull some of these out, who lie as in a filthy dungeon, is a wonderful mercy. A prince who has many offenders usually pardons the most and executes the fewest; but God usually executes the most and pardons the fewest.

Objection. But how does this come about, seeing God is a God of more mercy than any prince? How is it that a prince should pardon the most and execute the fewest, and God do the contrary?

Answer 1. Because executing many who are guilty would be a troublesome and dangerous thing for a prince; he cannot do it when most have offended. But God can easily execute thousands upon thousands, and all by speaking a single word.

Answer 2. Further, if a prince were to execute all who offend, he would be left in want of subjects. But God does not want for creatures; he has no need of us. A prince, though, may need his subjects, and therefore if there is any way in the world to preserve them and keep them subject to him in any way, he will not destroy them.

Answer 3. Besides, a prince executes the fewest and saves the most because the execution of a few may be a means of bringing others to their allegiance. But when God comes to execute criminals, the execution of some cannot be a means of working good on others, especially at the great day. It is true that in this world God is long-suffering and executes a few so that it may be a means of working good on others.

But how is God said to be a God of rich and glorious mercy, and yet he pardons very few and executes most? For all the world has been in treason against him. How is it that God pardons the fewest and destroys the most? I hope to give you very good reason and satisfaction by showing you how the infinite glory of God’s mercy appears even though only a few are pardoned. Indeed, it appears all the more because only a few are pardoned: God would by this display his glorious mercy all the more.

1. It may well stand with the glorious riches of God’s mercy that many are destroyed and only a few pardoned. Here is how: because God would have a proportion between his justice and his mercy. You say, “He would have a proportion? Is he not as merciful as he is just? Then there must be as many pardoned as condemned.” No. If God will observe a proportion between his mercy and his justice, and will have his justice appear as well as his mercy, then more must be damned than saved. How does that appear? In this way: because the glory of God’s justice in damning two thousand is not as great as the glory of his mercy in saving two.

You may grasp it from what commonly happens among men. If the king saves only two men who are condemned criminals, he magnifies his mercy as much in that as he magnifies his justice if he hangs a hundred. So if God saves only two, his mercy is magnified as much as his justice is in damning two thousand. The reason is this: because there is something in the creature that calls for God’s justice and requires it, but there is nothing in the creature that requires his mercy. When God displays his justice, he does a work that is due to the creature; there is something in the creature that lays claim to such a work from God. But when God comes to show mercy, there is nothing at all in us that should require such a work from God. No, his mercy is free and altogether from himself. It is his own work; it proceeds from the love of his own heart, and there is nothing in us that may lay claim to it from him.

Now, seeing there is that in the creature which lays claim to justice, and nothing at all that can require mercy, if God shows mercy to only a few, it is as great a glory to his mercy as it is to his justice if he condemns a hundred. But if he were to save as many as he condemns, God’s mercy would be beyond all proportion to his justice. That cannot be, and that is why few are saved and many damned.

2. There are more damned than saved because God would by this show his mercy all the more to you who are saved, by allowing so many others to perish. This is one end God has in it: that their destruction might set out the excellence of the glory of his grace to you. When a painter wants to paint a coat of arms, or a picture in gold or any other fine colors, he lays the groundwork in black, and then the beauty of the other colors will appear most fully. You, O soul whose sin is pardoned, know that God lays the groundwork of your mercy in the black and dismal destruction of multitudes of ungodly sinners. He gives them their due, what is rightly theirs. But God’s ultimate aim in it rises to this: that their destruction may make the brightness of his glorious grace appear all the more gloriously to those who are saved. He intends that the saints whose sins he has pardoned may have this argument in heaven to praise his grace so much the more, because they are culled out of the mass and multitude of sinners who are damned.

This will mightily inflame the hearts of the saints in giving God glory in heaven, when they see so many thousands, and millions of thousands, cast down to eternal destruction, and see that God should do this to set off the riches of his grace to them. How this will inflame their hearts in giving God glory! And God aims at this as the summit of his glory: that he might have a company of people to be the eternal objects of the riches of his grace. This also shows the base and low account God has of wicked men, that he lets them perish eternally so that he may magnify the glory of his grace to the saints. What a heightening of the greatness of God’s mercy to the saints it is, when he is content that so many thousands of others should perish so that his mercy to them may appear more gloriously!

It is as when a prince has a child born to him. To show his honor to the child in solemnizing the child’s christening, perhaps thousands of oxen and sheep will lose their lives in celebrating the joy the prince has in his child. If the solemn celebration of the prince’s joy in that little infant may cause thousands of creatures to lose their lives, this shows the dear regard he has for his child; otherwise he would never send so many creatures to the slaughterhouse, except to show his regard for his little infant. So God says: “There is a handful of people that I have it in mind to do good to for all eternity, and I have set my heart upon them. And so that I may show the greatness of my mercy to them, I will let thousands upon thousands of others perish eternally, to be only a black ground for that glorious work which I intend to show in the riches of my grace in Christ in pardoning their sin.”

Thus you see that it is a special mercy, and therefore blessed are those who have their iniquities forgiven, for it is a mercy that belongs to them alone. Oh, how they ought to bless God that he has called them out of the multitude, when he has left others to the sway of their own carnal, senseless, and malicious hearts, to go on against the ways of grace! And all because “he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy” (Rom 9:15, 18).

Argument 12. Further, blessed is he who has his iniquities forgiven, because the very possibility of it would be prized by thousands of creatures now under wrath more than ten thousand worlds. They would prize even a possibility of it, on any terms. Think of those who are now damned in hell, who see the strokes of God’s dreadful wrath against them for their sin, who are now swallowed up in the gulf of misery and condemnation. If they might have any possibility at all of having their sins pardoned, how they would prize it!

Suppose a messenger were sent from God to the gates of hell, to call there and cry out, “You damned spirits, here is a message from the Almighty! I come to you from him, and this is the message: to let you know that there is a possibility, upon some terms that God will require, that your sins may be pardoned and you may be delivered from the dreadful wrath you now lie under.” How the damned spirits would sing and rejoice, and look about them to attend to this message! What acclamations there would be in hell, in the midst of those fiery flames! What holding up of hands and rejoicing there would be to hear of such a thing, that there is a possibility on any terms! They would not stop to ask what the terms were, whether hard or easy. They would answer, “Let them be what they will; if there is only a possibility, it is enough,” every one of them thinking that it might be he.

Well then, if the possibility of being saved would be received with such joy by the damned in hell, what then is the possession of it, and the glorious knowledge of it, to a soul that is already pardoned? Suppose a message were delivered to them of a possibility that some would be freed from hell and have their sins pardoned: they would all cry out, “Oh, blessed, blessed indeed is he who shall have his sins pardoned and be delivered from hell!” If they would give this testimony, let us give it much more.

Though there is now a blessed difference between their condition and yours, not long ago, it may be, there was none. For all you know, some of them may have gone to church with you, sat in the same pew, and heard those sermons on the evil of sin which they have now gone to feel; and now they are shut up in the bottomless pit, beyond any possibility of pardon. But this possibility is granted to all of you who are before the Lord this day. In the name of God I can boldly preach this to you: if you come in and believe, there is a possibility, yes, even for the worst of all; they may come in and be pardoned.

Now if the damned in hell would prize it so highly, if there were a possibility for them to be pardoned, shall you not prize it as highly as they? As I remember, when I was setting out the evil of sin, one thing that aggravated the sin of men above that of the devils was this: “the devils believe and tremble” (Jas 2:19), and yet some men will not do as much as the devils. So now I say, if there were only a possibility of pardon for the damned in hell, how they would rejoice! And shall you not rejoice more than the damned souls in hell would?

Think it over. If the damned souls in hell would rejoice to have a message of a possibility that they might be saved, it seems to me you should not be at rest if you do not find the same workings in your hearts as there would be in theirs. Shall a poor minister be forced to say that there is less hope of prevailing with you than if he were preaching to those in hell? Shall he say that there would be better hearers in hell than are here? God forbid it should be so! God forbid that there should be more stirring in hell (if they might only hear of any likelihood of being pardoned) than there is among you, if your hearts are not stirred at hearing this blessed doctrine of the pardon of sin. God forbid that there should be better hearers in hell than you are, if your hearts are not stirred when you hear the glorious mysteries of the gospel opened, how a sinner may come to get the pardon of his sins. God forbid it should be so!

Argument 13. Further, blessed is the one who has his iniquities forgiven, because the forgiveness of sin is the special end of all the ordinances of God. The ordinances that God has appointed and set up in his church reach their end in this blessed effect, the forgiveness of sin. And it is an argument that there is much blessedness in the pardon of sin, that those precious ordinances of Christ reach their special ends in it. There are three great ordinances I will give as instances: the Word, the sacraments, and discipline. And the people of God should count themselves in a happy condition when they see those blessed ends worked in them which God has appointed those ordinances to bring about.

1. First, hearing. It is a great ordinance that Christ has appointed: “When he ascended on high he gave gifts unto men” (Eph 4:8). Upon Christ’s triumphant ascension to God the Father, he gave this great gift to his church, that his church should have pastors and teachers. This, by the way, shows the horrible wickedness of those who slight the pastors and teachers of his church, because they are part of the glorious gift of Christ when he ascended on high. Well, then, did Christ ordain pastors and teachers for the preaching of the Word? Surely he has some great end and purpose in it; surely there is some great glory he intends to reap by it. What is the end for which Christ has set up this great ordinance? “And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself, and hath committed to us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:18). Ministers of the Word are ministers of reconciliation whom God has given to his people. What is that? Read the next verse: namely, “That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them” (2 Cor 5:19).

Now then, there is a word of reconciliation, and this is committed to us. God has appointed that we should have this word of reconciliation in order to convey it to you. What is it? Namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their sins. So, then, forgiveness of sin is the end of this doctrine of reconciliation: that there should be forgiveness and pardon of sin for poor souls in and through Christ Jesus. This shows the great scope of this ordinance and its end, namely, the forgiveness of sin.

No wonder, then, that we stay so long on this point, because the great business we have to do is to declare the ministry of reconciliation. When a minister is about that, he is about the work God has appointed him to do. All other doctrines only make way for this one, and teach people how to walk worthy of it. And this is the only doctrine that truly takes hold of all those for whom God has appointed this mercy. We ministers of Christ do preach against the vanities and profits of this world, but that is not the main thing. It is not the right method of preaching to work on people’s hearts, nor the great end of Christ’s ascension. He did not give gifts chiefly for these things, but so that men would be able to reveal the great doctrine of the pardon of sin.

Ministers do not need to make a stir to win esteem and love and to make themselves honored among the people. If they would only apply themselves to preaching this great doctrine God has set them to, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their sins, they cannot help but gain honor in the hearts of those for whom God has appointed this mercy. Many complain that they lack respect and honor. Let them take pains in this doctrine, and they cannot help but gain honor.

If once this word of reconciliation takes hold of anyone’s heart by faith and repentance, then let others speak against such a minister as much as they like, and say what they will of him, that person’s heart will not be turned away from him. He will be ready to answer as the poor blind man answered the scribes and Pharisees who railed against Christ, “Saying, give glory to God; but we know this man is a sinner. He answered, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not; one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see; he it was that opened my eyes” (John 9:24-25). That is how he answered their slander.

And so, when others clamor against a minister and speak evil of him, the soul whose eyes have been opened will say, “I am sure God has done great things for me by him. He has shown me the evil of sin and the sad condition I was in by nature, and he has revealed to me the exceeding riches of the mercy and grace of God, and my soul has found it so. God has come to my soul in his preaching.” Now such a ministry as this will certainly win the hearts of the people to their ministers. It is not the man so much as Christ in the man. And this is the end of our ministry: not to tell this or that notion or story, but to show you the riches of the grace of God in the pardon of sin, and the justification of your souls through Christ Jesus, your acceptance and reconciliation through him. This is the first ordinance.

2. Second, the sacraments. For what purpose has Christ ordained them? The main end for which they were ordained is sealing. In the Supper, God’s mercy in the pardon of sin is sealed up. Christ tells his disciples, “The cup is the blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sin” (Matt 26:28). It is as if Christ had said, “This is the great ordinance to seal to people the pardon of their sins.” Brothers and sisters, the king does not usually set his Broad Seal to trifles and toys and fancies, but to things of great concern and consequence. Only things of that kind will have the Broad Seal. So it is here: because pardon of sin is such a blessed thing, the Broad Seal of heaven is ordained to seal it. When the sacrament is rightly administered, it is nothing else but the Broad Seal of heaven to seal up the pardon of your sin.

And this is how men and women should come to receive the sacrament. They should think, “This day is a sealing day.” In courts of justice they have their sealing days, and it is commonly said, “Such a day is a sealing day.” So a sacrament day is a sealing day, sealing up to you the great blessedness of the forgiveness of sin. A soul thinks like this: “I am a poor, wretched, vile sinner before the Lord; woe to me! Thus and thus have I done; woe is me! But I have heard of the riches of God’s grace in pardoning my sin. And this day God calls me to come in and have the pardon of my sin sealed with the Broad Seal of heaven, so that my soul may be assured, and I may go away in peace, comforted and quieted in the great business that lies upon me. Those sins of mine have grated so on my conscience, and for them I have had dreadful apprehensions of the clouds of God’s displeasure hanging over my head. This day I am going to have a pardon for them all sealed.” With such thoughts on their hearts men and women should come to the sacrament, as to an ordinance appointed and ordained by Christ for sealing up the pardon of their sins.

3. The third ordinance is the ordinance of discipline: “whose sins soever you remit they are remitted” (John 20:23). Those who are cast out of the church and then received in again find it to be an ordinance of Christ to assure them of the remission of their sins. It casts out those who are scandalous, and when they repent it receives them in again, and so assures them of the pardon of their sins.

A Transition to the Application

Having finished the explanation, if you would run over and gather up what has been delivered about the glorious blessedness of this mercy of the forgiveness of sins, you might see the effects that follow from it. I have shown you the abundant grace of God that is declared in the forgiveness of sin. I have shown you the many mysteries there are in it, and that it is an inlet to many other mercies. I have shown you the great difficulties it passes through, and how much the heart of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was in this mercy. I showed you that it is a perfect and an irrevocable mercy, a mercy denied to angels and shown to only a few of mankind compared with those who are passed by. I have shown that it is a mercy whose very possibility would make the damned rejoice, and that it is a mercy that is the end of all the ordinances.

And now that I have come to a resting point in the explanation, I find this scripture comes at once into my mind, that notable place in Romans 8:31. If these things are so, if God thus gloriously appears in the riches of his grace for the pardon of sin, “What shall we then say to these things?” After the apostle had spent some time opening the doctrine of free justification, to work it upon the hearts of the Romans, and on his own heart too, he says, “What shall we say to these things?” The holy apostle stood like a man amazed at the wonderful riches of the grace of God in pardoning sin.

In the verse before, he had said, “Moreover, whom he did predestinate them he called, and whom he called, them he justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified” (Rom 8:30). And having spoken much to the point of justification in this chapter, he concludes in verse 31, “Now what shall we say to those things?” It is as if he had said, “Lord, how your glory appears in the justification of a sinner and the pardoning of his sin through Jesus Christ! We cannot help but stand amazed at the greatness of your glory appearing in it. We do not know what to say. So much of your glorious grace appears that our mouths are stopped. What shall we say to these things?”

So now, after we have heard of these glorious things, of the glorious revelation of the grace of God in and through his Son, working in such a glorious and mysterious way of godliness for the justifying of a sinner and the pardoning of his sin, what if we could now sit down as men and women amazed and astonished? What if our hearts were so filled with the glory of these things that we could not express ourselves, but could only sit amazed at the brightness of their glory? It would be an excellent fruit of our attendance in hearing these things. We would sanctify the name of God in it, and it would be a very happy thing for us.

But if not while we are here together, then go into your private rooms, look into this mystery of godliness, and gather up what you can of what you have heard. Let this consideration lie warm on your hearts and thoughts: “O Lord, what shall we say to these things? That God should have such thoughts of such mercy and grace in the pardon of sin as we have heard! What shall we say to it?” And though for the present your hearts may not be able to express any more than this, yet by meditation surely the fire will kindle. It will bring forth some admirable expressions in glorifying the name of God, or in singing some psalm to his praise, or in doubling and tripling that blessed acclamation with the heavenly host, “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will towards men” (Luke 2:14).

Oh, here is the good will of God toward poor, wretched, vile men! Glory be to God in the highest! Lord, “What is man that thou shouldst be so mindful of him? Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels” (Ps 8:4-5). No, more than that: as you have heard this day, God has set him above those angels that sinned against him. Christ would not show mercy to them; they could not be pardoned. This is for poor sinners in the world, a generation of those who seek him, who have this great mercy of pardon and forgiveness of sin revealed to them. What shall we say to these things?

The apostle’s expression may help us make way to the application. As I have told you, we should sanctify the name of God by standing amazed at the wonderful grace of God that gloriously appears in the justification of a sinner, as we have opened it in many particulars. And now we have many things to say in the application of these things, in answer to that question, “What shall we say to these things?” Listen in the fear of God, and in the application you will hear what is to be said to the things you have heard in the doctrine just delivered.

In the first place, this is what we have to say to these things. Surely if the pardon of sin is so great a mercy as you have heard, and there is such a wonderful work of God in it, then it must be a horrible and vile thing to sin against this grace in which the heart of God is so deeply engaged. To dishonor this great work of God must be a very vile and horrible thing. And this has been my intention, my whole design: not only to set forth the greatness of the grace of God in the mercy of forgiveness, but also to keep you from sinning against this grace. If he is blessed on whom such a great and glorious work of God is done in the forgiveness of sin, then it must be a most horrible and dreadful thing for any man or woman to sin against this grace of God, and horrible to dishonor such a great work of God as this.

Question. But who are they that dishonor this great work of God? Or in how many ways may we be guilty of sinning against this great mercy of God in the forgiveness of sin? I will show, first, who they are that cast dishonor on this great work of God; and second, the greatness of the sin, what a dangerous thing it is to sin against this great work of God in pardoning sin.

Answer. First, those sin against this great work of God in pardoning sin who are altogether careless, who mind it little or not at all, or scarcely spend any time on it. There is a generation of men and women in the world who have sin and guilt enough upon their spirits, and yet they scarcely ever call to mind or question what the terms are between God and their own souls. How do things stand between God and them? What does God have to charge them with? Does God have anything against them, yes or no? How few of you who have come into the presence of God this morning have had your thoughts working like this: “O my soul, how is it with you? How do matters stand between God and you? What guilt is it that you have upon your spirit? What does divine justice have to charge you with? Conscience, speak freely and fully: what is there in heaven against me? Is there anything on record that I am charged with? How is it between God and me?”

Oh, what strangers most people are to such thoughts as these! They go on in a sleepy, complacent, and dead-hearted way. Either they believe there is no guilt at all upon their spirits, or no great evil in that guilt, or else they think it is no great matter for God to pardon. You are very anxious for the flesh, about what you will eat and drink and what you will put on, and for your estates, how to get on and increase in the world. But to settle the records between God and your souls, to get your souls discharged and the records of heaven that are against you canceled: oh, how seldom do these things take up your thoughts!

Know this, you who are of such careless spirits about this great matter of the pardon of sin: it is a great aggravation of your sin that you are so careless about that great work of God in pardoning sin. You are careless, and spend only a few thoughts on that which (if I may speak so with holy reverence) has taken up the heart of the infinite God from all eternity. Certainly there is nothing in the world, none of the works of God toward his creatures, that has taken up the thoughts and heart of God so much as this one work of the pardon of sin. And yet your thoughts are not taken up with it; you hardly mind it. Certainly there is a great disproportion between your thoughts and God’s. Those who are godly should labor to work as God works, and the things that have taken up the heart of God should take up their hearts. But with you, things that are not even worthy of an immortal soul take up your thoughts; and as for the things that take up the thoughts and heart of God about pardoning sin, your own consciences can tell you they are very little in your thoughts and hearts.

Certainly, my brothers and sisters, if the thoughts of men and women were taken up with this serious and great business of getting pardon for their sins, it would prevent and cure thousands of other vain, slight, foolish, and wicked thoughts in them. I suppose there are many of you who are beginning to have some sense of sin, and of the base, wandering, filthy, unclean, and wicked thoughts of your hearts, and you say, “Oh, if only we could help ourselves against these wandering, vile, and wicked thoughts!” Surely this would be a great help: if you would get your thoughts filled with serious subjects, it would carry a great deal of weight in helping you against the light and vain things your thoughts work on. Now of all subjects in the world, this is the most serious: the grace of God, how his infinite wisdom has worked to reconcile himself to your souls in bringing about the pardon of sin and making peace between himself and the children of men. Now if you would take up your thoughts with the great business of getting pardon for your sins, it would take your thoughts off other things.

Suppose a man has a vain, slight, wandering, foolish heart. Yet if he were condemned to die some dreadful, tormenting death, his thoughts would quickly be taken off other things and taken up with using means, if there were any possibility, to deliver himself from death. Jerome, in one of his letters, tells of a man who was troubled with vile thoughts. The one he complained to had this device (I mention it not to approve it, but he had this device): he arranged for the man to have a crime charged against him, and had him brought before a judge and put into prison. Afterward he came to him and asked, “How is it with you now? Do your vain thoughts still stay with you as they used to?” The man gave him this answer: “I cannot live, and what should I think now of uncleanness and fornication? I am in danger of my life, and I have no time now to think of such things.” And that helped and cured his thoughts.

From this we may see what a mighty means it would be to take your thoughts off other things and turn them onto this, if a soul were possessed with the evil of sin and the danger of condemnation, and with the necessity and great consequence of a pardon. And certainly, whoever you are, if your thoughts are not mightily taken up with this great subject of the pardon of your sins, you take the name of God in vain and do not sanctify him in this great work of his. And know this, you who spend your days sleeping in complacency: your damnation does not sleep or slumber. Until your sin is pardoned, the infinite justice of God is working out your doom for its own full satisfaction. That is the first: they dishonor God who go on in complacent courses without minding so great a thing as the pardon of sin.

Second, others dishonor God who, instead of making it their great business in this world to get their sin pardoned, make it their great work to increase the guilt of sin, heaping up more and more guilt, and so making the flame greater and adding to it continually. Suppose a man has been condemned to some grievous and dreadful death. Yet a pardon is offered, and there is some possibility of it, and a friend has obtained a reprieve from the king for two or three days for this very purpose, that he might have time to sue for his pardon. Suppose such a case. Now if this man, in this time of reprieve given for this very purpose, to seek a pardon, should call for good food and music, merriment and sport; and not only that, but should fall to railing against the prince, increasing his guilt and provoking the prince more and more against him, you would think it a very unreasonable and desperate thing in him. Would not everyone say that this man deserves the greatest, most extreme, most tormenting death that could be devised? Indeed, I suppose that if you heard of such a man, condemned to die and given his life for this very purpose, you would think, “Surely this man will spend these days in a different way than he ever spent his time before.” You who would think so of such a man, it may be that some of you are guilty of the same evil before the Lord this day.

For this is a certain truth: all the people in the world have been condemned to eternal death, and all the time of your life is given you for this very purpose. God gives you a few days for this very end, merely that you might have a little liberty to sue for your pardon and make your peace with God. Oh, if only men and women would understand this, what they live for: that all the time of their lives is given them to make their peace with God! You must know that it is given for this purpose, just as a condemned criminal has a reprieve to get his pardon. This is exactly your condition. You stand before the Lord guilty of eternal death, but God in his patience and long-suffering gives you a few days to live, to sue for your pardon. And if you let this time slip, and these days are gone, I declare to you this day before the Lord that mercy itself will never save you.

I would like to know from many of you how you spend these days. You are not certain of one day; perhaps not of an hour. Do you spend these days making it the great business and work of your souls to sue for a pardon? Let me speak to you, and oh, that you would speak it in secret between God and your own souls! I wish that every soul present would answer this question in the name of God: “Soul, have you made it the great work and business of your life, above all things in the world, to sue for your pardon, and to seek reconciliation with your God and a discharge of your sins?” I truly fear that if the consciences of many of you who hear me this day could be heard to speak, they would answer: “What? Have I made it the great work and business of my life to sue for a pardon? God knows it has been the great work and business of my life to increase my guilt. Not a day goes over my head but I have brought more guilt upon myself by wicked oaths, taking God’s name in vain, neglecting his worship, abusing his creatures, perhaps by drunkenness or uncleanness.”

I would think your consciences might misgive you, when you are so far from making it the great business of your lives to sue for pardon that you make it your great work to increase your guilt. Do you think you will ever get pardon for your sin as long as you go on increasing your guilt and making yourself more vile? The lives of many people are such a course of wickedness that they declare that these people are either resolved to perish eternally in their sin, or else resolved to make the pardoning of their sin as great a burden to the mercy of God as it can be.

If it is so mighty a work of God to pardon sin (observe what I say; it follows from the point in which I opened the wonderful work of God in pardoning any one sin), then think like this: “Is it so great a work of God to pardon one sin? Shall I go on, then, to add sin to sin and make the work greater?” Friend, if God pardons only one sin of thought that you have been guilty of in all your life, it would be a work that would give you matter for praise to all eternity. And will you be so desperate, then, as to add sin to sin?

Suppose a man had some grievous disease, and to cure him would be the strangest work ever done since the earth and heavens were made. If this man should go on in intemperate courses, increasing the malignity and venom of it more and more day by day, what a desperate thing this would be thought in him, especially if there were a possibility of cure! Yes, and perhaps he could tell others that there is some possibility, and yet he goes on increasing the malignity more and more. How unreasonable everyone would think this man’s courses! Oh, that we would consider how unreasonable people are in their dealings with God! People are ashamed to be unreasonable in their dealings with others, but in their dealings with God they are as unreasonable as can be imagined.

You are guilty of many sins. Do you have hope of being forgiven? “Yes,” you will say, “I have hope.” Do you have hope? If God delivers you from any of your sins, he must do a work greater than the making of heaven and earth. What are you doing, then, increasing your sin, when it is so great a work to pardon your sin? Oh, the horrible wickedness of men and women in increasing their sin! I may allude to Joshua 22:17, and it is an argument of great force: “Is the iniquity of Peor too little, from which we are not cleansed to this day?” So I may say to sinners who go on in their sins: Is the iniquity of Peor too little, from which you are not cleansed to this day? What, is the iniquity of your youth too little, the sins you committed and the time you misspent when you were an apprentice, or lived in such and such a household? Is that sin too little to magnify the grace of God in pardoning it, so that you must add more and more to it, as if you would tempt God, to try and see whether he would extend his mercy further and further?

We tell you in the name of God, and say to you, that the sins you have committed already are so grievous that it must be a wonderful work of God to forgive them. And what, must you add more and more, and tempt God to extend his mercy further? Take heed of tempting God to extend his mercy further. For though God may be pleased to extend his mercy this far, who shall prescribe to God how far he shall go? Who can tell? Perhaps God’s thoughts toward you are these: that he will go this far in pardoning you. But if you go on in sin, who can tell whether he will go on to pardon further? It is true that when God comes to pardon, he will do away with all your sins. But know this, you who go on increasing the guilt of your sin: you may find it, as many thousands have found it, a mighty hard thing to get the pardon of your sin sealed in the court of conscience, though it was sealed before in heaven. It has cost them much anguish and distress of spirit. Oh, the anguish of spirit it has cost them! And do you still go on heaping up more and more sin, as if the pardon of your sin were nothing? There is a great deal of reason in this for crying out to sinners to stop in their course of sin. You have gone far enough already; go no further. That is a second abuse of the mercy of God in pardoning sin.

Third, they abuse the mercy of God who have extremely slight thoughts of the pardon of sin, who think they can have it at any time they please: it is only a matter of repenting. It was said of Louis XI, king of France, that he wore a crucifix in his hat, and when he had committed a sin, he had only to take it down and kiss it, and all was well again. In the same way many idolatrous papists have as slight thoughts of the pardon of sin as can be. If they commit a sin, they make no more of it than to go to a priest to hear their confession and absolve them, or to kneel before a crucifix and beat their breast, which is soon done, and all is well again. Certainly it is a great dishonor to God for anyone to have slight thoughts of the pardon of sin. It is such a work that if anything ever put God to it (as I may say), it was this work: to pardon sin and yet uphold his justice. And certainly, if God ever has love for you, you will change your thoughts about this.

And certainly, the slight thoughts people have about this are often the reason why they are held so long under the spirit of bondage. When God begins to work on them, and stirs the conscience, and lays the guilt of sin home upon it, how long it is before they can have any assurance of pardon! And it is so in just judgment, because they had slight thoughts of the pardon of sin before.

I remember it is recorded of Pompey that when one of his captains came to him and told him he lacked men, Pompey said, “I have only to stamp my foot upon the ground and bring forth so many men at once.” But when the enemy came, this captain came to him again and said, “Where are your men now?” And then he could not get them, when he was in distress and had great need of them. In the same way, many think they can do great things with a mere word, as if everything must be at their beck and call at once; but when they come to it, they fail and find it otherwise. So many make it a small matter to get pardon of sin. They think to do it with a “Lord have mercy upon us” on their deathbed, or something of the kind. But when they come to it in earnest, God makes them know that it is the greatest business they ever had to do in all their lives.

There is nothing God is so jealous for as his honor, and especially concerning this great work. And certainly, were it not that God is very jealous for his honor, and would cure the slight thoughts people have of this great work, there would never need to be so much humiliation and so many workings of the spirit of bondage. And certainly, if we only knew the greatness of this work, how sinners would snatch at any opportunity or hint of God’s favor appearing to them! They would do as the servants of Ben-hadad did, who would “diligently observe if any thing would come from him, and hastily catch at it” (1 Kgs 20:33). They watched to see whether anything came from him that made any way toward what they were seeking, and caught at it hastily. So if a soul understood what a great work the pardon of sin is, he would be so far from having slight thoughts of it that he would come clothed in sackcloth. At every sermon he would be watching and asking, “Has God spoken any word to my soul or not?” And if any word fell from a minister concerning this great business, such a soul would catch at it greedily and lose no opportunity to embrace it.

Psalm 32 is very remarkable for this purpose. David found it a very hard thing to get pardon for his own sin (Ps 32:4); and he acknowledged it, and God forgave him (Ps 32:5). What follows? “For this shall every man that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found” (Ps 32:6). It is as if David were saying, “O all you poor sinners who sin against God and think it an easy matter to get pardon of sin, know that I have found it otherwise. It cost me dearly before I could get assurance of pardon. And therefore, for this cause, let everyone who is acquainted with the ways of God seek God in due time and not put it off from time to time, for the business is not so slight that it can be put off.”

Many abuse the example of David and think that because he sinned, they may take liberty to sin. But they do not consider what abundance of sorrow it cost him to get his pardon. It cost him so much that he tells them that for this cause everyone shall seek God in due time. Many think they may put it off till any time. But mark what David says: “For this cause every man that is godly shall seek thee in a time when thou mayest be found.” He does not say, “I have found mercy in the pardoning of my great sins, and for this cause people may be bold to put it off to any time.” No, but for this cause those who are godly, and have any acquaintance with the ways of God, will seek God at a time when he may be found. And if those who are godly, who have their sin pardoned in the court of heaven, find it so hard a matter to get it pardoned in their own consciences, how much does it concern you to look to it, you who perhaps have your sin pardoned neither in the court of heaven nor in your own conscience, but are “in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:23)? How it concerns you to look to it! That is a third sort who abuse the mercy of God, by having slight thoughts of the pardon of sin.

Fourth, those who seek pardon but have no sense of the greatness of the work of God in pardoning. They do not put it off; they seek it now. But how? With an extreme lack of feeling. They do not come before God with brokenness, trouble, and contrition of spirit in seeking the pardon of sin. Many recite their sins before God and have a gift of prayer. It is something that would make a person’s heart tremble to consider how many have a great gift in prayer. They will pray for half an hour and recite a great many of their sins; they make catalogues and tell long stories of their sins; they bring in all the aggravations against themselves for their sins; they judge themselves and speak mighty words against themselves for their sins. And yet all this while, God knows, they do it with a desperately dull, dead, and senseless heart toward their sins. It may be that others who join with them have their hearts broken by their expressions, and yet all the while your conscience may tell you that your heart is desperately hard before God and has no feeling at all of what you are saying. You were putting up petitions to God, and yet with as dull and senseless a spirit as if you were speaking of a matter of no consequence at all.

This is a high degree of taking the blessed name of God in vain. For we must know that the name of God in the forgiveness of sin is a most glorious name, and we need to take heed how we speak to God in this business, so that we do not take his name in vain, “for he will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain” (Exod 20:7). We need to look to the sanctifying of God’s name in this matter. Many a man will readily think that to swear and blaspheme is taking the name of God in vain. And why is it so? Because it is a sin against the third commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of thy God in vain” (Exod 20:7). For my part, I cannot but think that to make large confessions of sin, and yet with a senseless, dead heart, is a high degree of taking the name of God in vain.

Do not mistake me. If your heart feels its own lack of feeling, you are not one of those who take the name of God in vain. God accepts this. It is the rational part of the soul that is taken up with this, and this is pleasing to him, though you cannot bring the sensitive part of the soul, the feelings, up to it. But I speak of those who have fallen into a formality in crying out and confessing their sins, and yet have no feeling of them; indeed, it may be that they glory in this, that they can speak of their sins this way in the church and have such expressions before the Lord. Take heed of this. If you want to show your gifts and abilities, let it be in something else; do not come before the holy God, and before others in a holy duty, to air your gifts and abilities there. It is a dangerous thing for anyone to meddle in this way.

As it is said in Hebrews 9:22, “without shedding of blood there is no remission,” so I may say: without the blood of your heart, without the bleeding of your heart, there is no remission, or at least without a sense of your own lack of feeling. If you cannot mourn, then mourn that you cannot mourn. Feel your own lack of feeling, and then God may accept you. But otherwise, without this kind of blood there is no remission.

That is to sanctify the name of God. Consider this note, for it may be of use in many ways: I sanctify the name of God when there is a disposition in my heart suited to the work of God I have to deal with, suited to the way God shows himself in the matter in which I have to deal with him. If anyone asks, What is it to sanctify God’s name? I would answer this way: To sanctify God’s name in anything is to labor to get a disposition that answers to the matter in which I have to deal with God. When I am to deal with God in any work, I must have a disposition in my heart suited to that work. For instance, I sanctify God’s name in prayer, when I speak of God’s glorious attributes and titles, when there is a disposition in my heart answering to those glorious titles that I speak of. So I sanctify God’s name when I confess my sin before God, the Judge of all the world, by having a disposition in my heart that answers to and suits this Judge. And I sanctify God’s name in seeking pardon of sin when I have a disposition in my heart answering to the greatness of the work of God in pardoning sin.

Therefore all of you must be careful, when you ask God to pardon sin, to ask him also to sanctify his name. How is that? Ask God to reveal that glorious work to your souls, and then labor to get your hearts into a disposition that answers to and suits that great work. You who go to God every day seeking pardon of sin: have you grasped the greatness of it? Has God shown you the greatness of his work in it? Or further, since the time you heard of the greatness of the work, have you been considering in your souls how to get a disposition that answers to and suits these divine truths? Certainly, so far as you are lacking in that, so far you fall short of sanctifying God’s name. And for the time to come, this must be the great work of your souls: to get dispositions in seeking pardon of sin that answer to and suit the great work of God in it.

If someone who has offended you comes to you to petition you to remove some evil, and he comes casually, you will say, “You must come in a different manner than this.” Shall a poor man or woman expect such a manner of coming from a child, servant, or inferior, and yet go to God in a senseless way in seeking pardon of sin, and think to obtain it like that? You go about it without feeling, and your hearts are not stirred. But when Christ came, he felt it, in seeking God about this business (Heb 5:7). “In the days of his flesh”: observe, Christ in the days of his flesh “did offer up prayers and supplications.” How? “With strong cryings and tears.” What? Shall Christ feel the weight and burden of sin so deeply, when he was to suffer, that he should seek the Father with such prayers? If he had said only one word, it would have been a prayer. But he sought him with prayers, and prayers with cries and supplications; and not only that, but with strong cries and tears. Let your heart be rebuked this day for its senselessness in going to God in such a slight manner in seeking pardon of your sins.

Fifth, those are to be rebuked who, in seeking pardon of sin, do nothing but dally and trifle with God. They are not at all serious in it, whereas if there is any business in the world in which we need to be serious, it is this. But you will ask, Who are they? I answer: there are four or five sorts who only dally with God in seeking pardon of sin.

1. Those who cry out, and seem very earnest with God in crying to him for pardon, and yet still continue in love with their sins and remain in the practice of them in an ordinary course and way. I do not speak of those who truly seek the pardon of their sins and yet may sometimes be overtaken by them again; I speak of the common course of people. They come to God and ask him to forgive them, and yet they still continue in their sins. I do not speak of those who are senseless in the acts of confessing their sins, but of those who cry mightily to God for pardon and yet live in the practice of the very sins they cry to God to pardon. For instance, consider, every one of you, what sins have been in your course of life. I put this to you: either you have prayed to God to forgive them, or you have not prayed. If you have not prayed, then you are most horrible atheists. “But I thank God, I pray every day,” you say. Well, you pray to God for forgiveness of sin, and yet live in it daily. Oh, how people dally with God this way! They pray against sin, and yet commit sin and fall to it again; they pray again, and commit it again; and this is the very way that many people take. They draw out the thread of their lives and spend their day of salvation trifling with God. They pray that God would be merciful to them in forgiving their sin, and yet they go on to commit sin. They do not consider what a strong bond against sin praying is. I beg you, note this, every one of you who prays against any sin: every prayer you make for the pardon of sin lays a mighty strong obligation on you, from God, to take heed of sin afterward. Maybe you have not thought of this. You say you pray every morning. Consider what you are doing. If you have any care for your souls, you will not rest merely in such a form as your fathers and mothers have taught you. If you have any care for your souls, you will consider when you pray to God, and say, “Lord, I am guilty of such and such sins; my nature is most prone to such sins, and such sins I have lately committed.” And then: “Well, I will humble my soul before God in prayer and entreat God to forgive me.”

It is not prayer to mumble over a few words; that is to prattle, not to pray. But when you solemnly set yourselves to examine your own hearts about what you are guilty of, and solemnly protest against your sins in the presence of God, and say, “Lord, I am guilty of this and this particular sin. Lord, I was drawn into such and such sins yesterday in such and such company. O Lord, forgive my sin, and forgive me these and these particular sins,” this is the way to seek the pardon of sin rightly. Do you do so? It will be a mighty bond upon your hearts to think this way within yourselves: “Lord, what! Have I been solemnly setting myself in the presence of the Almighty to confess my sins, and have I prayed him to forgive them? What care I need to take, then, that I do not fall into the same sin again!”

You who have come today and confessed and prayed against your sin, do not fall into it again. You who are apt to break out in anger: when you find yourselves beginning to grow hot, if you would only take so much liberty as to remind yourselves that you have been praying to God this morning to forgive just such an outburst, it would be of mighty importance in keeping you from going on in anger, or in any other sin, to consider that you have been praying to God for pardon and forgiveness of it. You who do not consider this, but confess your sins in the morning and then go on again to commit sin, only make more work for the next time. You come to confess sin as men do on solemn days of humiliation, when they will rip open all their sins; but before another such day comes, they have made work for another day, and another.

And this is what makes men’s confessing their sins before God a trifling with him. Were it not that God is a God of infinite patience, he could not bear it. Might he not say to you, “You came seven years ago and told me of your pride, your temper, your worldliness, and the like; and do you now come and tell me the same again?” Were God not infinitely patient, he could never bear this dallying with him; for the truth is, it is nothing else but infinite dallying with God. “Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, my Father, thou art the guide of my youth?” (Jer 3:4). They seemed to cry to God, “O you are my Father and the guide of my youth.” Only these words are named, but it is likely they opened their sins before God and cried for mercy. “Ah,” God says to them, “you have spoken, and cried out about this anger of mine that has gone out against you for your sins, and yet ‘thou hast spoken and done evil as thou couldest’” (Jer 3:5).

This is an evil thing, and heavy to be laid to the charge of any man: to confess sin and pray for pardon, and yet commit it again. Know this today, you who have been confessing sin and yet go on in sin; know this, I tell you: it is but dallying with God. Many men and women unravel their prayers this way. They make excellent prayers, and when they have finished, they unravel it all again by falling into the same sin.

2. A second sort are those who earnestly seek the pardon of some sins and yet still keep the love of some other sin, and still think to obtain pardon of them. This is but dallying and trifling with God in this business; you have never yet seriously set yourselves to it. You cry against some sins that are against the light of nature, and perhaps your consciences fly in your faces and the Word of God has struck you for them. But there are some other secret haunts of wickedness that your hearts cling to, and yet you think to obtain forgiveness from God for the others while you go on in these. O you vain soul, you vain man! Know that though you should cry your heart out for the forgiveness of one or more sins, yet if your heart secretly clings to some other sin that you secretly hanker after, the bonds of the guilt of that sin will hold your soul in chains eternally, unless your soul is torn from that sin as well as from every other. You do not understand God’s way of dispensing his grace to the soul if you think God will pardon some sins and give you liberty in others. You foolish soul, know that when you go to God for the pardon of sin, you must go with a heart that has renounced every sin; otherwise you lose all your labor and are held in the chains of them all.

3. Those who never look after their prayers to question what answer they have had. “I have prayed to God, but have I received any answer in my own heart? Or has God come in, in any ordinance, and sealed my pardon to me?” This is how the soul should look after pardon in prayer and in all other means. Many pray but never look after their prayers to see whether God hears or not. “I will hear and hearken what the Lord God will speak” (Ps 85:8): so says the psalmist, and so it would be with you if you did not dally with God. After you have cried for pardon, you would be listening at heaven’s gates and looking toward God: “What answer does God give? I have prayed, and no answer comes.” The soul that sets itself in a solid and serious way to seek pardon will often be looking out, and will remain much troubled until an answer comes. Many cry for pardon, but they do not remain troubled until God gives an answer. They deal with God as Pilate dealt with Christ: he asked him, “What is truth?” (John 18:38), but never stayed for an answer, and went his way. So we only dally with God in our prayers and petitions when we ask for forgiveness of sin and neglect to look for an answer.

4. As those who do not look after the answer to their prayers dally with God, so do those who do not follow their prayers with corresponding endeavors. They petition God to be merciful to them; but what are the endeavors of your souls after your petitioning? If there are no endeavors to attend upon the means of grace in which God is accustomed to speak peace to souls, all your prayers are nothing. But I will speak of this afterward. You are to search into the covenant, and inquire about the saints, what course they have taken and what means they have used to obtain pardon.

5. Those who pray for pardon yet are satisfied with other things. For example, they pray for pardon, but if the world comes in, they are satisfied and quieted with that. Give a child a piece of gold and an apple, and he will be quieted with the apple. So many men sue to God for this great work of the pardon of sin, but let God give them health and comforts in the world, and they are satisfied and contented with those, and seek little or never after the pardon of their sin. That is a fifth sort, charged today before the Lord, who only dally with God in seeking pardon for their sins.

Sixth, those who rest quiet on weak and slight evidences dishonor God. Certainly those who content themselves with poor evidences about it, as most do, do not have high thoughts of God’s mercy in pardoning sin. Go to many people and ask them, “What? Do you hope that God will pardon your sins?” “Yes, we do hope so.” But they hope on the poorest evidences imaginable. The evidences on which they lay the weight of the pardon of their sins are such broken reeds that it would amaze a man who understands the worth of a poor soul that they should venture so great a thing on so slight a reed. What is the reason? Because they have only slight thoughts of the forgiveness of sin. What a man values highly, he will make sure of; but what he slights, he is not so intent on.

For example, if someone pays you in silver, gold, and farthings, you take the farthings and do not count them; but you count the silver, and the gold you not only count but weigh as well. What is the reason? Because you think little of the brass, and so you will not count it; you think more of the silver, and therefore you count that; but the gold you not only count but weigh, because you esteem it more highly than the others. This is an argument that may convince the men of the world that they esteem earthly things more than heaven and their souls, because they labor to make earthly things surer than the things of heaven. A worldly man, to make his estate sure, will have bond upon bond and seal upon seal, and carry his evidences of title to his lawyers and say, “I beg you, sirs, see whether there is not some flaw in them. I shall lose all my money if there is so much as a crack in my evidences.” He is mighty careful about this, because he has such a high esteem of his worldly concerns.

But how does it appear that men have only poor, low thoughts about the pardon of their sins? Because they content themselves with such poor, mean evidences. For if they had a high esteem of it, they would labor to make the pardon of sin surer than anything in the world. To wind it all up: those who know what the pardon of sin is, how they spend their time and lay themselves out to get assurance! Take this one note: Because God sees that his own people understand what forgiveness is, have a high esteem of it, and are deeply concerned about it, he condescends in his kindness to assure them by all sorts of ways and means.

It seems to me that God deals with them in this manner. The poor soul stands shaking and trembling, crying out, “Oh, that I might have my sins forgiven, and have assurance of it!” “Why,” says God, “what way do you take to make things sure between one another?” “First,” you say, “we give our word to one another.” God says, “You shall have that: I give you my word. What else do you have?”

“Second,” you say, “we have it written.” “Well,” says God, “you shall have it written.” And this is a great mercy: the covenant of grace is written; we do not have it from hand to hand, as our forefathers had it. “What else do you require?”

“Third,” you say, “we have witnesses.” “Well,” says God, “you shall have witnesses.” In matters between man and man, “In the mouth of two or three witnesses every thing is established” (Matt 18:16). Now God, in reconciling a soul to himself, brings no fewer than six witnesses to confirm a believer in the assurance of his grace and favor toward him: “There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, water, and blood” (1 John 5:7-8). Three in heaven and three on earth to assure you of the forgiveness of sin: that is a third way.

“Is there any other way?” “Yes, Lord. Fourth, we are accustomed not only to have a word, and that word put in writing, and witnesses set to it, but also to take an oath.” “Well,” says God, “I will swear and take an oath to make my covenant of grace sure to your souls.” When God made a promise to Abraham, “because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself” (Heb 6:13). And this is in Hebrews 6:18 (an admirable text of Scripture): “That we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us.” There is hope of God’s grace through the reconciliation of Christ Jesus, and the soul runs to this hope as to a city of refuge when his guilt, like the avenger of blood, pursues him. “Well,” says God, “this poor soul will still have doubts of my grace in spite of all this. Now, so that it might have strong consolation, I have sworn, that I might make my mercy sure to such a soul.” That is a fourth way.

“But is there anything else you use to make things sure between one another?” “Yes, Lord. Fifth, we put our seals to it. An oath taken may soon pass over, but a seal abides.” God says, “I will do that too; I will give you seals.” And there are various sorts of seals. First, there is the Broad Seal of heaven. What is that? It is nothing else but the very printing of the image of God on the soul; that is the Broad Seal of heaven. As the Broad Seal of England has the picture or image of the king stamped on it, so the Broad Seal of heaven is nothing else but the image of God stamped or imprinted on the soul.

Second, there is the Privy Seal of the Holy Spirit of God, which is his persuading and assuring the soul of the share it has in Christ and in God the Father. In 2 Timothy 2:19 you have God’s Privy Seal: “The Lord knows them that are his.” And they, having his Privy Seal, know themselves to be the Lord’s: “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (Song 6:3). So Paul, being sealed with this seal, says of Christ, “He loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). He was persuaded and assured of salvation (2 Tim 1:12; Rom 8:38-39). This privy sealing is like the new name in Revelation 2:17, “which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.”

And besides these you shall have a third seal, baptism and the Supper of the Lord. These are to assure you; for the end of the sacrament is to seal up the pardon of sin. God saw that his people would be deeply anxious, and therefore he added all these ways of assurance for them. So when you come to the sacrament, you should come with a sense upon your souls of the great need you have of God’s grace in pardoning sin, and come to it as to a sealing day. You have many fears and doubts; come in such a way that you may have the grace of pardon sealed to your souls. Take heed of coming in such a way as to have your condemnation sealed. For certainly all ordinances, if they do not work for the end for which they are appointed, turn to another and quite contrary end. So it is with the Word: if it is not the savor of life, it is the savor of death. And so it is with the sacraments: if they do not seal up the pardon of your sins to you, they seal up the sentence of death and condemnation.

Therefore look to it: as often as you come unworthily to the sacrament, you have so many seals of death and condemnation set upon your souls. Take heed that you do not come to take another seal of death. It is much to be feared that many in this place come to take the seal of eternal death upon their souls. But as for those who come worthily, even though the administration is not in such due order as it should be, God may still be present with his own ordinance to give them comfort from it and to help their evidences by it.

I must conclude this: those who content themselves with slight evidences about this great work dishonor the grace of God. You would have us preach about mercy. Indeed, it is a blessed subject, which our souls much delight to preach on, because we find so much sweetness in it, and on which our souls shall enlarge themselves in glorifying God to all eternity. But at the same time we are jealous over you, lest you dishonor God in this mercy; and that is why we labor so with you, after laying open this mercy, that you may not abuse it. For certainly, brothers and sisters, there is nothing in the world that God takes to heart more than the dishonor that is done to his pardoning mercy; and nothing aggravates people’s sin more than having slight thoughts of this great work.

Seventh, it is a great dishonor to God’s pardoning mercy for men to put off seeking it to the worst times that can possibly be. Is it not the ordinary way of most people to put off seeking the grace and favor of God, the pardon of sin, and reconciliation until the time of sickness and the time of death? They go on all their lifetime sinning against God; but when they are lying on their sickbeds and deathbeds, it is “Lord, have mercy on me, pardon me, forgive me, wicked wretch that I have been!” These are the kinds of words we hear from men at that time: “O that God would forgive and pardon such and such sins!” And then perhaps they will tell some particular sins. If they think they shall die, they will open themselves to the minister, or to some faithful neighbor, disclosing their particular sins, and beg them to pray to God for mercy. But if they have any hope of escaping, they will keep them in, and be loath to rip open the sins of their lives.

This, I say: for anyone to put off seeking God for his pardoning grace until that time is to put a great dishonor upon God, for it is putting it off to the worst time that can possibly be. And that contributes much to the dishonor of God. For:

1. Such people seek the pardon of sin when sin is leaving them, or when they must leave sin whether they will or not. When you have served your own turn with sin, after you have had as much supposed pleasure as you can, then you think to be delivered from the guilt and punishment of sin. What is there in seeking God now but a mere selfish spirit? And God sees it so. It is not seeking after the pardon of sin so that you may honor God in his infinite grace, for then you would seek after it now, and the honor of God would be dear to you now. But you seek it at such a time merely out of regard for yourselves. This is a great dishonor to God. It is the firstborn of God’s glory to pardon sin; and when God sees men and women have no higher ends in seeking pardoning grace than merely to save their own skins, how may he look upon them with disdain! “What! Shall I magnify the riches of my grace so wonderfully in this work of my pardoning mercy, and shall my creatures seek after it for no other end, and with no higher aim, than merely to save their own skins?” You bring down the grace of God; what is the height of his infinite majesty and glory, you put to a low and base end. Therefore do not put off seeking it to the last; it is a great dishonor to his grace.

2. It is the worst time, because you come to seek pardoning grace when it is the time of God’s wrath. The time of affliction and trouble, sickness and death, is called “the day of wrath”: riches avail not in the day of God’s wrath (Prov 11:4). Riches avail for comfort at present, but in the day of wrath they will not. God has his day of affliction and his day of wrath; he has his time to come and visit men for their sins. Now then, for people to come seeking the pardon of their sins when it is God’s time to visit for sin must surely be the worst time that can possibly be. I reason this way, and consider it: if God denies his mercy in the day of mercy, is it likely that he will grant mercy in the day of wrath? While you are alive and have liberty, health, and opportunity to come and hear the doctrine of the justification of a sinner and the forgiveness of sin opened, you are to know that this is the day of God’s grace: “Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2), and of grace.

When God gives you liberty and opportunity to have the mysteries of the gospel opened to you in this way, this is the day of God’s grace. Now if God denies you grace in this day of mercy, so that you are not so much as enlightened, your souls melted, and your hearts stirred, do you think it likely that he will show you mercy now, when you are on your sickbeds or deathbeds, which is a day of wrath to you? For so it is to those whose sins have not been pardoned before: it is a day of wrath, and God’s time of visiting for sin. Is it likely that God will show you mercy now?

I beg you, consider: the usual way of God’s working on men is according to his ordinance. Now the ordinary way of God’s conveying grace is by the ministry of the Word. Did God ever appoint any other way to convey Christ and grace to your soul? Give me a text for it. Where do you find a text in Scripture for any other way, appointed by God as an ordinance, for conveying his pardoning grace in Christ to any soul? No, it is in the ministry of the gospel, and by faith, which lays hold of the pardoning grace of God, through coming to hear the Word preached. Now if God does not come at that time to work upon you and to bestow mercy in his own appointed way, it is not likely he will come any other way. I remember that in a treatise of Mr. Bolton’s he has this expression: “Let anyone give me an example, that ever anyone that lived under a powerful ministry, and was not savingly wrought upon that way, was ever wrought upon any other way.” Many, he says, may be stirred; but for his part he knew none who was so stirred by affliction as to the conversion of their souls if God had not first wrought upon them in the ordinances of grace. Then it must surely be the worst time that can be to seek the pardon of sin in a day of trouble or affliction, because that is usually a time of God’s wrath visiting for sin.

3. The work of the soul in seeking God’s pardoning mercy and applying it to itself, as it is the most excellent work that ever a creature performed, so it requires the most exquisite working of the spirit that was ever required, or that any creature was ever set about. It is the most intense work of the spirit of man: the applying of the grace of God in Christ, and the closing with it for justification. It is the highest, most exquisite, most glorious, and most admirable work of the spirit of man that ever was in the world, and it requires greater intensity and strength of a man’s spirit than any work ever did. Now then, to put this off until a man’s strength is gone, until disease has made him unfit for anything, and all the strength he has will be little enough to help him bear his pain, this must be the worst time. You are mistaken if you think that applying God’s mercy in Christ is merely a matter of saying, “Lord, have mercy on me.” No, it is God setting the heart of man to do the most glorious work, with the greatest working in it, that it ever did.

I remember it being told of one man who lived wickedly. Various people sought to reclaim him, and he said, “Come to me when I am on my sickbed; that is time enough.” Afterward, when he was sick, he was reminded of it: “You said you would do it then.” But then he swore a great oath, saying, “What, is this a time to repent in?” He felt so much trouble and anguish, which took up all his thoughts, that he was stirred to indignation at being pressed to repent then, at a time when he felt such sorrow of spirit from the pains upon him. “Is this a time to repent in?” If that is not the time, then do it in good time.

4. It is the worst time because God will lose a great part of his purpose in pardoning sin. For when God pardons sin, his purpose is that his poor creatures might honor and worship him in this world and do him service. But to seek God’s pardoning grace when you can do him no more service in this world, how can you think that he will accept you then? He came to redeem us, so that we might serve him in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives (Luke 1:74-75). And he knows there is nothing like pardoning grace to engage the heart of man to serve him. For once a soul sees itself delivered from those enemies, sin and the law, that would destroy it, its heart will be mightily set to honor God and serve him in holiness and righteousness all its days. Therefore, to seek pardon when you can do God no more service in this world must be the worst time; for how do you know that he will accept you then?

I beg you, observe one text of Scripture that many people abuse. For I suppose I am speaking to a great many who are very ignorant of the ways of God, and therefore I want to speak plainly to you. There is one passage, misunderstood and mistaken though it is, that is the main prop of many carnal hearts, as it is read in some books: “At what time soever a sinner repents …” I know of no such text of Scripture. It is true, there are scriptures tending that way that do not limit the time, but no scripture expresses it so. Many people run away with that expression as if Scripture said it, yet no text of Scripture has those words. There is one text this is taken out of, but it is spoken to another end, and therefore you need to examine what is said. It is Ezekiel 18:21; this comes nearest to those words. Mark this scripture, and see what you can get from it to justify putting off the seeking of God’s pardoning mercy and grace until sickness and death: “But if the wicked shall turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.”

Now this scripture does not limit a time, though it does not say, “At what time soever.” It says, if he “turn from all his sins, and keep all my statutes, and do that that is lawful and right.” So this scripture promises mercy to one who turns from all his sins and will keep all God’s statutes, and so do all that is lawful and right. But if you put it off to the time of sickness and death, how can you do all this? How can you turn from all sin and keep all God’s statutes then? Or how can you do what is lawful and right then? It must be at a time when you can keep all God’s statutes, as well as turn from all your sins. So if you take it all together, there is not so much encouragement for what is so often in your mouths, “At what time soever a sinner repents.” It must be at such a time that you can keep all God’s statutes.

But further, God speaks here to the Jews according to the condition of the covenant of works, because they counted on being justified by the law. God says, “You will put it off, and think to turn from your wicked ways at last, and that I will have mercy on you. Yes, but look to it: if you will repent, it must be a repentance joined with a keeping of all my statutes.” Therefore, you who do not understand the way of the gospel but depend on a repentance on your deathbeds, God will hold you to this scripture: you must repent at a time when you can keep all God’s statutes. Then you see that this is the worst time of all, to defer repentance until your sickbeds or deathbeds. For how can you keep all God’s statutes then, and do all that is lawful and right then?

5. It is the worst time because all the riffraff, all the basest and vilest wretches in the world, will come in then. What, have you no other spirit than to put off coming in until then? Have you no more care for your soul, no more love for God and his ways, than to put it off until the time when all the abominable wretches in the world will come in? That is the seventh way of dishonoring the pardoning grace of God: by seeking it at the worst time that can possibly be.

Eighth. The eighth way of dishonoring the pardoning grace of God, and the most considerable of all, is seeking and expecting it any other way than only through the mediation of the Son of God. I told you, when I opened the glorious mysteries of pardoning grace, that it must be done by a Mediator. Now not only grossly ignorant people but many others dishonor the pardoning grace of God; they are not aware that it is a grace that comes only through the mediation of the Son of God. We have too low thoughts of God’s pardoning grace if we think there is any possibility of attaining it any other way than by the mediation of him who is God-man. If we think our crying to God at any time will do it, or that our roaring out in anguish of spirit for forty, fifty, or sixty years is enough to do it, or that there is anything short of the mediation of the Son of God by which to attain it, we have too low thoughts of the pardoning grace of God. We do not give God the honor that is due to it.

Luther has a notable saying to this purpose: “It is a horrible blasphemy if you presume to pacify God by any works.” It is an excellent saying. So I say, it is horrible and intolerable blasphemy to think of having anything of your own, even in the least degree, and to presume that God will be pacified with it. For God cannot be pacified by any other means than the infinite price of the death and blood of his own Son, one drop of which is more precious than all the creatures of heaven and earth. God will say, “Have I revealed such a way of being reconciled with my creatures, and at such a rate, at the infinite price of the death of my own Son? Shall his life and blood go to procure pardon (one drop of which is worth more than ten thousand worlds), and when all this is done, shall my creature think to put me off with some poor work of their own, their prayers, tears, good meaning, or the like, or even with the most glorious work they can perform?” For the greatest and most glorious work they can perform is not worth nearly as much as one drop of the blood of Christ.

And if you do not have such high thoughts of God’s pardoning mercy, that it must be procured by something that has more worth in it than all the rest of creation, you dishonor it by having such low thoughts of it, when you think to obtain it by any duty you can do. You think God is a merciful God, and you hope that upon your reforming and performing duties of obedience, God will be pacified toward you for all that is amiss. Certainly, when you have these thoughts of God’s pardoning grace, you make it no more than common, ordinary pity toward someone in misery. But the grace of God is a higher thing than common pity and compassion. It is a mighty dishonor to God to have no higher thoughts of it than to think of it as the common pity and compassion that one creature has for another; or, if you think it differs from the pity one creature has for another, to think the difference is only one of degree, that it is only a little higher in degree. But you must look on it in another way, as another kind of pity than one creature bears to another.

It is true, God pardons his poor creatures in pity and compassion, but it is through the death and satisfaction of his own Son. If you think to procure it any other way than by the mediation of the Son of God, you look on it only in a natural way, as nature will dictate to you. For nature dictates that seeing someone crying out in misery will move pity and compassion, and you go no further. But you must know that the pardoning grace of God is the most supernatural and mysterious thing in all the Book of God. Therefore, when God works in us, we must exercise faith on it in a mystical way, that is, exercise faith on it as a great mystery.

And therefore you who have been made aware of sin, it may be you have thought about God’s grace for the pardon and forgiveness of your sins, and for quieting the trouble of your spirits. Have you done that? I suppose many a poor soul may say, “I have often been with God when no eye saw me but God’s, seeking the pardon of my sin in trouble of spirit.” You have done so. But was your eye at that time fastened on the Son of God, as the great Mediator between God and man, interceding with God the Father to obtain this mercy by making satisfaction to infinite justice? Together with your cries for pardon, have your eyes been on the Son of God at the right hand of the Father, pleading for man? Have your hearts been taken with the great mysteries of godliness, and wrought on by the infinite grace of God? Have you put forth a mighty power of the Spirit of faith to offer up to God the Father the atonement that his Son has made by his blood and death for your sins? Have you seen that the pardoning grace of God is so high that it is impossible to reach it by anything you can do, but only by the mediation of the Son of God?

If it has been like this with your spirits, then you have some sense of the great work of God in this matter. But otherwise, though you have been ever so much wrought on, and have had floods of sorrow, and have cried ever so earnestly for the pardon of your sins, yet unless you have had some such thoughts of God’s grace as these upon your hearts, working after God in this way, you were never thoroughly acquainted with the way of God’s pardoning grace. And so you have dishonored him by having too low thoughts of it, unless your hearts have been raised to this height.

At the time when David was repenting, he called on God to purge him with hyssop (Ps 51:7). David desired the renewal of the assurance of God’s mercy in Christ in pardoning that horrible offense he had committed, and therefore he prays that he may be purged with hyssop. What is the meaning of that? There is a great mystery in it. In the time of the law, when the blood was sprinkled, it was done with a bunch of hyssop, and it was a type of the blood of Christ that was to make an atonement (Lev 14): they were to take a bunch of hyssop to sprinkle with. Now David says, “Purge me with hyssop”; that is, “Apply to me the blood of Christ, for I need fresh applications of the blood of Christ. I have sinned against him, I have done what lay in me to bring myself under God’s wrath, and I have brought new guilt upon my soul. Now, for the assurance of your love to me, let there be fresh applications of the blood of your Son; let there be a new sprinkling of the blood of your Son upon me.”

I suppose many of you, in reading this passage, did not think of the meaning of the Spirit of God in it. It may be a great help to you, whenever you are seeking the pardon of your sins, to cry to God to be purged with hyssop: “O Lord, sprinkle the blood of Christ afresh upon me; for I know that all my prayers and tears, and all that I can do, cannot purge me from the guilt of the sin I have committed against you, unless you purge me with hyssop, that is, by applying the blood of your Son to me.” And this is the eighth way of dishonoring the grace of God: seeking it any other way than through the blood of his Son.

And remember, when you are seeking it, that this may be the last time; and therefore be sure you look up to God for it in, by, and through the death of his Son. Otherwise, though you are ever so earnest in prayer, you dishonor this grace. It is an easy matter to convince men and women that they are guilty of dishonoring the grace of God if they seek pardon in a negligent and sluggish way. But now, though you are ever so deeply affected, and put forth ever so much strength in seeking it, yet you dishonor God unless you look on it as so high a thing that it can never be reached except through the mediation of the Son of God.

Ninth. The ninth way of dishonoring the grace of God is for anyone to venture on sin all the more because they hope they will be pardoned, daring to venture on sin on that ground, hoping that God will pardon them at last. I spoke before of those who did nothing but increase their sins instead of seeking pardon for sin, and of their miserable, sad condition. But those we now speak of have not come to such a height of sinning that they do nothing but increase their sins. They are men and women who are convinced of sin, and if they were persuaded that God would never pardon that sin, they would find snags enough to stop them from committing it. But because they have some hope that God will pardon, on that very ground they venture on sin. “It is true,” they say, “it is an offense, but God is a merciful God; he will forgive, though it is an evil.”

There is more evil and mischief in this than you can imagine. What, are you convinced of sin, and will you venture on sin merely on this ground, because you hope that God will pardon you? I may say to you as Peter said to Simon Magus, “Pray, O pray to God, that if it be possible, this thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee” (Acts 8:22). For this thought of your heart has as much malignity in it, and is as great a provocation against God, as can possibly be imagined (except the sin against the Holy Spirit): for any man or woman to venture on any sin in hope of pardon.

Some will say, “Why do we need to be so strict, and trouble ourselves so much? God is merciful.” And so, on that ground, they think they need not be so strict. This is a horrible degree of turning the grace of God into wantonness (Jude 4). The apostle speaks there of people who professed to believe in Christ. Mark what he says of them: “There are certain men crept in unawares … ungodly men turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is a most dreadful passage for anyone in this congregation who has ever had the glorious light of the gospel revealed to them, and yet can reason like this: “I do such and such things, yet God is merciful.” Oh, that God would convince you of this evil!

Give me leave to open to you how these men creep in. They were Christians, and had come into the church; but how? They crept in cunningly. The saints of God were not aware of them; they crept in among them. Here, by the way, we may take notice that in a church none ought to be admitted as members except those in whom there may be some testimony of godliness. For if any are ungodly, they are such as creep in unawares. The church of God should keep them out; such as creep in unawares should be kept out.

Many cry out that they will not have communion with any church because there are some wicked men in it. Others say that while there is a church on earth, the tares will be among the grain and the chaff among the wheat. Do not be deceived: I know no one in the world who thinks any congregation is so pure that no ungodly person may creep into it. But consider: for the church to have some evil people in it is one thing, and for the church to have power to cast them out is another. It is true, they will creep into the church; but when they have crept in and appear to be ungodly, we must do our duty. We must tell them their faults, and if they will not hear us, we must tell it to the church. And if the church has power and will not deal with them, that need not hinder our communion with them at all.

But here lies the case: should we withdraw because evil people are among them? Or can we join with a church in which there is no power to keep them out, and, after they have crept in, to cast them out? They will creep into the church; they came in unawares. But the state of the church should be such that it suffers no evil men to come in; and if they do come in, it is without the church’s knowing it, by their making a profession of religion. For the church can go no further than what outwardly appears to it. If men make a profession of religion and have a manner of life agreeable to it, the church can go no further.

But suppose a church admits everyone, so long as they are not swearers, adulterers, or people living grossly in any other sin, although they make no profession. Indeed, if they merely rent a house in the parish, that is enough to make them members of the church; and when they are in, there is no power to cast them out. And if there was such a power in times past, the remedy was worse than the disease; it was such a power as God never ordained. Whether we should join with such a church or not, or whether we should withdraw because there are some evil people among them, is a question. Surely no one can imagine there should be so pure a church in the world that there are no tares among them. But suppose there is a power in every church to admit none but those who have an appearance of godliness, and, if after they have crept in they prove otherwise, a power to cast them out. Grant these things, and then, though many ungodly people will creep in unawares, it is no hindrance at all to joining with them in all the ordinances of God.

That is the first thing said of them: they creep in. Second, the apostle says they were such as were ordained of old to condemnation. Those who turn this grace of God into wantonness, that is, who abuse this pardoning grace of God by taking liberty to sin, are surely such as should be kept out of the church. If they creep in, they should not be counted members, but should be cast out when they appear to be such as were of old ordained to condemnation. So then, as for those who abuse the grace of God to wantonness, and think they may take liberty to sin because God is merciful to forgive sin, the Scripture says they are of old ordained to condemnation.

Third, they are ungodly men, such as have no godliness at all in them, but are merely carnal and worldly men. It is a terrible thing for a minister to say to any of you out of the Word of God, “You are an ungodly man,” or, “You are an ungodly woman.” Have you not turned the grace of God into wantonness and abused it? When you heard that God was merciful, did you take liberty to sin? Then you are an ungodly man, for you turn the grace of God into wantonness. The blessed grace of God, which should be the chief means to keep men from sin, you make an advantage to further sin.

And mark further, fourth: you deny our Lord Jesus Christ. You talk of God’s mercy in Christ, but you deny “the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” What a heap of expressions are here to set out the condition of those who turn the grace of God into wantonness! First, they creep in; second, they were of old ordained to condemnation; third, they are ungodly; and fourth, they deny the Lord Jesus Christ. I think this one text should daunt the heart of everyone who is before the Lord this day, so that they never presume to commit such horrible wickedness as to sin because of God’s pardoning grace. For there is so much evil in this, in presuming on sin because God is willing to forgive sin, that the hearts of those who understand the glory of God’s grace cannot but stand amazed and rise with indignation against it, as in Romans 6:1: “What shall we say then, Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?”

There were some who abused the grace of God to sin. How the apostle rises with indignation against that abominable wickedness! He does not grant it, but rejects it with horror and indignation: “God forbid.” What, sin so that grace may abound? God forbid! What, make use of the grace of God to further sin? Shall we stand to answer these men in the horrible reasoning of their hearts? No, they are to be cast off with detestation and rejection, with a “God forbid” that there should be any with such vile and wicked hearts as to abuse the pardoning grace of God like this. Suppose you forgive one servant a fault, and another servant says, “Well, my master has forgiven him; I will do the same.” If that servant commits the same offense on that ground, his master will not forgive him, because he offends presumptuously, which is a most horrid thing. Let me reason the case a little further.

(1) It is a sign of an abominable heart that has nothing to keep it from sin but guilt and the fear of wrath and hell. You do not make the grace of God an argument to keep you from sin, nor the evil of sin in itself; and that is a great dishonor and wrong to God. There is more evil in sin itself, setting aside the consideration of its guilt and punishment; there is ten thousand times more evil in sin itself than all the punishment in hell can equal. And yet you have nothing to keep you from sin but the guilt and the punishment. It is a sign of a base, wicked heart.

(2) Suppose there were no evil of guilt or punishment; even so, a noble, gracious spirit would never do it. “What, shall I sin because God will pardon? Shall I venture on it? No, I will never do it.” Grace reasons to a quite contrary end. That is an excellent scripture in Titus 2:11: “The grace of God that brings salvation.” It is this grace that reveals the pardon of sin. This precious grace of God that brings salvation “has appeared to all men.” But to what end? “Teaching us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts.” The grace of God that brings salvation teaches us these lessons, not such a wicked lesson as that we should presume to sin in hope that God may pardon it. No, it teaches us “to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts; and that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly,” and not to take liberty to sin, to lie, steal, be filthy, and the like, because God will pardon. No, it teaches lessons of quite another kind than these.

And then it follows: “looking for that blessed hope and appearance of the great God, and our Savior Jesus Christ.” Mark the text; there is a great deal in it. When the grace of God that brings salvation, and mercy, and pardon of sin is revealed, it teaches us these lessons. Because the grace and favor of God is revealed to us, we should deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts; and then we may with comfort look for the blessed hope and appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. But otherwise you can never look for that blessed hope.

Let me speak to those who reason like this, that they may venture on sin because of God’s pardoning grace. Does the revelation of the grace of God teach you to live ungodly lives and in worldly lusts? Can you look for that blessed hope with comfort, and expect the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ? It is impossible; you cannot. It is not “a blessed hope” that you have, but a cursed hope, a hope that all will be well at last though you live ungodly and wicked lives. And as for the appearing of the great God, it will certainly be a terrible appearing to you, who have made Christ, who came to dissolve the works of the devil, a means to uphold the works of the devil.

(3) Did any child of God ever make use of Scripture to reason for sin in such a wicked way, presuming to sin because God is willing to pardon? You cannot give me one example in all the Scripture of anyone to whom God has shown mercy who reasoned in this manner. I can give you examples to the contrary, showing how the saints have reasoned otherwise. Mark the reasoning of a gracious heart: “But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared” (Ps 130:4). He reasons from the pardoning grace of God to draw up his heart to the fear of God, as if he should say, “Lord, I have heard much of the doctrine of the pardon of sin, and the great workings of your grace to bring it about, and of your readiness to forgive; and this is the end of it all, that you may be feared.” This is the effect this doctrine works in a gracious soul, and it is a good sign if you reason in this way: “But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.” If the sermons you have heard on this doctrine are a means to plant the fear of God in your hearts, it is a blessed sign that they have had a good effect on you. When you reason like this, “Lord, because I have had so much of your grace and mercy in forgiving my sin, through your grace my soul shall fear you more than ever before, and fear to sin more than ever before,” then it is a good sign that the Word has worked powerfully in you, for your hearts answer to this text.

Take another text, Psalm 103:1-3: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” Why? “Who forgiveth all thy iniquities.” Notice, this is a psalm that David made about God’s mercy in forgiving sin, and the consideration of it makes him call on his soul, and all that is within him, to bless the Lord. Does God show so much grace as to forgive sin? Then “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name.” David does not reason like this: God forgives iniquity, and therefore, O my soul, take liberty; you need not be so strict. No, but “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name.” For those who have strength to do anything for God, this is an argument that will stir up all that is within them to bless God, when they see God appearing so infinitely gracious to them in the forgiveness of their sins. They reason that all they have, and all they can do, should be given to him.

(4) You who think you may take liberty to sin because God is gracious, and venture on it because you imagine that God will never punish, think of this: the example of the damned in hell. They fly in the face of God because they know that God will never pardon, and you sin because you hope God will pardon; and which is the worse of the two? The devils and the damned are in such a condition that they know God will never pardon them, and therefore they curse God continually, because they know he will not pardon. But God offers pardon and tenders grace to you; he holds out Jesus Christ to you, and his blood and sufferings, for your pardon; and you blaspheme because you think he will pardon. Of the two, I think you should judge the second sort the worse. You blaspheme because you hope God will pardon, and they blaspheme God because they know he will not pardon. It is somewhat worse to take liberty to sin because you hope God will pardon than it is for those who sin because they are out of all hope of pardon.

You who take liberty on this ground to blaspheme the name of God, what do you think will become of you another day? Now you blaspheme because you hope that God will pardon you; before long you may come into that condition where you will blaspheme God eternally, because he will not pardon you. For I make no question that many swearers, drunkards, unclean persons, and the like, who went on in sin on this ground because they hoped God would pardon them, are now gone to their own place, and blaspheme because they find that God will never pardon. So you who blaspheme now may perhaps blaspheme eternally, but it will be in another way. You do it now in hope that God will pardon; there you will do it because you will have no hope that he will ever pardon.

(5) You who sin now in hope that God will pardon, if God enlightens your mind, these things will be an intolerable burden to you. If anything is likely to endanger the sinking of your soul into the bottomless gulf of despair, it is this. You now give way to the reasonings of your own heart, going further in sin from the consideration of God’s pardoning mercy. The same reasoning that furthers sin in you now, from the consideration of pardon, will lead you on to further thoughts of despairing of God’s mercy. Suppose you go on a long while and heap up sin on this presumption. Let me put this to you: either God will enlighten your conscience, or he will not. If he never does it, you are eternally lost. But if he does it, if at length he comes and awakens your conscience, then what a load of anguish and trouble will lie on your soul! It will make you cry out, “O Lord, I have not only sinned, but now that I come to seek mercy, my mouth is stopped by the thought of that mercy I have abused. Now nothing but free grace can do me good, and my conscience tells me how I have abused this grace. I have presumed to sin because of it; I have made the thoughts I had of this grace a means to further me in sin. And now with what face can I go and seek this grace and mercy?”

These will be stinging thoughts to you another day. When a minister comes to apply the grace of God to your soul, you will say, “There is mercy with God to pardon sinners, but not for those who have abused the grace of God as I have done. It is true that Manasseh and Paul committed many great sins; but did they ever commit any sin on this ground, in hope of pardon?” Oh, look to it! Let no one go out from the presence of the Lord this day with thoughts of venturing on sin because you hope it may be pardoned. To venture on sin on that ground is the most horrible and most cursed thing there can be.

Tenth. A tenth way of dishonoring the grace of God’s pardoning mercy is this: as it is a dishonor to sin in hope of pardon, so it is to sin after pardon, after God has revealed this grace to you. To sin then is a great dishonor to this grace. Many have been in trouble for their sins and in their trouble have cried to God for mercy, and God has spoken peace to their souls and told them that their sins are pardoned and that he will cleanse their souls from the guilt of sin by the blood of his own Son; and yet after all this they have fallen into their former sins again. I have spoken before of this degree of dishonoring God’s pardoning grace, but now I am speaking of a further degree: not only to fall into the sin you have sought pardon for, but to fall into the sin that you have some comfortable assurance of pardon for.

The Lord was angry with Solomon, “because his heart was turned from the Lord, that had appeared to him twice” (1 Kgs 11:9). Remember, has not God appeared to some of you twice, and given you assurance of his love and pardoning grace? God came with sweet comforts and made your souls rejoice. And what, do you turn from the Lord after he has appeared to you twice and said to you, “Your sins are pardoned”? This is a grievous thing. “Should we again break thy commandments? … Wouldst not thou be angry with us, should we again sin, wouldst thou not consume us?” (Ezra 9:14). So after God has delivered us from condemnation, from the guilt of sin and the spirit of bondage, what, shall we trespass again? It is just for God to be angry with us. “The Lord will speak peace …, but let them not return again to folly” (Ps 85:8). If God speaks peace, oh, do not return again to folly!

I appeal to you: has God ever spoken peace to your souls? Have you heard the voice of gladness speaking in your hearts, saying, “Son” or “Daughter, be of good cheer, go in peace, your sins are pardoned”? Have you not heard this? If you have not, you need to get it. If you have, then do not return to the same sin that God has graciously pardoned. First, do not return to the same sin; second, do not return to any other sin.

(1) Do not return to the same sin. It is a question, and a great case of conscience, whether it is possible for a child of God to commit a sin again after God has granted him the pardon of it. Some have denied it. I remember some ancient divines, Origen and Tertullian, on those words in Hebrews 6, “For it is impossible for those that were once enlightened, … if they shall fall away to renew them by repentance” (Heb 6:4-6). One of them applies this to the sin of uncleanness, and says that a second repentance is not promised in the name of Christ to adulterers and fornicators. This much I may boldly say: we do not find any certain, express example in the whole Book of God of any child of God who fell into the same gross outward sin after an actual repentance and making his peace with God for that sin. We find no express Scripture for it.

I do not say that we find no examples of the children of God committing the same sin again, as Peter and Lot did. But we find no example of any gross sin that they fell into again (mark it) after their repentance and reconciliation. What was done amiss was done before it was brought home to their consciences and applied to their hearts for the humbling of their souls in making their peace with God. True, David committed adultery, but never a second time; after he had his bones broken, he did not fall again. And so Peter, after he went out and wept bitterly, never denied his Master again. And so Abraham equivocated, but we do not read that he committed that sin again after any actual renewal of faith and repentance.

A wound that is open and not fully closed may bleed again; but when it is fully closed, to bleed again is dangerous. So it is with any of the people of God: after the actual renewal of their faith and repentance, you cannot give me an example of any of them falling into the same sin again. I do not absolutely deny that it may happen, but I say it is a dangerous thing. God has not left an example of it. He has left examples of his children falling, but not of their falling into the same sins again after they have renewed their faith and repentance. I am not speaking of inward thoughts; I know that these will return even after repentance. But as for any outward, gross, actual sin, they have not returned to commit the same sin again after the renewal of faith and repentance.

When once a joint is out, or a leg is broken and set, that joint or bone is usually stronger than before; and so I might show you that after they have sinned and been set again, they have been stronger than before. A child of God falling into sin is just like the breaking of a bone. “And you that are spiritual must restore such a one” (Gal 6:1); the word in the original means put him in joint again. Any godly man or member of a church who falls into sin is like a bone out of joint, and you who are spiritual must set it again. If once you have a bone out of joint, the longer you let it go, the more painful it is; so if you fall into any sin, the longer you let it go, the more unwieldy you will be. No wonder you cannot go about your business properly when you have a bone out of joint! But has God been so merciful as to put you into joint again? You know what Christ said to the man: “Thou art made whole …” (John 5:14). So I say to you who have sinned, and whom God has pardoned and set in joint again: Go your way, you are made whole; take heed of sinning again, lest a worse thing befall you.

(2) A second sort who dishonor the grace of God are those who, though they do not fall into the same gross sins again after pardoning mercy, are yet negligent in the ways of God. They are loose, slight, vain, sensual, carnal, and dead-hearted in their manner of life. They do not answer the grace of God revealed to them, but have more dross in their spirits than before. It may be that while they were seeking this grace of God, they were strict in their manner of life and conscientious in their ways. In everything they walked close with God. They did not dare for their lives to omit a known duty. They attended on the Word with a great deal of patience; their hearts closed with it, and it was like meat and drink to them. And in their manner of life they were very fruitful in the places where they lived.

But now, having had some comfortable assurance of God’s mercy in pardoning them, they have grown slight, vain, loose, and dead-hearted. This is a very grievous evil wherever it may be charged. It is a very great evil for anyone to abuse God’s general bounty, patience, and long-suffering, and the good we receive from God in the use of the creatures; but it is far worse to abuse the grace of God in Christ, shown in pardoning mercy. I will show this to be a great evil, and will labor to convince you of it.

[1] Consider, and call to remembrance, what the days of old were. How was it with you in former times, when you were seeking the pardoning grace of God? Then you thought, “If ever God comes into my soul and gives me any assurance of the pardon of sin, how infinitely my soul will be bound to bless God! How I shall be bound forever to give up myself, soul and body, all that I am and all that I can do, to live to the praise of the grace of God, if God comes into my soul and pardons this sin of mine, the guilt of which lies so heavy on my spirit!” I appeal to your own consciences: did you not think in your own minds that it was impossible you should ever come to live as you now do?

Certainly, if the thoughts of many people could appear this day, they could not but say, “There was a time (when I was seeking the mercy of God to pardon the sin that lay on my conscience) when I thought to myself, ‘He is a blessed man indeed who has assurance of this.’ And if ever I had peace spoken to my soul, I thought my life would be such that it was impossible, as I saw it then, that I should grow into this dullness, deadness, slightness, and vanity that I now see I am in.” Then, as Paul said to the Galatians, “Where is the blessedness you spake of?” (Gal 4:15). There was a time when you said that the pardoning mercy of God was a blessed thing. Where is that blessedness you spoke of, that after you have received it you should grow wanton, loose, and slight?

What, do you not have a mightier argument to draw your hearts to God, now that he has spoken peace, than you ever had before? The apprehension of guilt, danger, and trouble of spirit for sin was an argument to keep you from sin before. But if God has spoken peace in applying this pardoning grace, do you not have arguments of another nature than these, which are far more powerful? Certainly, those who know the grace of God in Christ know that there is no argument so powerful to keep the heart up to God and to keep it from sin as the grace of God in Christ in pardoning sin; there is no argument in the world like it. Eyeing God’s grace is a special means to quench and keep down lust. Those who sin after this mercy, whose lusts and corruptions overcome the power of this pardoning mercy, are deprived of the best and most special spiritual helps there can be to keep them from sin.

“The peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:7). The word in the original is very significant: shall guard your hearts. This is the force of the phrase, as if the apostle had said, “The sweet peace of God is such that it passes understanding, and it shall guard your hearts.” And indeed the peace of God that comes flowing out from the sweetness of God’s pardoning grace is such as passes understanding. Yet even after all this there will be many dangers, and you will be caught up in many temptations; but this peace of God will be a guard to your souls, to keep you from sin and temptation.

The soul of a believer that has had peace spoken to it is compared there to a captain in war, or a prince, who, sensing himself in some danger, sets a strong guard about his person to keep him from danger. Now what is the guard that keeps the soul of a believer from temptation and danger? It is the peace of God; that is the greatest and strongest guard in the world. If you complain of sin and temptations, and are afraid that sin will take you by surprise, what guard would you have to keep you? The peace of God is the best guard there can be. Now if, after this has been a guard to you, your sin breaks in on you as fully and as freely as if there were no guard at all, your condition is very sad.

[2] Let me speak further to those who sin after the pardoning grace of God, and do not walk in a way that answers to the grace that was let out in witnessing the pardon of their sin: it is a thousand to one that you will lose your evidence. It is true that the pardon is irrevocable in God’s heart; yet you may carry yourself so that by your loose walking you lose the evidence of it in your own soul, and it may be as sad with you as if you were not pardoned at all. We are to know that when an evidence concerning the pardon of sin has been given in, every renewed act of sin is a blot on that evidence. A man who has the deeds and evidences of lands or an estate will keep them clean. But if he should let them be blotted, one blot after another, perhaps so blotted that neither he nor anyone else is able to read them, it may cost him a great deal of trouble before he gets them renewed.

So it is with a poor creature who has gotten some comfortable evidence of the pardon of sin, but gives way to temptation and commits a sin, and there he gets a blot. Then the next temptation comes, possibly to worldly-mindedness, passion, unbelief, slightness of spirit, vanity, sensuality, and abuse of the creatures; and by often yielding to these he gets more and more blots. So if his evidences are looked into, they will be found so full of blots that it is no wonder he cannot read them in a time of temptation. Possibly some who are skillful in the way of God and the nature of the covenant of grace may pick out something of their meaning. But you have fallen so foully from God, and your evidences are so blotted and blurred, that in your own apprehension you can see nothing but that your condition is as dangerous and as uncomfortable as ever it was. Your evidences are so blotted that you cannot read them yourself, and so you have no comfort from them, and it is to you as if you had none at all.

This is the duty, and would be the comfort, of every Christian: when they have gotten their evidences, to keep them so clear that they might read them every morning, and run and read them. They should not stand poring over them, beating their brains and hearts and fretting because they cannot find such and such a thing that was to them an evidence of the pardon of their sins. This comes about through their neglect; and if they had been careful to keep their evidences clear and plain, oh, the comfort they might have had in reading them every morning! If the pollution of sin comes back again, no wonder the sense of the guilt of sin comes back again on your conscience. If God has committed such a jewel to you as the evidence of the pardon of sin, and you make no better use of it, it is just for God to take it out of your hands and keep it in his own. And though he shows mercy to you at last, yet you may not know it while you are in this world.

It is a very hard thing to recover it again. Those who have had the pardon of sin sealed to them have, by falling into sin afterward, so darkened and lost their evidences that they could never recover them again. Look at David; see how he cries out, “Create in me a clean heart, and restore to me the joy of thy salvation” (Ps 51:10, 12). David saw that all was gone, and that there must be a new creation and a restoration. “Restore to me the joy of thy salvation”: oh, the joy that I once had and have now lost; O Lord, that I may have it once again! David had a little sensual pleasure for a while, but he paid dearly for it: he lost the joy of God’s salvation. What do you think David would have given to get it back? For all we know, he never had it as fully as before.

Those who have had some comfortable evidence of pardoning grace, and afterward have lost it through their negligence, looseness, and vanity, may never come to enjoy its comfort again as they formerly did. And therefore, when Peter had sinned against his Master, notice what happened when Christ came to Peter. He said, “Lovest thou me?” Peter answered, “Lord, thou knowest I love thee.” Christ puts it to him again: “Lovest thou me?” He would not take his first answer, but put it to him the second and the third time, “Lovest thou me?” (John 21:15-17). It was as if Christ had said to Peter, “Look to yourself; it is not any present, sudden work that can recover your evidences again.” You who have sinned and darkened your evidences need to put this question to your own hearts again and again, to make it sure that you love Christ and that Christ loves you.

[3] Let me speak to those who sin after pardon: it may justly provoke God to deal with you as a slave rather than as a child, though he does not take away his everlasting love; I mean, to follow you with sore and heavy chastisements. Though he may save your souls at last, yet it may cause God to meet you with such sore and evil things in this world that you may pay dearly for that sloth and sluggishness of your hearts before you die. Truly, such may be the dealings of God with his own children whom he pardons. In Jeremiah 2:14 God is speaking to his own people: “Is Israel a servant? Is he a home-born slave?” And again: “What hast thou to do in the way of Egypt?” (Jer 2:18).

So it is with you whom God has formerly received to mercy and pardon. You have walked in such a way that God’s ways toward you seem to be such that it may be said, “Is this man or woman a servant? Is he a home-born slave?” God speaks it with pity: Israel is my dear son; how does it come about that he is like a home-born slave? What, is he a servant, and brought into such a condition as a servant or a slave? What is the matter? Why, he is in the way of Egypt. So it may be said to you who walk in the sensual dross of your spirit: have you not been in the way of Egypt? Are your ways such that God deals with you as if you were a servant and a home-born slave? Where is that free and childlike spirit of yours, that God is forced to deal with you as he now does?

[4] Again, you who sin after pardon come to aggravate your sins beyond the sins of the wicked, in some respects. As for the wicked, who go on in their vile ways against God, you cry out against them as wretched creatures: base, filthy, drunkards, swearers, liars, false men and women in their dealings, people not fit to be dealt with in the world. You think these are wicked. But you who sin after mercy, your sins carry an aggravation beyond theirs. For they never knew what God’s sweet pardoning mercy meant. They never heard God speak peace to their souls as you have heard him speak to yours. They never had the secret visitations of God’s Spirit, nor the warm beams of God’s mercy shining into their hearts. They were never acquainted with such things; and therefore, though they go on in the sin they have been accustomed to, it is not so much to be wondered at. But you have had a taste of the sweetness of God’s love in Christ in pardoning mercy, and for you to sin after this is a greater aggravation than the sins of the others.

And as it is a greater aggravation than the sins of the wicked, so your sin goes nearer to the heart of Christ than the sins of the wicked and ungodly do. The sins of the most profane wretch in the whole town do not go as near to the heart of Christ as those committed after receiving mercy from Christ: “What, you, my sons, to do such and such things against me?” I remember it is reported of Caesar that when many came about him with their daggers and stabbed him in the Senate House, at length Brutus came, whom he had done much good for, and gave him a blow. Caesar looked at him and cried out, “What, you, my son Brutus, will you give me a blow and a stab?” It went nearer to Caesar’s heart to have Brutus come and give him a wound and a stab than all the others who came round about him and stabbed him.

So Christ may look on you, for whom he has purchased pardon, for whom he shed his blood and laid down his life: “What, you, my son, will you sin against me?” For wicked wretches who are strangers to him, it is no wonder if they sin against him. But for you who are his sons, his redeemed ones, who have received such pardoning grace and mercy, for you to sin goes to the heart of Christ more than the sins of the most ungodly wretch in the whole parish. And would you not be loath to do more against Christ than the vilest wretch in the parish, you who have received so much mercy from Christ?

Further, other men’s sins anger God, but no one’s sins grieve the Spirit of God as much as the sins of those who have received pardon. They go to the heart of God and grieve the Spirit by whom they are sealed. The Spirit of God has sealed the pardon of your sins to your souls; do not let that Spirit be grieved. It is a greater sin to grieve the blessed Spirit of God than you are aware of.

Further, and once more, you bring disgrace on the doctrine of assurance of pardon. We preach that a man may not only have some good hopes that his sins are pardoned, but we say that God has revealed such a fullness of the riches of grace in the gospel that a man may have certain and full assurance of the pardon of his sin. It may be as if he heard a voice from heaven speaking to him by name, “Your sins are pardoned,” or as when Christ in the days of his flesh said to anyone, “Son, go in peace, your sins are pardoned.” Certainly there may be as full an assurance of the pardon of sin, by the witness of the Spirit of God, as if such a voice came from heaven. But our adversaries say, “Only open that gap, and it is an open way for men to take liberty to commit any sin. Why need men care what sins they commit, when they know they are pardoned?” That has been objected against us.

But we say that there is such a virtue in the grace of God that goes along with the pardoning of sin that it heals the soul as well as comforts it. That is how we answer the objection. But you take away our answer and disgrace that blessed doctrine of the pardon of sin. For where does it appear that there is such a healing power in the assurance of the pardon of sin? If it were so, then you would walk more strictly than any man in the world can walk in the time of the greatest horror of conscience there can possibly be, and this would bring honor to the doctrine of assurance. But by sinning after pardon, how you disgrace this blessed doctrine and take the answer out of our mouths! So much for the present is to be spoken to those who dishonor the pardoning mercy of God by sinning after pardon.

There is one more sort of people who greatly dishonor the pardoning grace of God. They are those who think they honor him, and yet dishonor him exceedingly. These are people who become aware of the greatness of their sins, their vileness, and their own misery, and because of it lie down in a sullen, desperate, discouraged mood under the weight and burden of their sins. They are ready to turn against themselves, saying, “Surely my condition is such that I must expect nothing else but to lie forever under the burden of my sins, and to bear the punishment of them forever. I have indeed heard much of the riches of the pardoning grace of God; but for my part, my condition is such that I have little expectation of being made a partaker of it.”

Certainly this kind of sullen discouragement, this lying under our sins, is a mighty aggravation of our sin, and exceedingly dishonoring to the pardoning grace of God. Many who are in this state may hear ever so much opened of the riches of the gospel and the infiniteness of the grace of God, and it is all nothing to them. It does not raise them out of the sullenness of their hearts and the discouragement of spirit that hangs on them. They are like those to whom Moses spoke in Exodus 6:9: “but they hearkened not for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.” God sent Moses to show them the grace of God, to deliver them from their bondage; but, says the text, they did not listen to Moses, only because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.

So it is with many people. When God comes to awaken their consciences, there is so much anguish in the sense of their sin that they do not listen to what is said. Let them hear ever so much in private or in public, they are just where they were, with the same complaints, the same sullenness, and the same objections as before. You may answer all their objections against the grace of God, so that they do not know what to say; but let them go away for half an hour, and they will have the same objections, as if nothing had ever been said to them.

Certainly there is more evil in this than you are aware of, this limiting and determining of God’s grace. It is true, there is reason to judge yourselves unworthy, and to judge that God may deny you; but that God will deny you is another thing. There is a great deal of difference between these.

Some, when they are urged to use the means of grace, will confess that they ought to attend on them, and that they will do it. “But yet,” they say, “when I have done all, I have little hope that God will deliver me; I shall die and perish in my sins.” They are like the woman in 1 Kings 17:12. She says, “I am a poor woman, I have but a handful of meal in the barrel, and a little oil in a cruse, and am gathering two sticks that I may eat it and die.” As if she said, “What little I have I am preparing, and when I have eaten this, I must die.”

Thus says many a soul: “I may go and hear the Word, and pray, but to little purpose. Still, I will go and do these things, and then I must die. It is but little that I can make of prayer. When I have spoken two or three words, I am immediately distracted with wandering thoughts. Two or three sticks I may lay together, but when I have done that, I must die.” Now know and consider this day what shall be said to you from God: you greatly dishonor the pardoning grace of God.

1. Know that you have very low thoughts of the pardoning mercy of God, of what Christ has purchased, and of what God has intended from everlasting in the covenant of grace for those souls for whom he intends good. As for his intentions, he keeps them to himself (and would not have you meddle with that) until he manifests them in the work of grace. Yet in the meantime, since he has revealed nothing further than that you may have this grace as well as anyone else, he expects you to venture yourself on his grace through his Son Jesus Christ. You say that you are vile and unworthy, and that even after using the means you are unprofitable, vain, full of wandering thoughts and deadness, and therefore you cannot expect grace. But know that you have only mean thoughts of the grace of God when you set such things as these against it. These are poor, low, unworthy things to set against the grace of God, and those who set such things against it lower the grace of God too much.

A scholar would think it a dishonor if someone came to reason with him and brought nothing but poor, low, weak objections that are not worth answering; he would think it a disgrace to him. Certainly it is a dishonor to the grace of God to set such things as these against it. You look on it in a natural way, and do not consider that it is the great design of God, above all things in the world, to magnify his grace in pardoning sin. Surely, if this were understood, these things would be counted too low and unworthy to be set against such a design, since it is the greatest design that God has to magnify his name in.

2. You judge God according to your own thoughts, and God will take this exceedingly ill, as with those in Psalm 50:21: “Because I kept silence thou thoughtest I was altogether such a one as thyself.” It is a great evil to measure God by our own thoughts, and there are two ways of dishonoring God by it.

(1) The first is the way of the carnal, complacent sinner. He measures God by his own thoughts. He thinks God is not so strict as to be angry at every fault, and that if we offend, we need only go and beg his pardon, and he will be pleased again. We think it an easy matter to please God, and because God is silent, we think he does not hate sin as he does. That is one way of dishonoring God.

(2) A second way is when a man comes to be troubled for sin and his conscience is enlightened. Then we think slightingly of God in another way. Perhaps you have a hard heart and would not pardon someone who provokes you again and again; you would not pass by such and such offenses, and you think God is the same. You think God is like yourself, and that he cannot bear with you in such and such things because you cannot bear with others. This is to judge God by our own measuring line. But know that the thoughts of God’s pardoning grace are as far above ours as the heavens are above the earth; and therefore we must not measure God by our own thoughts.

3. You dishonor the pardoning grace of God by having low thoughts of it, because this is contrary to the Scriptures. For the main scope of all the Scriptures is to magnify the pardoning grace of God, and to set it out in its greatness to your soul, and you make it your main work to undervalue it. Luther says, “The scope of the whole Scriptures is but this, that we might know and acknowledge God to be a gracious and merciful God.” And one greater than Luther speaks this. There is a notable text of Scripture in the Acts of the Apostles: “And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify, it is he that was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:42-43).

Mark this: “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.” So it is the scope and intention of all the prophets to witness this to a poor soul: that whoever believes in him shall receive remission of sin. You will say, “Whoever believes in him, yes; but that is the whole question.” But you hinder yourself from believing. You want to have assurance before you believe; but you must believe so that you may have it. That is, you must venture and cast your soul on this grace of God. All the prophets witness this, that whoever believes in him shall receive remission of sins. Therefore, by sitting down in these sullen, discouraging thoughts of your heart, you give the lie to all the prophets of God. You give the lie not only to our preaching (for certainly it is so, and God sees it so), but to all the prophets of God. Now when God makes it the work of all the prophets to witness forgiveness of sins by Christ, will you make it your work to object against it?

Again, know that your reasonings are quite contrary to the Scriptures. You reason that pardoning mercy will not be yours because your sins are so great. But David cries to God to pardon his iniquities, for they are great (Ps 25:11). He makes the greatness of his sins an argument to drive him to God, not from God. And this is God’s own argument in Genesis 8:21: “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake.” Why? “For the imaginations of man’s heart are evil from his youth.” One would have thought it should have been like this: “The imaginations of man’s heart are evil, and therefore I will do nothing else but curse the ground.” “No,” says God, “I will not, because the imaginations of man’s heart are evil from his youth.” It is as if he should say, “If I should never stop cursing until man stops sinning, I should always be cursing.” So God says, “If I should never pardon sin until men’s sins are less, I should never pardon at all.”

So in Hosea 2:13-14 you have God reasoning there much as he does here. “She went after her lovers, and forgat me,” says God; and in verse 14, “Therefore will I allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.” He will do it for this reason: she had forgotten him and gone after her lovers. See how the Scripture makes that an argument of God’s mercy.

Take another text, in Isaiah 57:17: “For the iniquity of his covetousness I was wroth and smote him; I hid me and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart.” Mark what follows: “I have seen his ways and will heal him, and will restore comfort to him and to his mourners” (Isa 57:18). He went on stubbornly in the perverseness of his spirit, says God: “I have seen his ways and will heal him.” In this way God expresses himself to the end of the chapter, to encourage the hearts of those who feel their sins, and who would feel the evil of sin and count it a great misery that they cannot feel it. The Lord would encourage them. Therefore the greatness of sin is no discouragement at all.

Further, the way you are taking is the way to perish. There can be no good in that way. You may pine away in your iniquity, but as for getting any counsel, help, comfort, or mercy, be assured you cannot. Therefore reason as the lepers did in 2 Kings 7:3-4: If we sit here we shall certainly die, if we go to the camp of the Syrians they can but kill us, let us arise and go. And it was a good going for them, for they met with what helped and relieved them. So you too should say, “If I sit down like this, there is no way but I must die. But however it goes, even if I should never get any comfort or help, it is better to venture that way than the other.” You do not know what you may meet with.

Perhaps you think it humility to sit down in this way; but know that the most desperate pride may lie under it, and may stand together with such discouragements. We know that the proudest spirits may be the most discouraged spirits. Take the devil: the Scripture sets him forth as proud as Lucifer, and yet none are so proud as spirits under such discouragements. There may be much pride in discouragements. Therefore take heed that there is not some secret pleasing of yourselves in this way. You may be in some trouble; yet if you feel a secret pleasure in the smart that falls on you, and some kind of contentment in going your own way (as many people, though they meet with an abundance of crosses, are much pleased if they can still go their own way), take heed: there may be desperate pride at the bottom of all this.

Objection. “If this is to dishonor the pardoning grace of God, what would you have us do?” (We would not say it if it were not so. To what end do we study, and pray to God for light and help to open the grace of God, if a little discouragement of heart and sullenness of spirit is to turn it all aside and make all that we say of no effect? Therefore there is great reason why we should tell you that this is a great dishonoring of the pardoning grace of God.) “But what?” you say. “Would you have us doubt no more, but go on and persuade our hearts that our sins are pardoned, and that is the end of it?”

Answer. No. If I should say you could do this, it would be in vain for me to say all this. For it is not in your power to cast off all fears of God’s anger and immediately persuade yourselves that your sins are pardoned. This is not in your power to do, and therefore this is not what I am urging you to do. It must be the mighty work of God. In Ezekiel, when the prophet had finished at the end of the first chapter, in the very next verse, at the start of the second chapter, God says, “Son of man, stand upon thy feet” (Ezek 2:1). But that was not enough to raise the prophet; no, not even for God himself to say, “Son of man, stand upon thy feet.” But together with the voice of God, in verse 2, the Spirit of God enters into him and sets him on his feet (Ezek 2:2). So it is with the ministers of the Word. We speak to souls who are cast down under the burden of their sins, telling them to stir themselves up, so that they may not always lie down drooping, but stand up on their feet. But along with our speaking, God must speak and convey his Spirit to the soul before it is able to stand up.

Question. Well, but what would you have us do?

Answer. These are the things I would have you do.

First, I would have you turn your fears of presuming into fears of dishonoring the grace of God. I would have you be as fearful that God’s grace should be dishonored by unbelief as you now are fearful that you should presume upon God’s grace. Those who are complacent do not fear that they will presume. But those whose consciences are awakened have this as their great fear: that they will presume upon God’s grace and dishonor it by presumption. If you fear that you will dishonor the grace of God by presumption, why should you not fear that you will dishonor it by unbelief as well as by presumption? Certainly the strength of this temptation comes from the devil. Those whose consciences are troubled for sin, he labors to keep from venturing on the grace of God, for fear they should presume. But the way to cut the sinews of this temptation is to fear rather that you will dishonor the grace of God by unbelief. Many do not look upon unbelief as a great sin, but God is as displeased with your unbelief as he is with those who presume.

Second, here is what I would have you do, you who are under the checks of conscience for sin, full of doubts that God will not pardon, and unable to be persuaded that your sins are pardonable. Labor to set the greatness of the pardoning grace of God, in all its fullness, as far as you possibly can, before the eye of your souls, so that it may be before you. Though you cannot reach it, still set it before you. You do not know what power the pardoning grace of God has by being presented before your souls and kept there. No wonder you do not find its power, when you do not set it before your eyes; the power of God’s grace lies much in presenting it before your souls. The bronze serpent would never have healed if they had not looked at it. So, though the pardoning grace of God is in books and sermons, yet unless it is before your eyes, and you fix and fasten the eye of your souls upon it, it will never heal you.

Therefore keep it before your eyes. There is an excellent expression in Psalm 5:3: “In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.” I suppose many of you will not neglect prayer to God in the morning. But mark the expression: “I will direct my prayer.” It is not “I will say my prayers,” but “direct my prayer,” and there is great emphasis in it. I will aim my prayer rightly, and dart my soul up rightly to heaven, and observe the way God would have me go, and so direct my heart in prayer to him. Perhaps some of you go this far, and do not content yourselves with a dead-hearted, sluggish prayer. But what do you look to all the rest of the day? Shall wandering and discouraging thoughts bring you to look down all day long? If you would look up to your morning prayers, and to what you prayed for, a great deal of power would come upon your souls.

Third, be careful to keep your hearts stirring and active. Be afraid of deadness and dullness. Beware of thoughts like this: “Why should I pray and read, when I have no heart to perform any duty?” Up and be doing, and the Lord be with you! If ever your hearts were active in anything in the world, they ought to be active in this. If once you give yourselves liberty to lie down, and the activity of your spirits is gone, you are in a sad condition; it will be very difficult to get them up again. Beware of a sullen heart. You may be very active and yet calm, quiet, and patient; there is a great joining together of these two. I may be active and yet calm, stilling my heart under God and yet stirring my heart toward God; these two are joined together in those whom God directs to himself.

Fourth, renew your resolutions: that whatever becomes of you, whether God ever speaks peace to you or not, yet as long as you live you will do what you can to honor his name and to keep from sin. Keep your heart under the power of this resolution.

Fifth, keep your heart in a waiting frame. Use the means; lie at the pool. The man who lay many years waiting for the stirring of the waters met with help at last. So you too, keep your heart in a waiting frame, and think to yourself that if mercy comes at last, it will repay you for all your waiting and pains.

Sixth, be willing to catch hold of any beginnings of God’s revealing of himself. If it is only a little glimpse, make much of it, and bless God for it. Many in their trouble seek to God for pardon, but they are always complaining, either to their neighbors or to themselves, and seldom express themselves in thanksgiving. Now, you should observe what God has granted, what beginnings and glimpses of his grace appear. Look and see whether there is not a little cloud the size of a man’s hand. It may breed a shower; a shower of grace may come after it. But take notice of it while it is only the size of a man’s hand. It is a great evil in those who are under trouble of conscience that, because they do not find full assurance immediately, they think they receive nothing at all. Well, wait upon God under these directions. Then, just as you will not be so guilty of dishonoring the pardoning mercy of God, so it will be a means of bringing great good to your souls.

We have now finished with the several ways of dishonoring the pardoning grace of God. Because God is very jealous over this and takes it exceedingly ill, I have dwelt on it at greater length. Now I am to show the evil of it.

The Evil of Dishonoring God’s Pardoning Grace

First, there is this evil in it: it is a sinning against mercy, which God counts his glory. A man takes it exceedingly ill if he is wronged in his goods or in his good name, or in anything in which he sees an excellence of his own. And mark this: the greater the excellence a man sees in anything, the greater the evil he counts the wrong done to him in that thing. If you wrong a covetous man in his estate, he immediately cannot bear it; he is like a madman, because you wrong him in what he counts his greatest excellence. So a scholar, a man of ability, would rather you wronged him in anything than regarded him as a dunce, because he counts his abilities and learning his greatest excellence; therefore he will not be wronged in that. So with you who are mariners and have skill in sailing and in the art of navigation. If someone belittles your work and finds fault with you there, it is as if he laid hands on your freehold; you cannot bear it. Why? Because you count it your excellence.

So it is between us and God. If we wrong God in what he counts his excellence, he cannot bear it. Now the pardoning mercy of God is what God counts his excellence and glory. In Exodus 34, when God descended to show Moses his glory, his pardoning mercy was one of the great masterpieces in which God counted his glory to consist, more than in the making of heaven and earth. Now for God to be despised in that in which his glory consists must necessarily be a great dishonor to him. The mercy of God comes from the very bowels of his compassion. Now if you strike someone on the arm or the shoulder, it is not as much as if you struck him in the bowels. When you dishonor the pardoning grace of God, you are, as it were, kicking at the bowels of God and of Christ, and he counts it so. Certainly you who can hear this and neglect it, and prize and prefer every base lust before it, go about, as it were, kicking and spurning at the bowels of God. A child who kicked at his mother’s womb would not be so much to blame as you are, who go on in sin after you have heard the pardoning grace of God opened to you. Your going on in sin is a spurning at the very bowels of God.

Second, this aggravates the sin of such people above the sins of the heathen. Their sins are nothing in comparison with the sins of those who live under the gospel and have the grace of God opened to them. At the day of judgment, when you hear the heathen condemned for sins against the light of nature, they may say, “Lord, what will become of these?” and, “We never heard of such grace and pardoning mercy in Christ as you have heard of, you who have lived in such and such a place and have had the pardoning mercy of God opened to you.” Even if they do not plead against you, yet it will be made known before all men and angels what you have heard, what has been preached to you, and what God has done for you. And if you continue in sin, your sins will be aggravated by it and your condemnation heightened.

Third, your sin is above the sin of the devils. The sin of the devils is not as great as yours, you who live under the light of the gospel and have the pardoning grace of God preached to you. For though the devils blaspheme God continually, yet their sins do not carry this aggravation that yours carry. God never came and told them he was willing to pardon their sins, nor did Christ make any purchase for them by his blood. But to you the gospel is preached, and pardon is offered to you daily. Are not your sins greater, then, than the sins of the devils? Suppose someone had wronged and injured you, and ought to seek pardon from you, but instead you go to him, offer him pardon, and plead with him to accept it, and he goes away and despises you. Would you not count this a great aggravation of his offense? Know that your sinning against this grace puts you in a worse condition than Beelzebub himself, the chief of all the devils. He never had this aggravation, and it is a dreadful one: to sin against the pardoning mercy of God. So the very devils may complain against you and say, “O Lord, we sinned against you, but you took advantage against us immediately for one sin. But how these have sinned against your pardoning mercy, which has been offered to them again and again, and which was never offered to us!”

Fourth, I might show you what evil the Scripture says of it. Take two or three texts. In John 3:18: “He that believeth not, is condemned already.” And in the last verse of that chapter: “He that believeth not, the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). It sticks fast upon such a person. And that place in Hebrews 10:28-29: if those who sinned under Moses’s law died without mercy, though they had only a little of this grace revealed to them, how much sorer punishment shall they have who sin under the gospel, under the full revelation of this grace! But to conclude it all: nothing will so aggravate your torments in hell as these sermons of God’s pardoning mercy, if you go on in sin.

When we speak of the pardoning grace of God, we cannot do it without trembling hearts. Why? Because we know God will be exceedingly quick with those who have the grace of the gospel preached to them. And therefore when we come to this subject, we cannot help doing as a physician does who is giving his patient a potion of mighty operation, which will either cure him or, if it does not cure him, dispatch him suddenly. A physician cannot help coming with a trembling hand with such a potion, when he knows it must work one way or the other. We know God is exceedingly quick with those to whom he reveals his pardoning mercy in the preaching of the gospel. The truths we preach will work quickly, either to bring you out of your sins to salvation, or else to dispatch you quickly to condemnation.

“Go,” says Christ, “and preach the gospel to every creature; and he that believes shall be saved; and he that believes not shall be damned” (Mark 16:15-16). It is as if Christ had said, “Go, open the doctrine of the gospel and the justification of a sinner by the freeness of the grace of God through Christ Jesus. Whoever will come in, and believe, and close with it shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be damned. There is no trifling in the business: he who believes and comes in shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall perish; he shall be damned. Let people know, when they have the gospel preached to them, that there is no trifling, no dallying with it; it is not to be put off. He who comes in shall be saved, but he who stands off shall perish, shall be damned, and shall know that I will fetch up my glory from him another day, in another way.” It is as if Christ had said, “Go, preach, and make quick work of it: either come in and be saved, or stand out and perish.”

And so John, when he came to preach the doctrine of the forgiveness of sin, says, “Now the axe is laid to the root of the tree, every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire” (Matt 3:10). Now also the axe is laid to the root of the tree. Why not before? No; all that while they went on in ignorance and did not understand sin, nor the grace of God brought to them for the pardon of their sin. All that while God let them grow, though they bore no fruit, or only bad fruit. But now also the axe is laid to the root: if he does not bear good fruit now, he is hewn down and cast into the fire. Now, when you hear of the pardon of sin and of grace revealed in the gospel, either you bring forth fruit or you do not. If you do not, God is peremptory. If you come in and embrace the gospel, you shall be saved; but if you do not, the axe is laid to your root to cut you down.

The gospel makes quick work with you. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:16, it is so strong that it kills with its very savor; it has such a savor that it can kill with its very smell: To him that believes, it is the savor of life unto life; but to him that believes not, it is the savor of death unto death. And in Acts 17:30: “In the times of ignorance God winked,” that is, when men did not understand what the evil of sin was, “but now he commands all men to repent.” Before you heard of the dreadful evil and malignity there is in sin, God might wink at you. But now, when you have heard so many sermons on the evil nature of sin, he commands you all to repent, or else God will be very quick with you.

Hebrews 4:12 is an excellent place: “The word of God is quick and powerful.” But what word is it? Mark what he says in Hebrews 4:2: “Unto us,” says he, “was the gospel preached.” It was the word of the gospel. And in Hebrews 4:8: “If Jesus had given them rest.” It is that rest spoken of in the gospel. And mark what he says at the beginning of the chapter: “Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left of entering into rest, any of you should seem to come short of it” (Heb 4:1). Let us therefore fear, for the word of God is swift and will make quick dispatch. No sermons make such quick dispatch as sermons of the gospel. Fear lest any seem to come short. Let us fear lest any of us should go on in any way that makes it seem that we reject the gospel.

It is well worth observing how God dealt with Israel of old. We never find God swearing against them until they rejected the land of Canaan and preferred Egypt to it. The spies were sent out to search the land, and they brought back some of its grapes and told the people what an excellent, fruitful land it was (Num 13-14). But because there was some difficulty in getting it, they fell to murmuring. Then God took a solemn oath that they should not enter it. Though they had provoked him ten times, yes, forty years in the wilderness, yet God never swore against them until that time. You who walk in the wilderness of your sins, with your heart hardened against all the truths of God: that soul is in a sad condition against which God swears in his wrath that it shall not enter into his rest.

But now, if God has come in to you and opened Canaan to you, and brought you any clusters of those grapes, revealing the mysteries of the gospel and pardoning grace through Christ, and if you now hang back and long after the onions and garlic of Egypt, then fear and tremble lest God should swear that you shall never enter into rest. You who are wicked, unclean persons, who went on in sin: though you had some light of nature that made your conscience check you, yet God was patient, and your condition was not so dangerous then. But now, after hearing this grace of the gospel and this pardoning mercy, a drunkard, an unclean person, or one who lives a vile life is in a thousand times more danger than before that God should swear against him now. Take heed: in every act of renewing your sin you are in danger that God in his wrath will swear against you that you shall never enter into rest.

Question. Well, if the case is so, then you may say, “What shall we do so that we may not dishonor this sweet and precious grace, but may honor God in it?”

Answer. Is this the frame of your heart, to be careful above all things in the world that you may not dishonor this precious grace? Does your heart work like this: “Lord, whatever I have been before now, though I have been a negligent, vile wretch, yet for the time to come it shall be the work of my soul to give myself up to whatever God shall speak to me, so that I may not dishonor God”? Is this the frame of your spirit? The Lord keep it so. Now, so that I may direct you in this great point, I shall first show who they are that are pardoned, for that will be a foundation for direction. Then, second, I shall show you what you ought to do to obtain pardon, what we are to put you upon if you do not find evidence of it. And then, third, I shall show what is to be done for the honoring of the grace of God by those who have some comforting evidence of it.

Our work now is to show who they are that have their sins pardoned. For there is nothing in all the world that concerns us so much as to know how things stand with us in relation to God and our souls, whether we are pardoned or not. A mistake in this is an astonishing mistake. And yet how many thousands there are who risk the whole weight of this great business on poor, weak, and slight grounds, yes, rather on the mere suggestions of their own hearts! Therefore we must first labor to convince people of their mistakes about the pardon of sin, and then lay down some sound evidences of pardon, in which there may be true and solid peace. People are exceedingly apt to be mistaken about the pardon of sin. They hope that God has pardoned them and that their sins will not be laid to their charge, but on very slight grounds that will deceive them.

And therefore I desire that this day you would look on yourselves as arraigned before the great God, as one day you must be. Let your hearts hear and attend to what we deliver as if God were speaking to you and saying, “You sinner, you know of such and such things, and you have been guilty of them. What can you say why the sentence of everlasting death should not be passed on you? Why should God not declare against you according to his law?” I suppose there is scarcely one of you who does not have some hope that God will never proceed against you according to his law; for indeed, if he does, you are undone forever. But what are the grounds of your hopes? Why do you think that God will not proceed against you for your sins, but will pass them by and forgive you? Let us examine the grounds of this a little, for it is of very great consequence. Certainly many people have now sunk down into the bottomless pit of hell by resting on false grounds. I shall labor to uncover how weak the footing is of those who rest on false grounds.

First, many think that God has pardoned their sin because what they have been guilty of is only little, and for that reason they think a pardon follows as a matter of course. “If I were guilty of such horrible wickedness and notorious sins as many others are,” they say, “then I think it would go hard with me. I would be afraid that things between God and me were in a very grievous state. But the sins I have been guilty of are no such great sins; I hope God will pass them by. God forbid that I should think him so strict that he will not pass by such small sins as the ones I have been guilty of.” In answer to this:

1. Know that you do not understand what the evil and malignity of sin means. If you think that the least sin does not make such a breach between God and you as all the created power in heaven and earth can never repair, if you do not believe this, then all those sermons preached to you about the evil of sin have been lost on you. But know this: as a little penknife may stab you to death as surely as a gash from the greatest sword, and a little shot out of a pistol may kill you as well as a cannonball, so a little sin may prove your eternal ruin as well as a great one. Therefore it is no argument that God has passed by your sins because they are little ones. And on that point, consider this further thing I am going on to speak of.

2. God’s pardoning mercy is his own, to do with as he pleases. Therefore, so that God may show his prerogative, he will sometimes pardon some people their great sins, and others he will damn for little sins. You think your sins are not as great as other people’s, and so you think God will forgive you. Do not deceive yourselves with this; God will do with his mercy what he pleases. What if he chooses to pardon the most notorious gross sins in others, and to damn you for your sins of thought? What if he pardons the most notorious uncleanness and murder in another, and damns you for a wanton thought? He may do it, for his mercy is his own. For this, take the example of David and Saul compared together. David committed many sins, but especially those two, adultery and murder, and yet God pardoned him. But Saul committed far smaller sins than those, and yet God cast him off forever. The things on which God laid his casting off of Saul were these two sins:

(1) He did not wait until Samuel came. Samuel had appointed a time to come, and he put it off to the last minute. Saul was in a great strait. He waited for him a long time, and he thought he must not go to war unless he first offered sacrifice, and so he ventured to offer it himself, and did not wait out the full time. He waited so long that he thought Samuel would not come, and what he then did was only to offer sacrifice to God. And yet God lays this very thing to his charge as a reason why he would cast him off. Samuel tells him that God had intended to establish the kingdom to him forever, but now he will not (1 Sam 13:13). You are finished, Saul, for this sin.

(2) The second sin in Scripture on which God lays his casting off is this. God sent him against the Amalekites and told him to destroy everything, but he spared the fat of the flock, and the king. Now the sparing of the fat of the flock was done with a good intention. He professes it was so that the people might have the fattest to offer in sacrifice to God. It was a good intention, and yet for this God tells him that he would tear the kingdom from him, for that very thing (1 Sam 15:28). It is true that Saul was guilty of other sins; yet if you observe the story, you will find that these were the two sins on which God puts the casting away of Saul. And yet David committed murder and adultery and was not cast off. Why? Why, if God chooses to show his prerogative, what right has the creature to argue with him about it? If he will damn Saul for his sins that were smaller, and pardon David’s that were greater, what business is that of yours? His mercy is his own.

Perhaps you think this way because you could put a man off with this reason: “My sins are small, and therefore I may be forgiven them, because they are not as great as other people’s.” Grant that this may work with a man; yet know that it is not so with God. He may pardon great sins in others, and yet you may perish eternally for the least sins of all. Therefore take this as a conclusion: if you have no other ground for the pardon of your sins than that they are little ones, I pronounce in the name of God against you this day that your sins are not pardoned. They still stand on the record, and you will eternally perish in them if you have no other ground than that to show for their pardon. Therefore never make it an argument that your sins are pardoned because they are smaller than other people’s.

Second, others perhaps will plead, “My sins are not many. We are all sinners, but I have not multiplied and increased my sins as others have.”

Answer. I shall answer that briefly. Know that one sin is enough to damn you as fully as a million transgressions repeated again and again. One chain is enough to hold you in everlasting darkness. God may damn you for one sin as well as for ever so many thousands, as you have heard he did the angels for their first sin, and only one sin. Therefore, though your sins are not many, that is no argument at all.

Further, we may observe in the way of God’s pardoning mercy that he pardons some who have gone on in their sins a long time, and makes quick work with others who have been in sin only a little while. We may see this in the example of Manasseh and Amon; compare those two together. In the example of Manasseh you will find that he reigned some fifty-five years. He was a notorious, vile sinner against God, and yet he reigned a long time in it; his conversion came only late. “He was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem” (2 Kgs 21:1). Almost all this time he went on committing the most notorious abominations, and yet God pardoned him.

But now mark: his son Amon comes after him, and perhaps he might reason this way: “My father lived like this, and for a long time had his lusts and desires; why may I not venture to do as my father did?” So he went on in his father’s wickedness. But now mark: God comes upon him at once and lets him live only two years, and there is an end of him. Manasseh continued fifty-five years; his son comes after him and goes on in his father’s steps, and God cuts him off at once. So although some may continue in whoredom and in other abominations, and perhaps live in outward prosperity many years, forty or fifty years, and yet God may pass them by, if you sin after their example he may come upon you for the first or second act, cut you off, and send you down to hell at once. Therefore do not say, “My sins are only few, and so God will pass them by.” That is no argument at all.

Third, the third false ground on which others conclude that their sins are pardoned is this: the guilt of them does not lie on their consciences. They think they are not guilty of their sins. They say the sins were committed a great while ago, a long time has passed, and they have heard nothing of them; and so they think they will never hear of them again. God has passed them over entirely, they think, because they were committed long ago and they have not heard of them.

Answer. Do not deceive yourselves in this. As for the sins you committed twenty, forty, or sixty years ago, though you have never heard of them since, that is no argument that they are pardoned. They may be on file in heaven, standing there on record, and lie as a debt against you all, though they were committed eighty years ago. It is no argument that a criminal is pardoned because the assizes are not to be held tomorrow or the next day. It is true that God will hold his assizes for some sooner; but for you he has reserved them until another time, and that is why you do not hear of your sins. “In the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them” (Exod 32:34). God has his day, and perhaps his day to visit has not yet come; and so you think you are discharged, because the day of God’s visitation has not come to you.

And second, know further that though your sins were committed a great while ago, yet in regard to God’s eternity they are to him as if they had been committed this morning before you came to the assembly. Although you committed them forty or fifty years ago, yet to God they are but as a sin committed yesterday. Perhaps you think your consciences would fly in your faces if you were drunk last night and came to the Sacrament this morning. Certainly he must be a desperate wretch, a monstrous, notorious villain, who would dare to come to the Sacrament this morning when he was drunk last night, or last week, and has never made his peace with God. His conscience would fly in his face, unless he were a monster.

But now, know that your sins committed forty or fifty years ago are to God as if they had been committed only this morning. For God’s eternity does not consist in passing and coming, but in this: that there is no succession with God, no time past and no time to come with God. All time to God is a perpetual now. Therefore all the sins you have committed in time past are in God’s eye as if they had been committed this very hour. There is great need to understand this rightly, for the humbling of men and women, by causing them to look back on their sins and lay them to heart; for they are presented before God in this way, as if they had been committed this very moment. “Dost thou not watch over my sin? my transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity” (Job 14:16-17). God watches over your sins and will come upon you for them; they are sealed up in a bag.

Sometimes when I have seen the clerk of the assizes draw out his indictments, one man for murder and another for felony, it has put me in mind of this text. Those indictments against people had been put up in the clerk’s bag, perhaps a good while before, and now at the assizes they are drawn out and read openly in the face of the court. So all your sins are put in a bag, and in the day of visitation God pulls them out and reads them openly before men and angels.

We have an example in Scripture of how God came upon people for sins committed long before: the example of Joseph’s brothers, who sold him. Afterward they went on and never heard of it until a long time later. It does not appear that their consciences were troubled until twenty-two years after they had committed that sin, when they came into Egypt and were in affliction; and then their consciences began to fly in their faces for the sin they had committed against their brother. Joseph was seventeen years old when he was sold, and when he stood before Pharaoh he was thirty; there are thirteen years. Then came seven years of plenty, and two years of famine before they came into Egypt; there are twenty-two years before their consciences flew in their faces for their sin against their brother.

Take heed what you do, for the sins of your youth may be a torment to your old age. Perhaps you little think of it; but remember, when you are old God may come and reckon with you for the sins of your youth. This is, and should be, a great argument to make people take heed of sin, for the sins you commit now may do you harm forty or sixty years from now. It is as with the natural body. Many young men feel no ailments in their bodies for the present, and so they do not care about their diet or about avoiding surfeits; yet after they grow old they feel ailments in their joints and bones, which are nothing other than their drunkenness and intemperance when they were young.

So it is with the soul. Many in their younger years eagerly follow after wickedness, and because they hear nothing of it, they go on their way and are never troubled; but afterward, in their old age, God comes upon them for the sins of their youth. Joab sinned when he was young, but when his head was gray, God came upon him in wrath for it. Therefore do not think all your sins are pardoned because it is a great while since they were committed. Rather, reckon up your former sins and bewail them, and do not rest on this ground, that it is long since they were committed. It is not to be built on. You must look for other grounds, or else you are undone forever, for this will certainly fail you.

Fourth, others reason that God has pardoned their sins, not only because they were committed a great while ago, but because they have had prosperity. It has gone well with them, and God has done them good; and surely, they think, if God had not pardoned their sins, he would never have let them thrive. I shall say only a little about this, for such reasonings are very empty (there are others I shall dwell on more). Know this: you make it an argument of God’s pardoning mercy, but it may rather be an argument of God’s eternal curse. For God to allow a man to prosper greatly after great sins committed is a sign that God has given that man over to hardness of heart, which is the most dreadful curse in the world. After God had rejected Saul, you may read in 1 Samuel 14-15 that Saul had a great deal of success in his way immediately after God had cast him off. So though God has cast off a man or a woman, that man or woman may still have much success in their way.

You who are mariners cannot draw this argument: that because you have had a good voyage and have come through such dangers (though you have committed many sins), God is at peace with you and all your faults are passed over. No; you may have many good successes in your voyages and yet perish at last for the sins you have committed in your voyages. And so you may have good success, as Saul had good success in war, and yet be cast off for all that.

Fifth, others say, “We are not so foolish as to make outward prosperity an argument or ground that our sins are pardoned. But we sorrow for sin, repent of our sins and turn from them, and rely on God’s mercy through Christ for the pardon of our sins.” These are arguments of a higher nature than the former ones. If there is true sorrow, unfeigned repentance, reformation, and a trusting in God’s mercy through Jesus Christ, they will be good arguments indeed. But now I shall show you that all these may be present, and yet sin not be pardoned; yes, even a relying on Christ, at least in such a way that people may think they rely on Christ, and yet their sin is not pardoned.

1. Though these things I mentioned last may seem hard, yet the testing of them is a very safe and wholesome thing, because if you are mistaken in this, you are undone. You will examine the deeds to your houses and lands; do the same in the great matters between God and your souls. As for sorrow for sin, I shall make it plain that there may be a great deal of sorrow for sin, and yet sin not be pardoned. You know the example of Ahab: “And it came to pass when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth and went softly” (1 Kgs 21:27-29). When God only sent the prophet to tell him of his sin, immediately on the prophet’s words he tore his clothes, which was a sign of extreme sorrow in those times. Then he put on sackcloth. He put off his princely robes, his fine apparel, and put on sackcloth, and that not as an outer garment but on his flesh. Then he fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly, like a dejected man. The pride and stubbornness of his heart seemed so much abated that God takes notice of it in 1 Kings 21:29: “Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me?” And because he did so, the judgment was deferred for a while. Yet certainly Ahab’s sin was not, and never would be, pardoned, though he put on sackcloth and humbled himself before the Lord.

I appeal to you this morning: are not many of you hoping for pardon of sin, and yet you come far short of Ahab? All you do in your repentance is to say, “God be merciful to me; I am sorry; Lord, forgive me,” and there is an end of it; it is all done at once. But Ahab went a great deal further, and yet his sin was not pardoned.

Take the example of Esau. You know what the Scripture says of him: he sought the blessing with tears, and yet found no place for repentance (Heb 12:17). His being rejected from the blessing was a type of his rejection from heaven. Some take the text this way, to prove that there may be tears and yet no true repentance. That is a truth: Esau was greatly troubled and shed many tears, and yet there was no true repentance. But I rather take the meaning of the text this way: he found no place for repentance in his father Isaac. His father Isaac had given the blessing to Jacob and would not call it back, though Esau sought it with tears. There was no room for Isaac to recall it anymore; though Esau shed many tears, he went without it. So there may be much sorrow, and you may seek the blessing with many tears, and yet God may be so turned against you that there will be no place for repentance; that is, God will not call back what has gone out against you.

And of Judas it is said that when he saw Christ was condemned, he repented (Matt 27:3). It is said he did repent, yet Judas was not pardoned. So you see plainly that there may be repentance and yet sin never be pardoned. Indeed, true repentance always has pardon going along with it; but the Scripture speaks of a repentance that may be without pardon.

Therefore, when you say you repent, you must not look on it this way: “Because I repent, therefore my sins are pardoned,” as if every repentance were true. For you are mistaken about the work of repentance. You think that repentance unto salvation is for you to be sorry at the very heart for your sins. Certainly you may be sorry at heart and yet perish for all that. I make no question that Judas was sorry at heart and wished it had never been done, and that if it were to do again he would never do it. As much as that is expressed: he repented, and he brought the thirty pieces back again. He was not only sorrowful but made satisfaction; he brought back the money he had gotten in a wicked way. Therefore, if you think this is true repentance, you are greatly mistaken.

But where is it that we fail? It is not for me now to enter on the doctrine of true repentance; I am to speak of it only so far as to convince people that it is not a ground of hope for the pardon of sin. Mark it: this is how it is with you. You repent because you see that sin will bring you into danger. You have had the pleasure or the profit of it, and now you see that it will bring you into trouble and danger, and you are sorry you ever did it. Certainly, if God would be satisfied with that kind of sorrow, he might have enough of it in hell; for there is yelling and sorrow there because of the troubles sin has brought on them. To sorrow because of the trouble our sins bring on us is merely natural. It flows from nature itself and is far from a saving work of repentance.

Therefore, the repentance many hope to have, what is it? When we tell them of their sins, they say they hope to repent. What do they mean? Why, they would take the pleasure of sin, and when the punishment comes they would be sorry for it and repent of it. The usual way to drive people from this plea is to ask them, “How do you know you will live, or that your hearts will not be hardened?” But suppose you do live, and that you have a heart to do as you say; yet your repentance may fail you. If your repentance is nothing other than the sorrow for sin that comes because of the punishment, it will fail you. Certainly the repentance that must pass as current in heaven is of another nature. Possibly I may show afterward what true and false sorrow are, but for the present I shall show where the mistake lies.

Whoever, therefore, builds their belief that their sin is pardoned merely on their sorrow, and on that kind of sorrow, is like a man who would put up a great building and lay its foundation in a quagmire, or on the sand, as the Scripture speaks; when storms come, the building falls. I shall speak hereafter to those who build on the sand; but these build on a quagmire, on a few tears and the sorrow and trouble of spirit they have on apprehending the punishment of sin. This building will fall in times of straits and danger. And this is the reason why people who depend on sorrow never have peace: for how can I tell what measure of sorrow I am to have before peace is spoken? And then, if they do not feel sorrow, they are questioning again. It is a dangerous thing to lay the hopes of pardon of sin on our own sorrows.

Where, then, or how shall we lay our hopes? Why, on the sorrows of Jesus Christ. There you will find the surest ground (there may be some mistake there too, but for the present I shall not stay on that). We must look ten thousand times more at the sorrows of Christ than at our own sorrows. And therefore, when your hearts are troubled and you look for mercy, depend ten thousand times more on the sorrows of Christ than on all your own sorrows. For your sorrows for sin cannot satisfy God’s justice, and whatever is to be a ground of hope for the pardon of my sin must be something that satisfies the justice of God. However much sorrow there is, it will not satisfy God’s justice.

And consider further: true sorrow follows the work of justification rather than precedes it. That is, I am not pardoned because I mourn; but because I am pardoned, I come to mourn. This is how the truth stands in theology on the point of justification and repentance. You pervert the order if you think that because you mourn and are a little sorrowful, therefore you will be pardoned. The truth is, if your mourning and sorrow are a work of true saving grace, you mourn and sorrow because you are justified. The sorrow of true repentance flows from pardon rather than pardon from it. When God pardons sin, he lets out the graces of his Spirit, and then comes sorrow as a fruit or evidence of God’s pardoning love and reconciliation. For though God may give outward favors to a man who is not pardoned, yet God never gives his Spirit to work any saving grace in the heart until he is reconciled: it is a fruit of his pardoning grace and favor. Because he has justified you, he sends his Spirit to work sorrow and repentance. Many think justification flows from sorrow, but you must come to sorrow and repentance another way. Know that all true sorrow flows from justification. All the sorrow that comes before justification is only legal sorrow. It reveals the things that may hinder the soul from Christ, such as sin, the terrors of the law, and the wrath of God, but it does not give the soul an interest in Christ. I affirm this as most certain doctrine: there is no sorrow by which any soul is given an interest in Christ and planted in him. The sorrow that is worked in people before justification (in the order of nature) may be a means to bring them to God, to make them inquire after Christ, and to stir up their hearts to take away the things that hinder them from Christ; but it does not give the soul an interest in Christ. You do not understand the way of the gospel if you think that sorrow gives the soul an interest in Christ. No, that must come by faith laying hold on him for justification, and then the sorrow of repentance comes after.

You may see yourself as an undone wretch because of sin, lost forever, and nothing in the world can quiet you; all this may be the work of the law. But then God comes and shows you his grace in Christ, and enables you to close with it for justification, and then evangelical sorrow comes in: mourning and melting sorrow, more than ever before. But now it comes another way. It comes from the Spirit of God melting the soul because it has sinned against Jesus Christ, who has appeared to it so graciously in his pardoning mercy. So now you sorrow because you are pardoned, for this sorrow comes as a fruit of faith laying hold of the pardoning grace of God. And there is no argument in the world that so melts the heart with sorrow as when faith tells the soul that sin is pardoned. Though your sorrow was little before and is greater now, you need not be troubled if God makes your humiliation for sin greater after you know of your pardon. For the revelation of God’s grace in the pardon of your sin is the most excellent means in the world to humble the soul.

The sorrows of God’s children after pardon work on God’s heart as well as on their own; God is mightily taken with them. Once your sins are pardoned, God makes your heart melt toward him as his heart melts toward you. But the sorrow of someone who is an enemy to God does not soften God’s heart. There is a great deal of difference between the sorrow of God’s children and the sorrow of others. The others make sorrow the ground of pardon, and God does not accept this. It is true, you may sorrow for sin, because it may be a means to bring you to Christ. But what justifies the soul is union with Christ by faith, and all the sorrow that works repentance to salvation flows from God’s grace in Christ, which has justified you.

Justification is the first thing that puts you in a state of blessedness. Sorrow does not first put you in a blessed condition; it is merely a fruit of the blessedness you are already put in. Certainly these things are the truths of God. So when you look for blessedness any other way, you look for it merely in a natural way, as a heathen may. A heathen knows he ought not to offend God, he knows he needs mercy from God, and he knows he ought to be sorrowful for his sins. I could give you many examples of this, but I must hurry on. Those, then, who seek pardon of sin this way are seeking it merely in a natural way.

2. Others say, “I am not only sorry for my sins, but I reform. Is this not a ground of pardon?” Know this as well: there may be a leaving of sin, and yet the sin not pardoned. For this, take the example of Herod. It is said, he heard John Baptist gladly, and reformed in many things (Mark 6:20). He was a great deal better for John’s ministry, and yet Herod was not pardoned. This is a notable example for you who come to hear sermons and seem much affected by them. Let me ask you in the name of God, and let conscience answer: What have you reformed since you heard all those sermons on the evil of sin, and now these on the pardon of sin? What evils have you reformed in your families and in your own hearts?

I cannot help hoping that many of you can say, “Through grace, these and these evils were in my family before, but now I have reformed them; and I used to do these evils, but now I have left them.” I hope many can say so, and blessed be God for this fruit of our ministry, if anything is reformed: if Sabbaths are better kept, if duties are set up in families and private exercises of religion performed, if you are not as proud, passionate, and peevish as before. Oh, that it might be said so! It is worth our labor to restrain sin, so that God may not be so much dishonored, even if nothing more were done.

But we preach for further and higher ends: that souls would not stop at reforming. For Herod heard John the Baptist and did many things; and Judas threw away the money, he repented and would not keep the money. There was a kind of reformation in both Herod and Judas, but this is no ground to build on for the pardon of sin. As those who depended on their sorrow for pardon built on the quagmire, so those who depend on their reformation build on the sand. The first, by his sorrow and trouble for sin, seems as it were to be in the work of humiliation. He is like a man who digs deep for a foundation but does not throw out the old soil, and builds on it. The second is like one who not only digs deep but throws out the old rubbish and brings in new soil, new earth: he lays aside and throws away his former sins, and does the contrary good.

But though these go further than the first in throwing out the old rubbish and bringing in new earth, yet after all this is done they build on it, and do not build on the Rock, Christ. They bring in the new earth of their own performances and duties, and this is what they build on. They do not build on the Rock, Christ, for the pardon of their sins and the justification of their souls before God. Here they fail; this is their undoing, their mistake. And yet it is most certain that every one of us would make this mistake. If God did not reveal in the gospel another way to receive pardon and justification in his Son, we would certainly all rest here and go no further. No man or woman in the world who never heard the gospel went further than this, and a person may go this far without the gospel. We may dig deep, throw out the old rubbish, and bring in new earth; we may do all this and never hear of the gospel.

And therefore we have great cause to bless God that we may hear the mysteries of the gospel opened to us, for otherwise we would certainly go no further; and if we go no further, we will certainly perish. Therefore if we go only this far, it is not building on the Rock, Christ. Hence the ground and bottom of faith for justification cannot be in reformation, or in anything in the creature. It must be in something above us and outside us, and yet ours by faith (which is wrought in us), though it lies outside us. I mean the Rock, Christ, and the foundation that is laid in Christ for the forgiveness of our sins. That must be the foundation of our faith, and not what we do ourselves. For:

(1) Know that all the reformation in the world will not satisfy for the evil you have done in time past. I want to convince you of this, so be willing to hear it; it may be of great use to you. When we preach Christ and free grace, it is to bring you to Christ. Our preaching down of works is not to keep you from doing them, but from resting in them. What I aim at is to bring you into an inquiring frame of spirit, a restless condition, so that we may bring you to what is true rest. And we will be as glad to bring you into true rest as we are now to bring you into restlessness. Know that all reformation for the time to come will not satisfy God for the time past; it will not. Among men, suppose you have fallen into arrears with your landlord for rent, and you bring him one quarter’s rent when three or four quarters are behind, or perhaps two or three years. If you thought to pay two or three years’ rent by bringing the last quarter, it would be counted a foolish notion. So it would be with God, if you thought the duties you do now should satisfy for all the arrears you have run up in time past.

You do not understand God’s way if you think God will be satisfied for all that is past by what you do at present. Suppose what you do now were perfect, and for all time to come you never committed one more sin against God; yet all this would not satisfy for the time past. This looks only at the time to come, and does not take off anything at all for the time past. Besides, you may see enough in your best reformations for God to condemn you, not only for your former sins, but for the sins in your reforming. But even if there were no sin in that, it would be no satisfaction for what is past. Mark this: Whatever is the ground of the pardon of your sin must be something that satisfies for your past sin and for all your sins to come. And this was opened to you when I opened the mysteries of godliness in the pardon and justification of a sinner.

(2) Know this: God accepts duties, not for the duties themselves, but because he accepts the person who performs them. God does not accept the duties and then the person; that is not God’s way. He first accepts the person, and then the actions. God never accepts what we do until he accepts our persons. As with Abel, God had regard to Abel’s person first, and then to his offerings; so God first has regard to the person of any man, and then to his offerings. You think you are a poor, wretched creature, and then perhaps you think, “If I had such and such gifts, and could do this and that, then God would accept me.” I tell you, all your gifts and performances are thrown away until God accepts your person. St. Paul was blameless according to the law, and yet he counted all loss for Christ. For he knew, when God revealed the gospel to him, that he could not be accepted for his righteousness; his person must first be accepted, and then his righteousness.

So the way of new obedience and the work of sanctification are the qualifications of the man who is justified, but not the conditions required for the justification of his person. It is not that which justifies the soul. The justification of the soul does not come through these things; these things flow from justification. And until a soul understands this, he never rightly performs duties.

Therefore further, to conclude this point: though good works and new obedience are good nurses to faith, yet if you make them the mother of your faith, your faith is only an illegitimate faith. These are not the true mother of faith. If your faith is begotten from your duties and performances, and your faith has no other mother than these, then your faith is illegitimate and not trueborn; it does not have the right mother. The right mother of faith is the manifestation of the freeness of God’s grace in the covenant of the gospel, shown to the soul through the mediation of the Son of God. When this is laid open to the eye of the soul by the mighty work of the Spirit of God, it raises and creates faith in the soul. This is how true saving faith is born, “the faith of God’s elect,” as the Scripture speaks (Titus 1:1). Duties and performances cannot be its mother. It is of a higher birth than any that arises out of gifts, duties, or performances whatever.

Your faith will not inherit if it is baseborn. It is through faith that we come to inherit the promises; and if your faith has no other foundation than your sorrows and reformation, your faith is illegitimate and not the kind that will inherit. It is not of the right kind, the kind that will bring you to salvation. So you see what mistakes there may be in this great point of the justification of a sinner and of being made blessed. Therefore we need to look to it and be sure that what we rest on will hold, lest, when we come to lay claim to blessedness and demand it, our hold should deceive us. Many think the main matters of religion are nothing but believing in Jesus Christ and crying to God for mercy. You see by the things I have spoken that there needs to be much working of spirit in the way of religion, and mighty strong teachings of the Holy Spirit to lead the soul. For there may be many mistakes; and to prevent and remove the mistakes that lie in the way of getting peace with God is a matter of great concern, and not a slight business to be done in a hurry.

3. Others say, “We trust in the mercy of God.” Here I must speak to two sorts.

(1) The first sort are those who are most grossly ignorant, who have no other ground to hope for pardon of sin except that they hear God is a merciful God. Know this much: notwithstanding what you hear of God, that he is merciful and not willing that men should perish, the Scripture clearly reveals to us that, though God is gracious and merciful, the greater part of the world perishes in their sins. Nothing is clearer than this, that most people in the world perish. Therefore to say God is merciful is not enough. You may be sorry for sin, reform, and say God is merciful, and yet perish. If these three were enough, what need was there for the Son of God to come and take our nature on him, be made a curse for man’s sin, lay down his life, and shed his precious blood? Why might these three not have been joined together, and so Christ never have come? For even if Christ had never come, I might have been sorrowful, and I might have reformed and said God is merciful. Those who never knew Christ, and have not yet heard of him, may be sorrowful, reform, and say God is merciful.

I beg you, consider this point: I can never be pardoned and saved in such a way as might have been possible even if Christ had never come. I can never be pardoned and saved by all the means I use for pardon and salvation if those things might have been done even if Christ had never come. And if you have nothing else but these to rest on, you can never be saved. Put this to your heart: “What have I brought about in my heart that I might not have had if Christ had not come into the world?” Certainly most of the things that most people rest on for pardon and salvation they might have had even if Christ had never come into the world.

Further, you say God is merciful. True, the mercy of God is sweet and a blessed argument, and our souls greatly delight to open the grace and mercy of God; I have tried to open to you what is revealed in the gospel. Yet God’s mercy is free, though he delights to glorify his mercy, and he has thousands upon thousands of subjects in whom to glorify his mercy, though you perish eternally. Though you perish eternally, yet God may be glorious in the blessedness of his mercy; God has others besides you to magnify his mercy toward. A beggar comes and asks alms of a man, and he gives him none. That is no argument that the man is not merciful, for he has other objects that are more suitable and fit. Though he does not give to everyone, it is no dishonor to his compassion. So it is with God: he has thousands of objects on whom to bestow his mercy, though you perish.

Further, you say God is merciful, and therefore you hope for pardon. Why, God is and has been merciful to you beyond all you can conceive; God has shown his mercy to you already. You say God is merciful. True, or else you would not be alive at this moment. That you should hear and see, and have all your limbs whole and the use of all your senses; that you should stand here today under the means of grace; that you should hear God calling you to repent and believe in his Son while you walk on in your sin and are dead in sins and trespasses; that he sends his Son and Spirit to you to tell you that he would rescue you and give you life: again, is this not rich mercy? Perhaps you have already had the portion of mercy God intends for you, yes, so much mercy that all the angels and saints will give their acclamations to God for the mercy you have had, even though you perish. God has shown you mercy in so many ways that the very devils themselves will acknowledge that God was very good to his poor creatures.

Further, you speak of mercy; have you not abused mercy and turned it into wantonness? Perhaps the mercy you speak of is pleading against you before God at this very moment, saying, “How I have been abused by this wretched man! The more my beauty and excellence have been displayed, the more wicked he has grown.” What if mercy is pleading against you now, even those mercies you have abused? Therefore you need to look for something else to settle your soul on than this, saying that God is merciful. So much for the first sort, those who are grossly ignorant.

(2) The second sort: there are others who mourn, pray, and reform, and then have some kind of reliance on God to pardon them for his mercy’s sake. To them I will say this much. Know that the mercy of God must be received in God’s own way. He has appointed how it is communicated, and so it must be received; otherwise it can never produce such an effect as the pardon of your sin. Note this: all the mercy in God, considered as he is Creator of heaven and earth and not let out through the Mediator, Christ Jesus, God-man, never worked the pardon of any one sin. Therefore if you look on the mercy of God and do not look to the right way in which it is conveyed, you may be most dangerously mistaken.

The ground and bottom of the faith that justifies is not merely casting oneself on the mercy of God (for there is no one who does not know, in a natural way, that God is a merciful God). The main ground of justification, or of justifying faith, is the free grace of God through Jesus Christ: that God is merciful through a Mediator. Otherwise the ground of your faith is nothing but a confused notion of the mercy of God, which will certainly fail you. A heathen may have as much as this for the ground of his faith: “The great Creator of heaven and earth pities those who are in misery, and I am a poor creature in misery. I will cry to him, and I will reform my life, and I will rely on him.” A heathen may go this far. But the ground and bottom of faith is not the mercy of God in general, but the mercy of God in and through a Mediator.

Observe a little further. The ground of justifying faith is not this: that God for Christ’s sake will forgive me because of what Christ has done to purchase my pardon. There is another work of faith in the souls of believers, though the soul may not perceive it. It is not the work of faith in justification to believe that Christ has paid as much as my debt comes to. Rather, the work of faith is to bring the soul to Christ and to fix it on the person of Christ, so that he is first made mine, and then the righteousness of Christ is mine. It is not like this: “I believe this is my debt, and there is so much money to pay it.” The work of faith is to bring you to be married to such a person, and so the debt is transferred to him to whom you are married, and he will discharge the debt because you are married to him.

So the ground of faith is not to look to God merely through his Son so that I may have pardon. Rather, I must come to have Christ as mine. I must be married to Christ, and so, through my union with the person of Christ, I come to have all that Christ has done and suffered made over to me. Therefore, when I come to look on the riches of the grace of God in the mediation of his Son, I must come with an eye of faith to be married to Christ, and Christ to me. The riches of God’s grace in Christ were opened before; we now make use of them as a test, to show the danger of false grounds in relying on God for pardon.

Further, though it is through the mercy of God that sin is pardoned, yet it does not work like this, as if God said: “You have sinned, and my law requires such and such obedience, performed on such terms, or else you must perish; but I, through my mercy, will remit something of the rigor and strictness of the law.” Most people confess that by the strictness of the law they are condemned, but they hope the mercy of God will grant some remission of the law. It is as it is among men: if all the penal statutes were executed, it would be very hard, but there is a Court of Chancery to abate something of the rigor and strictness of penal statutes. And this is how people think to come by pardon, dealing with God after the manner of men. You think crying to God for mercy will abate something of the strictness and severity of the law. But you are mistaken in taking this way to get peace and reconciliation with God, looking on God’s mercy as lying in this, that it remits something of the strictness and severity of the law. No; the work of God’s mercy lies in this: to find a surety for you, and to transfer the debt to him.

Further, consider the work of God’s mercy in the justification of a sinner. When faith lays hold on it, faith must not lay hold on it as a mere single act, but must look at everything that accompanies the work of God’s grace in making way for the justification of a sinner. The mercy of God works in many ways, and faith must exercise itself on God’s grace according to the many parts of its work in bringing about the justification of a sinner. For example, you have sinned and you cry to God for pardon. But the mercy of God does not pardon you as a single act; rather, the mercy of God works toward mankind like this. First, he is pleased to enter into a second covenant with mankind after man had broken the first. A second work of God’s mercy is to set his wisdom to work to find a way for mankind to be reconciled to him and his sin pardoned, and yet for God to be no loser; this was the work of his infinite wisdom. Third, when this is found, it can be done no other way than through the Son of God taking man’s nature on him and suffering for him; and here is the mercy of God, to be willing to send his Son to mediate for poor creatures.

Then there is a further mercy in giving your soul to his Son. He did not send his Son so that all might be pardoned, but a certain number whom God the Father had given to his Son from all eternity. Now there is a great work of God’s mercy in passing by others and giving you to his Son. Further, it is a work of God’s mercy to reveal this through the powerful ministry of the gospel. Further, it is a work of God’s mercy to draw you to close with his Son, and so to unite and marry you to his Son. And further, it is a work of God’s mercy to assure you of the pardon and justification of your soul. It is a great deal more for faith to look on God in this manner than to come in such a way as this: “God is merciful, and I trust in his grace that he will pardon me.” We are mightily mistaken about the mercy of God when we do not look on it in an evangelical way, as it is revealed in the gospel.

Further, know this much: if God’s mercy will work so far for you as to pardon your sin and save your soul, it will certainly work so far as to take away the power of sin, and not let you live in the filth of your sin. Many think God’s mercy will do great things hereafter, but nothing now compared with what he will do hereafter. They think he will give them outward blessings now but keep spiritual things until hereafter. This is certainly an infallible truth: if God’s mercy does not work so powerfully here in this world as to bestow spiritual good things on you, you may be sure it will never work so powerfully on you as to save your soul in the world to come.

Can anyone think that a prince pardons a criminal so that he will not be hanged, and yet lets him lie in prison and rot in the dungeon? That would be a poor pardon, a half pardon, to be delivered from the gallows and rot in prison. Certainly, whatever a prince may do, God never pardons a sinner like that, showing him mercy to save him from hell and yet leaving him to lie rotting in sin all his life long. No; when God pardons, he delivers and shakes off the fetters, as we will see further. Therefore you who say you hope in God’s mercy that he will pardon you, let me ask: What has he done for you? If you think God’s mercy will work so strongly hereafter to save your soul, it will certainly be as strong for you here to sanctify you. If it does not work so strongly on you now as to sanctify you, it will certainly never work so strongly for you hereafter as to save you.

4. Others say, in the last place, “We are not only sorry for sin, and reform, and trust in God’s mercy, but we rely on God’s mercy through Christ; and therefore we hope we shall be pardoned.” I could say much to this. This is where we must rest, but there is a mistake here too. Relying on Christ is not relying on him by some passing thoughts that come and go; it is an abiding thing. When people hear there is no way to be saved but by Christ, they cannot deny it. And because they are loath to think they are among those who cannot be saved, loath to have such bad thoughts of themselves, and hearing that this is the way and there is no other, they persuade themselves that they will find mercy through Christ. Now what great work is it to rely on Christ like this? The work of faith is a mighty work. It is not a short, passing work, a few thoughts in your heart about being saved by Christ. No; wherever faith is right, and there is a true reliance on Christ, it is a mighty work of the Spirit of God, working this grace, raising the soul higher than itself, and carrying it through and above all difficulties when it brings the soul to rely on God. There may be great mistakes when people say they rely on Christ.

Therefore take this for your conviction: Relying on Christ is not merely thinking that my sins are pardoned by Christ. It is receiving Christ, possessing Christ, coming into Christ, living in Christ, and bringing Christ to live in me. It is eating the flesh of Christ and drinking his blood, and so finding nourishment and strength from him as really as the body does from the food and drink it takes, which stays with it and strengthens it; so faith does for the soul. Therefore faith is not a slight notion, like water running through a pipe that leaves nothing behind it, which is what the thoughts of most people are like. It is something that brings Christ into the soul, and the soul into Christ, and so feeds and lives on him. This is relying on Christ for pardon, in such a way that the things that accompany pardon, and its comforts, continually go along with it.

Now that you have heard these things, go away and beg God to settle things rightly in your souls. Say to your hearts, “Lord, I see that settling the heart rightly on Christ for justification and pardon of sin is a far different kind of business than I was aware of. I am persuaded that if I had died before now, I would certainly have died under some of these mistakes. Lord, settle my heart rightly in this great business.” Do not go away with thoughts like these: “The minister speaks of such mistakes, but I hope it is far otherwise.” Do not venture to put off what we say with such slight thoughts. When we speak to you, we speak in the name of God, and it is a horrible taking of the name of God in vain if we do not examine what we say to you by the Word. And therefore know that you are charged today in the name of God to look to it, and to examine your hearts as to what grounds you go on for the pardon of your sin, so that you may not be mistaken. In this we will give you some further help, by laying down some positive grounds that you may rest on for the pardon of your sin.

But if someone asks, “Who are they that have their sins pardoned?”, surely they are not many. This text puts it in the singular number: blessed is he whose sin is pardoned. And by what has been delivered about the mistakes, it appears there are not very many. Yet there are some, and this is the work of this day: in the name of the Lord, to declare to some poor souls that this day their sins are pardoned. This is the message from the Lord that I am to speak to them (I hope to many in this place), as from Christ: “Son, daughter, be of good comfort; your sins are pardoned.”

And blessed is that man and that woman who this day will hear that joyful sound in their hearts, and who will have the Spirit of God witness to their spirit, so that they can say, “As I have heard, so I have felt this day. The signs of forgiveness of sin that have been delivered, I have felt them in my own soul.” Well then, what are these signs? Let me dwell on them.

First, there is the evidence the apostle gives in Romans 8:30: “Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified.” Justification consists especially in the remission and pardon of sin. Now the Holy Spirit says that whom he has called, them he has justified. Would you know that you are justified, and that your sins are pardoned? The Spirit of God shows you. It is not a mark of mine; it comes from the Holy Spirit: whom he has called, them he has justified. Calling is a certain evidence of justification.

This calling is the second link, which joins together the two links of that golden chain mentioned in that place. The first link is the foreknowledge of God, God’s predestination; next comes calling; after that, justification; and then glorification. The first link in the chain is that God from all eternity predestines some persons to have their sins pardoned. But calling comes in between predestination and justification, and after that comes glorification. So while I am giving evidences of justification here in this text, I will be giving evidences of predestination and glorification too, for these are all linked together.

Many people look only to justification. They hope their sins are pardoned, but they do not look to any other link of the chain, such as calling: whom he has called, them he has justified. But then the question is, What is this calling? What do you mean by it? How can we know whether we are called or not? In 2 Peter 1:10 he bids them to give diligence to make their calling and election sure. Mark this: just as predestination and calling are put together here, so there he puts their calling and election together. “Give diligence to make your calling and election sure,” he says. Election is sure first with respect to God, but calling comes first with respect to ourselves. Make that sure, and then you make election sure, justification sure, and glorification sure too. Then what is calling?

In answer to the question, know that there is an outward call and an inward call.

1. When God sends the ministers of the Word to reveal the gospel and the way of salvation, that is nothing other than God calling people’s souls from the ways of sin and death to come into the ways of life. Let all who come to hear the sound of the gospel preached to them know that this is God’s call to sinners to come in and repent. God calls the drunkard, the unclean person, and all others who live in sin to repent. When you come to hear the Word, God calls you. And God requires this of you, as you would have him hear your cry when you are calling for mercy in the day of your distress: “Hear my call. Now I call and cry in the ministry of the Word. Would you have me hear you when you cry to me? Do you hear me now, when I am calling to you?”

O that people would understand the ministry of the Word, that it is the call of God for sinners to return and repent of their sins! O that they would look beyond man, and know that it is the voice of God through them! Therefore it is a dangerous thing for people to neglect, resist, or rebel against the ministry of the Word. And where God sends the ministry of the Word, there is some good hope that God has some souls in that place to whom he intends everlasting goodwill. God does not usually send the call of the gospel to a place unless there are some souls there to be called.

2. And therefore, besides the outward call, there is an inward call, and that is the one the apostle speaks of. Many have the outward call of the Word to faith and repentance, and yet they perish eternally. But to those whom God intends to save and truly loves, he comes with an inward call. And this inward call of God goes like this. God beholds the poor wretched sinner going on in the ways of sin, death, and perdition, and he comes to him by a secret and powerful voice, speaking to his very heart:

“O sinner, consider where you are! What are you doing? Where are you going? What is the end of your way likely to be? You are going away from God, from happiness and life, to woeful misery and blackness of darkness, to the infinite gulf of eternal perdition. O turn, turn, O sinner, out of these vile, abominable, dangerous ways, or else you are undone forever! Behold, here is the way of life set before you. Behold my Son, sent into the world to be the propitiation for your sin, and to bring you into the ways of godliness, which is the way to eternal life. O turn, sinner, into these ways!”

Now this voice of God calling to the soul of a man or woman comes with power. It has an overpowering strength in it to prevail upon the heart. It is much like that secret voice mentioned in Isaiah 30:21: “And thy ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right hand, or to the left.” This is a promise of God’s mercy to his people, to convert them to himself. To those who were only in an outward profession, God says, “You shall hear a voice behind you, saying, This is the way; turn in to it.”

And so it is when God calls a sinner from the ways of death and destruction: such a sinner hears a voice behind him. It may be he has come to sermons many times, and many times has heard a voice outside him and before him, but never before a voice within him and behind him: an inward, secret voice speaking to the soul, “O sinner, turn out of your sinful ways! Why will you die and perish eternally?” This is God coming secretly in this way, to reason with the soul by a voice behind it. And it is not bare reasoning, but a voice that has power and efficacy from God going along with it, which carries on this work in the soul and causes the heart to listen and to yield to God.

When God calls the soul to come into the ways of life, the soul answers, “Lord, I come,” and with a trembling frame of heart it cries out with Saul at his conversion, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). No more now, “What would sin have me do? What would this lust and that lust and the other have me do?” No, “Now I see that the ways of life and salvation are the only blessed ways. Now, Lord, what would you have me do?” Now salvation has come to that soul, and reconciliation with Jesus Christ, for whom he has called, them he has justified.

Observe the efficacy of that call spoken of in Isaiah 30:21: “Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee…” And then the fruits of it follow: “and ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images with silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold, thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth; and shall say unto it, Get thee hence” (Isa 30:22). The sin they had lived in before was idolatry, and their hearts were much taken with their splendid images overlaid with silver and gold. But when they heard the voice behind them, they looked on those things they had so delighted in, which had been so splendid in their eyes before, as nothing but menstruous cloths, which are the filthiest things there can be. They cast them away like filthy rags, with indignation, saying, “Get thee hence.” It is like a man who takes a rag in his hand, looks at it and sees it all filthy and defiled, and immediately throws it away in disgust and says, “Get away!”

So this is the call of God, when the soul hears behind it a secret voice that many do not hear. It may be that many thousands hear the outward voice of the minister telling them of the evil of sin and of their abominations. And a poor servant, or a poor youth, standing in the middle of the crowd, hears a voice behind him that the others do not: a secret voice (besides the general voice), a prevailing voice, so that the soul falls down and yields at once, before he goes out of the church, and says, “Lord, this day you have convinced me of the evil of sin, and this day you have shown me the way of life and salvation. Lord, I come to you.” Though he saw nothing, and though nobody else hears that voice, yet there is a secret voice of God to the soul. Though he stands in the middle of the crowd and nobody else hears it, yet at that instant pardon of sin came to that soul, and reconciliation by Jesus Christ.

Now when this comes into the soul, he will not let such and such sins stay there any longer, but says, “Get away! I will have no more to do with such and such beloved lusts and idols that I set my heart on. Get away!” And as for those men whom God calls to himself: though they now plead for idolatry and superstition, and ask, “Why should we not do as our forefathers did?”, yet certainly, when they hear this voice behind them, once they come to hear this secret voice of God, and God shows them the way of his worship in its purity and beauty, they will say “Get away!” to those things as vile things: “Get away, I will have no more to do with you.”

This is the way of God’s ordinary call. And though God sanctifies some from the womb, yet afterward, by a mighty work of the Spirit, he reveals to them what the soul is by nature. There is something like this even in those who are sanctified from the womb, though God draws the soul out of sin into the ways of life in an extraordinary way. But generally, in the ordinary way of God’s working, there are these three or four voices calling to the soul:

(1) God says to the soul, “O soul, you are made for God and for eternity.”

(2) “O soul, you are now in the ways of hell and of eternal perdition, and must of necessity perish in them.”

(3) “O soul, behold, here are the ways of life and salvation revealed to you and set before you in the gospel of my Son.”

(4) And lastly, “O soul, come in, and you shall have favor and acceptance in my Son.”

These are the four voices in God’s call. I do not say that everyone hears them plainly and distinctly, yet in substance they do hear them, in the ordinary way in which God dispenses his grace. Every soul that God justifies is called by God in this way, and it is a prevailing call, which brings them in to submit to it.

Again, because the Scripture speaks much of this call of God, I will show a little more about it. Mark this: the soul that once hears the call of God bringing it into the ways of life will from then on always depend on God’s call in all other things. If God has called me out of the ways of death into the ways of life, and my soul has yielded in obedience to that call, I will always be under the power of God’s call in all other things. Let God call me to whatever he will, to whatever service he pleases, to whatever difficulties and sufferings he thinks fit, my soul is content and says, “Here I am, Lord; speak, your servant hears.” Now for a soul to be so under God that it waits on the call of God for any duty, service, or employment, and dares not go about anything except according to the call of God: this is a good evidence that such a soul has been acquainted with that great call of God, that powerful call which brought him off from the ways of sin into the ways of life and salvation.

Further, in those who have been acquainted with this call of God, there is a corresponding frame and disposition of heart to call on the name of God for help, direction, and a blessing on all they undertake. They now delight to go to God and call on him. As God calls to them, so they call to him. For that is God’s way: he puts a gracious frame into the soul that answers to his work in it. So it is in election. When God calls home those whom he elects, he puts a gracious disposition in their hearts to elect him. As God chooses the soul out of the world, so the soul chooses God above all things in the world; the soul answers to God. God sets his heart on the soul and says, “I will choose you for myself.” The soul in turn sets its heart on God and says, “I will choose you for my God.” As God calls the soul to come and live to him in the ways of grace while it lives in this world, so the soul calls on God for his assistance, that he would give it his help on all occasions.

And therefore the Scripture gives us this expression for the whole worship of God: “Whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom 10:13). The soul that is acquainted with God’s call calls on God in return.

And by the way, those who are called in this way are the fittest for church communion. I mention this because the word translated “church” comes from a Greek word that means to call out. What Scripture usually calls a church means nothing else but this: a company of people called out of the ways of sin to embrace the ways of godliness. So the church should consist of people called out of the ways of sin by the powerful and effectual voice of the Spirit of God. And those who are called in this way have their sins pardoned.

You say you hope God has justified you. You read what God says, and what has been presented to you: those who are called are justified. Calling, then, in the order of nature, goes before justification. This you will find in your own hearts. And if you do not, this is what you must do. Whenever you come before God to hear the outward call, you must come with a waiting frame of heart to hear the inward call, and call on God with that disposition. Say, “Lord, I have been taught that there is an outward call of yours in the Word, and an inward call. I am going this day to hear your Word calling me out of the ways of sin. O that I might have, together with it, the inward call of your Spirit! When will I hear that secret voice? This is the reason that, though I have been convinced many times at the hearing of the Word, yet my sin has prevailed against me: that inward, secret, powerful voice has not come to my soul.” That is the first evidence: whom he has justified, them he has called.

Second, here is another evidence: whomever God pardons, he receives into covenant with himself. All pardoned sinners are covenanters with God. God pardons no soul except one he brings into the bond of the covenant with himself. That is the way the grace of God for the pardon of sin is conveyed: by bringing the soul into the bonds of the covenant. The Scripture is plain on this, that forgiveness of sin is made a special fruit of the new covenant. That is clear enough in Jeremiah: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel…” (Jer 31:31). What is the special end of that covenant? “I will forgive their iniquities, and remember their sins no more” (Jer 31:34). But how does that come in? It comes in by way of covenant: “I will make a new covenant.” As if God said, “I will first receive them into covenant, and then they shall have the fruit of this new covenant, that their sins shall be forgiven and their iniquities remembered no more.”

The new covenant is a mystery to most people, and yet it is a certain truth that the pardon of your sin and your eternal good depend on it. If you are pardoned, or ever will be, you are one whom God has brought into covenant with himself. God will make this plain to your soul: that through his Son he has tied and bound himself to you to be your God. Whereas before you had departed from him and were an enemy to him, yet now he is pleased to call you to enter into a second covenant, after you had broken the first and were cast off because of that breach. God is content to enter into a second covenant with you, to be your God in and through his Son. You are to come in and join in this covenant, for to a full covenant there must be consent on both sides; there must be a mutual engagement of both parties.

God reveals this to your soul: “Though you are by nature an enemy to me, and have broken the first covenant that I made with the children of men, and are cast off, yet be it known to you, O wretched soul, I am content to enter into another covenant with you. There is a second covenant for life and salvation that I have made with poor man through my Son. And I require that you come in and give yourself up in an everlasting covenant to make me your God, and to close with me and my Son in whatever I call you to; in whatever you have or can do, to give yourself up to the power of me and my Son. This you must engage and tie yourself to, in the strongest bonds there can be.” This is the nature of the covenant.

We know there were two covenants, and all the good of mankind under the first covenant depended on this: on man’s closing with its terms. Now the terms of the first covenant were, Do this and live. But that is broken, and we have lost our ability. Now the second covenant is, Believe and live. And the soul that God pardons, he brings into the bond of the second covenant. It is brought to come and give itself up to the Lord, and to be content to bind itself to God with all bonds: “He, and he only, shall be my God. As I desire him to be mine, and his grace and mercy to be mine, so all that I have or can do shall be his. I surrender myself, and engage my soul to be his forever. My estate, my abilities, whatever I have or can do, shall be his.”

Now put this to your own souls. You hope your sins are pardoned. But has God brought you into the bonds of the covenant? Has God engaged himself to you by his Word to be your God? And on the other side, are your hearts engaged to him by the strongest bonds there can be, and by any other bonds there may be that are stronger still to tie your souls to God? Can your souls say, “The Lord knows I am content and willing to be engaged”? And will you count it your happiness to be tied in the strongest bonds there can be? If it is so with you, then peace be to your soul; your sins are pardoned. As on the one side God has made a covenant with you, so on the other side he has brought you to be in covenant with him. Then be of good comfort; your sins are pardoned.

Third, those whose sins God has pardoned, he has translated into the kingdom of his Son. The Scriptures express these things in various ways, and each way carries its own consideration. Now I ground this mark on Colossians 1:13-14: “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.” Mark what follows: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” Forgiveness of sin is the end of God’s translating us into the kingdom of his dear Son, giving us redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sin. So whoever has been given redemption by God through the blood of Christ, even the forgiveness of sin (that is, forgiveness of sin being the special part of the redemption we have by the blood of Christ), such a one is translated into the kingdom of the dear Son of God. “What does that mean?” you will say.

1. This signifies a great change that there must be in those who are pardoned, because the Scripture expresses it this way: they are translated into another kingdom, a kingdom of the Son of God, the dear Son of God. It is the dear mercy of God that translates a soul into the kingdom of his dear Son. It seems that by nature we are in another kingdom, and have another king besides the Son of God, another sovereign. It is certain that we are so by nature: we are under the power of Satan and in his kingdom. But now, when God comes to redeem a soul and grant forgiveness of sin, he translates it out of that kingdom, and such a soul refuses to be a subject of Satan any longer, or a servant to its lust any longer, and says:

“But now Christ shall be my King. The Son of God, by whom I expect reconciliation, shall be my King. His laws shall rule in my heart, and his scepter shall sway in my soul. Now my own thoughts, counsels, opinions, will, and affections shall rule me no more; Jesus Christ shall be set up on the throne of my soul, and he shall be my King. Before, I was led (a poor, vile, ignorant wretch) by the customs of others and the example of others, and by what they required of me by their laws in the matters of his worship. But now Christ shall be my King. I will look for my law from him, and all the obedience I give to man shall be given with an eye to Christ my King.”

This is a translation into the kingdom of God: when the soul feels the power of Christ ruling in it and overruling it; when the soul looks up to Christ for its protection and provision, and desires above all things in the world to set up Jesus Christ as its King in all the ways of his government, both in its own heart and in the world too; and when it longs to hear that voice, when it shall be said, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev 11:15). In this way, those who have redemption through the blood of Christ, even the forgiveness of sins, are translated into the kingdom of his dear Son. And, as the Scripture speaks, they have the kingdom of God within them (Luke 17:21); that is an expression of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel.

Now this is what you are to examine your hearts on: What of the kingdom of Christ do you have within you? Do you live and walk as one who has the kingdom of Christ within you? Is Christ king and sovereign over your thoughts, words, and actions? Do you look to him for the law of your thoughts, words, and actions, and walk before him as your sovereign Lord, depending on him continually to know his will, and fearing and honoring him as a king?

If the kingdom of Christ is in you, that means the gospel has an effectual work on you. For the gospel in its power is ordinarily expressed as the kingdom of heaven: when the Word comes to any place, the kingdom of heaven is said to come. It would take up a great deal of time to show in what respects the Holy Spirit calls the gospel the kingdom of heaven. But it is called the kingdom of heaven because it is the kingdom of Christ, who is the Lord from heaven, and Christ rules in it by the preaching of the gospel.

But now, though it is the kingdom of heaven, and the kingly power of Christ is in the preaching of the gospel, yet this does not prevail on all sorts. It is like a net that is cast into the sea (Matt 13:47). The meaning of that seems to be nothing else but this: the preaching of the gospel among a multitude of people is like a net cast into the sea, in which some are caught, and others remain worldly, filthy, and good for nothing. That is the meaning of the text, and not any warrant at all for mixed communion. It means only this: where the preaching of the gospel is, there are some fish that are good and worthy to be received, and others that are to be cast out.

Now, as there is an external kingdom, so there is an internal kingdom of Christ within our hearts. Jesus Christ himself sets up his throne in the heart of every man and woman whose sins are pardoned; that is a certain truth. And this day, in the name of God, I pronounce to you that if your sin is pardoned, Jesus Christ has set up his throne in your hearts. And if you find any other throne and lord but Christ ruling you, know from God that your souls “are yet in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:23), and your sins are not pardoned.

But there is the soul who, under the preaching of the gospel, can say, “Blessed be God, I have felt Christ come into my heart and prevail upon me, and now Christ’s laws are the laws I desire to be ruled by. God knows I know but little of them, but I will labor to understand them better. Therefore I come this day, that I might know more of the law of God, and that Jesus Christ might rule more powerfully in me than he ever has.” If this is worked in you, I say to you in the name of Christ, be of good comfort; your sins are pardoned. God will show good to you when this world is ended. You are one whom Jesus Christ has brought into his kingdom, and in whose heart he has set up his throne, and therefore you may be assured that he will take you at last into his everlasting kingdom.

Fourth, where God forgives, he gives much. Giving follows forgiving. God never forgives anyone without giving much to the soul he forgives. As in that case when the apostles preached the doctrine of forgiveness and pardon of sin and the Holy Spirit fell upon them, so certainly, where the preaching of pardon of sin has power over a soul through the ministry of the gospel, God gives much to that soul. And there are three things especially that God gives at once to the soul he pardons, all of which were mentioned before in opening the blessedness of pardon of sin, and so I will only mention them now, to strengthen this mark of trial.

1. Has God forgiven you? Then he has given you his Spirit to enlighten you in the great mysteries of salvation. You plead that you are ignorant and not book-learned. But if God has so great a favor for you as to pardon your sin, he will give you understanding in the mysteries of the gospel. In Jeremiah 31:34, where God pardons sin, his people have this mercy, to be taught by him.

2. God will give you this: he will write his law in your heart. That is, he will work in your heart a frame and disposition suited to his law, so that your heart and the law of God will be like two copies that have the same things in them and do not differ from one another by a single jot. There will be a fitness between your heart and the law of God. It will not be only that I do what God requires because I must do it, but that I find it suited to the new nature given to me. He will write his law in the heart. And therefore I pronounce again this day before the Lord that whoever has their sin pardoned and their iniquities forgiven, God has written his law in the heart of that man or woman by the finger of his own Spirit. That heart of yours that was like a heart of stone, God will write his own law upon it, as he did on the tablets that Moses broke. Though you do not always have an actual sight of it, yet such a thing is there, and it is a comforting assurance of the pardon of your sin.

3. God gives healing mercies to cleanse you from your sin: “I will cleanse them from their iniquities, and pardon all their sins” (Jer 33:8). Cleansing from sin and pardon of sin always go together; if God pardons your sin, he cleanses you from sin. So do not look only for pardoning mercy, but for cleansing mercy as well. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder, and pardoning and cleansing God has put together. God may give other mercies, such as health, strength, and success in outward things, without pardon; but he never gives cleansing from sin without pardon of it. And therefore, if you find your heart cleansed, peace be to your soul: your sins are forgiven.

Fifth, besides these, those whom God pardons he puts a glory upon. There is a glory put upon all pardoned sinners. They are indeed glorious creatures in the eyes of God and the angels; yes, and there is a glory put upon them that the saints of God are able to see. Perhaps that glory is not seen by the half-blind eye of the world, which is in darkness; but those who have their eyes in their heads may see a glory put upon every soul that is pardoned. For this the text is clear: “Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified” (Rom 8:30). This is not spoken only of the glory the saints will have in the highest heavens, when they are in glory with Christ, but of the glory God puts upon the soul in this world. It does not say that he will glorify them, but that he has also glorified them. There is no justified soul that is not a glorified soul. This is a settled truth in theology: at the very instant any soul is justified, at that instant it is glorified.

In Jeremiah 33:9 there is an expression somewhat like this, and it follows upon the pardon of sin: “And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise, and an honor before all the nations upon earth…” That is, I will put glory upon them, and so they will be to me a name of joy, a praise, and an honor before all the nations in the world.

You will ask, “How is that? What is the glory of a justified soul?” Certainly the soul that is justified is glorious. God puts a glory on it by the glorious graces of his Holy Spirit with which he endows the soul. There is no justified soul that does not immediately have the glorious graces of the Holy Spirit put upon it, and so it is beautiful and glorious; yes, it is the only glorious object that the Lord Jesus Christ delights in in all the world. Take the poorest soul in the world: when God puts his image upon it, there is a greater glory and luster on that soul than on all the heavens and the earth besides. Take all other creatures in their greatest glory, and God does not see as much glory on them as on any one soul he has justified.

For so it is: holiness and the graces of God’s Spirit are called the glory of God himself. “For we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23-24). What is it to be deprived of the glory of God, but to lose the image of God in which man was made? But when a man is justified, that glory of God is put upon him afresh: upon his heart, his understanding, his will and affections. And that makes the Lord delight to dwell with you, to converse and have communion with you, because of the glory he has put upon you.

So there is a glory also in the life and conduct. For on every soul God justifies there immediately comes a new luster upon their life and conduct. Take all those who have lived in horrible wickedness and base courses. Now, when they are changed and show the graces of the Spirit of God shining in their conduct through the whole course of their lives, in meekness, patience, humility, heavenly-mindedness, and the like, there is a luster on their way of life. Those who are able to judge of it see it, and the world is often dazzled by it. They see a glory on them and are convinced that surely there is a work of God upon these people; and in their better moods they wish they might die the death of such people, and that their own end might be like theirs. Take the poorest servant or child in a family, who was vile before: being justified, there is a luster in their conduct that convinces parents and masters, and makes them see a plain difference between what they are now and what they were before. Though they scorn it, yet they know that God will own that difference he has made as his own glory, and will declare one day that this was the thing that was glorious in his eyes.

And therefore now, would you know whether you are justified? Are you glorified? What glory of God has come into your hearts, and appears in your lives and conduct? Can you say, “My life is such that, though I have many weaknesses, yet I hope something of the glory of God appears in me”? For so it must be: there is no soul God justifies but God enables them to live so that the glory of God shines in their conduct. Now if these things are so, what cause have you to fear that you are not a justified person? But at present it often does not appear, for most of you darken the glory of God in your lives. You who are justified should show it forth more in your conduct among all with whom you have dealings, and then what a beauty, and what an evidence of your justification, it would be to you!

Sixth, those whom God pardons, he makes to know what pardon means. You hope your sins are pardoned. Do you understand and know what has been said about it? Certainly, in those whom God pardons he stirs up thoughts of wonder at the excellence of this blessedness of the pardon of sin. The soul is taken up with wonder at three things. First, it marvels at the freeness and the riches of God’s grace. Second, at the price that was paid for pardon. Third, it marvels at the wonderful good it is brought into, and at what the soul receives by this blessedness of the pardon of sin. Other things God may give to men and women, and they do not know their worth, nor do they take notice of God in them. But when God gives pardon of sin, he makes the soul have thoughts of wonder at it, and know what it is: “And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise, and honor, and they shall fear and tremble, for all the goodness and prosperity that I procure unto it” (Jer 33:9). Certainly, if others shall do this, much more will they themselves. On those whom God pardons he bestows such mercies that the soul will stand amazed, with a trembling heart and an astonished spirit, to behold all the goodness the Lord shows it.

Now, have your hearts been taken up with it? You may know much about your evidences if your hearts have been taken up with thoughts of wonder at it. For certainly, when God pardons sin, he does it to magnify his grace, and to set forth before men and angels, in its infiniteness, what his grace can do for poor souls. If this is God’s end, as it certainly is, then it must follow that to those whom God pardons he gives such grace as will cause the soul to have thoughts of wonder at it. Has your soul seen so much of the grace of God that it marvels at its greatness and goodness? Be of good comfort: your sins are pardoned.

Seventh, the more assurance of pardon God gives, the more the heart melts before God in mourning for the sins that God has pardoned. According to the manifestation of God’s mercy in pardoning, so the soul, by the work of God’s grace, melts in holy mourning, even for those sins that God has pardoned. Many think they must mourn for sin to get pardon; but once they are pardoned, why should they mourn then? I have spoken to that before: many mourn to get pardon, but I say they mourn because they are pardoned. I show it thus in this evidence I give of the pardon of sin: according to the degree of knowledge the soul has of the pardon of sin, the heart melts before God for all the sins that are pardoned.

Psalm 51 is exceedingly remarkable. David laments his sin very bitterly; but notice the title of that psalm: “To the chief Musician, a Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him; after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” Now, if you would know what Nathan did when he came to David, you will find, if you read the story of David’s adultery and murder in 2 Samuel 12, that it was to bring David the news of the pardon of his sin. First Nathan convicts him of his sin, that he should do it “before Israel, and before the sun”; and having convicted him, he says further, “the Lord hath put away thy sin.” Now a complacent heart might go away and say, “All is well. I will not die; God has pardoned my sin, and I need not be troubled any more about that matter.”

But notice how the psalmist cries out to God: Have mercy O Lord upon me, and blot out all my transgressions, wash me, purge me. And then he prays for restoring mercies for his broken bones, and then cries out for further assurance. The very grace of God that Nathan brought him, the pardon of his sin, that very grace melted and broke his heart all the more. After God had sent him the pardon of his sin, he mourned more than ever before. We never read that David was so troubled for his sin as in this psalm, which was written after Nathan had come to him. Now if you find that at the very time when God is pleased to come to you in the ministry of the Word, or in private, to declare to you the pardon of your sin and give you the comforting evidence of it, your hearts are then most given to mourning for your sins and melting before God, be of good comfort: your sins are pardoned.

Eighth, another mark is this: according to the degree of pardon of sin, so all other graces grow. The knowledge and assurance of God’s love in Christ in the pardon of sin causes all other graces to grow proportionately, as you have it in Ephesians 3:19, concerning the knowledge of the love of God in Christ. Notice the connection. He desires “That they might comprehend with all saints what is the height, and depth … and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, and be filled with all the fullness of God.” What is the love of Christ? The love of Christ is the procuring cause of the forgiveness of sin before God the Father; and when you know this, it will fill you with all the fullness of God. Notice: first, it brings God into the soul; second, it fills the soul with God; third, it fills the soul with the fullness of God; and fourth, it fills the soul with all the fullness of God. When you come to know the love of God in Christ, if anything in the world will fill the soul with all the fullness of God, this will.

Many will say they hope their sins are pardoned. Do you? Then you know the love of God in Christ, for to pardon sin is a special work of the love of God in Christ. Now the apostle says that when you come to know this, you come to be filled with all the fullness of God. What is the fullness of God? As faith increases along with the rest of the graces, so you grow fuller and fuller of God’s fullness, and so you grow into a fuller assurance of the pardon of sin. Now the soul can say, “As I find more assurance of the love of God in his Son, so I find my soul more filled with this grace of the fullness of God. Alas, when I was under the law, God and I were strangers; I felt little of God in me. But now that I begin to know the love of God in the gospel, I begin to have my soul filled with the fullness of God, not with the chaff and dross and filthy things that my thoughts, will, and affections used to be filled with. Now it is otherwise with me: my soul is now filled with all the fullness of God.” Certainly the soul that can say this may well go away with that word of Christ spoken to the woman: “Go in peace, thy faith hath saved thee” (Luke 7:50).

In Romans 5:1 the apostle speaks of the pardon of sin: “being justified by faith, we have peace with God.” That is, when God reveals justification by faith in Christ, it brings peace with it; “and, by whom we have access, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God; and not only so, but we glory in tribulation, knowing that…” (Rom 5:2-3). What knowledge is this? It is this: that we are justified by faith and so come to have peace with God. How does this cause the heart to be enlarged? We rejoice in hope of the glory of God; and not only so, but we are strengthened and can glory in tribulation. Our hearts grow up to such strength that whatever tribulations we meet with, we are able to bear them with patience; and not only so, but to glory in them. We not only grow up to bear what many cannot, but to rejoice in it, which is more; and then to glory is above rejoicing.

Now, do you find that the assurance you have of the love of God brings strength into your soul, enabling you to rejoice in hope of the glory to come? It is as if the apostle had said, “Let what will become of us for the present. What if the world scorns us, hates us, and persecutes us? Yet we rejoice in hope of the glory that is to come.” And this makes us “glory in tribulation; knowing, that tribulation, works patience; patience, experience; and experience, hope” (Rom 5:3-4). Here is a working of several graces together, and this may help many a poor soul.

“Oh,” says the soul at such a time, “I had a great deal of assurance of the pardon of sin, and much joy from it. But do not hypocrites have joy?” Yes, certainly. A hypocrite may have wonderful raptures of spirit and flashes of the pardon of sin, but there is still something lacking in other graces. “But how shall I know that my assurance of the pardon of sin is right?” Thus: according to the degree of assurance of pardon you have, you have a corresponding degree of growth in other graces, such as humility, patience, heavenly-mindedness, self-denial, and the rest. As your faith grows, so you have a proportionate growth in all other graces. Faith is like the root, and the more sap there is in the root, the more the branches will grow.

As for those people who are so full of assurance and never doubted, as they say, but who are empty of other graces, such as the fear of God, meekness, patience, self-denial, heavenly-mindedness, and the like: certainly, if your faith is so high and your other graces so low, you have much cause to fear that your faith is not right. It is not “the faith of God’s elect,” as the Scripture speaks (Titus 1:1); it is not “precious faith” (2 Pet 1:1). For according to the degree you have of that faith, all other graces will grow.

You hope your sins are pardoned. How did you come by it? The soul that has true pardon of sin has fetched it from heaven in a right way, in God’s own way. How is that? It is like this. The soul sees itself lost and undone through the guilt of sin, and God reveals the infinite riches of his grace in the gospel. Such a soul, seeing God on his throne holding out his Son, the God-man, as Mediator to make atonement, closes by a mighty work of faith with that glorious way of reconciliation by the Son, which it sees God the Father offering to it. And so it fetches grace out of the treasury of God’s bounty in the way of the gospel, the gospel way that was opened before.

Examine yourselves now. Have you fetched your pardon by the way of the gospel, so that your soul, by a mighty act of faith, has been willing to venture itself and its eternal state on the Son of God? Have you looked on Christ as a mighty Mediator, as one able to save you? Then you have exercised faith in a gospel way, and your sins are pardoned. Again, are you pardoned? Then you are sealed; you heard of that too. There is the Broad Seal of heaven that stamps the image of God upon the soul. As the image of the king is on the seal of the kingdom, so the image of God, the Broad Seal of heaven, is stamped upon the soul. I mention this so that you may make use of it in examining yourselves.

Ninth, if God pardons you, there will be a work in your soul answering to the work of God in justifying you, just as in election and in calling, so in justification. How is that? Thus: as God, in spite of all your sin, accepts you into his grace and love, so, in spite of all the trouble and afflictions that are found in God’s ways, you will accept God and his ways. He accepts your soul in spite of your sin; you will accept him and his ways in spite of all the evils and afflictions that accompany them. There are woeful evils of sin that cling to your soul, yet God will accept you; so there are great evils in the ways of God, afflictions that accompany them, yet you will accept them and think it reasonable. “What! Shall God accept my soul in spite of all the evil of sin, and shall I not accept God’s ways in spite of all the evil of affliction and trouble?” Certainly the soul that is pardoned cannot help answering God this far: “Will God justify me in spite of my sin? I will justify God, in spite of any trouble, affliction, difficulty, or suffering that may befall me in his ways, and I will justify the ways of God.”

This is both an evidence and a duty. God justifies our souls though they are very sinful; we have cause to justify God’s ways though they are very troublesome. If you do not do so, you are none of God’s children, for “wisdom is justified of her children” (Matt 11:19). You hope your sins are pardoned and that God will justify you; and will you not justify him? Your sin does not hinder God’s grace toward you; and shall trouble and affliction hinder you from glorifying God? O man, you have too vile a heart and too base a spirit to be one of those whom God has pardoned. If you were a child of wisdom, and one whom God has pardoned, then as God has justified you, so you would justify God.

This mark may meet with those who in company hear ministers and the ways of God cried out against, and yet have not a word to say to justify God. Perhaps gentlemen and others speak ill of God’s ways, and you stand there and have not a word to say for God and his ways. Do you think God has justified you, when you hear God and his people and his Word reproached, and you do not have the heart to justify God?

Tenth and last, those whom God pardons and forgives, he gives a merciful frame of heart to forgive others, and that upon divine grounds. There is a kind of natural forgiveness. Many will forgive, but only as a heathen forgives another; and it is a shame for many who profess themselves Christians that they do not go even that far. But you must forgive in a spiritual way, for that is the way that accompanies the pardon of sin: to forgive because I have had more forgiven. “Such a one has offended me; but how much more have I offended the Lord! And if the Lord forgives me, ought I not to forgive him?” You know how, in the Gospel, the one who had so many talents forgiven him afterward went and took his brother by the throat; and you know how badly the Lord took it that, having been forgiven so much, he should exact from his brother the last penny.

Has God forgiven you your sin, which, if he had not, would have chained you in torments forever? And will you not forgive? For as it is an evidence, so it is a duty, and a part of the prayer in that divine directory called the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us as we forgive” (Matt 6). And in another place it runs thus: “forgive, for we forgive” (Luke 11:4). Therefore you can have no evidence that God has forgiven your iniquities and pardoned your trespasses unless others are forgiven in your thoughts too. I might have given several Scriptures, but I mention it as a duty: that you who have any knowledge of your sin being pardoned would make this a ground for forgiving your brothers and sisters. Say, “Alas, poor wretch, has God forgiven me? Was there ever such a distance between my brother and me as there was between God and me? And has God forgiven, and shall I not forgive my brother?”

It is impossible for a soul to be made acquainted with the rich mercy of God in the forgiveness of sin and not have a meek spirit to forgive their brother. Nothing can take away the rugged sourness and harshness of one person toward another but the oil of God’s grace in pardoning sin; and once that comes into the soul, it makes the soul sweet, mild, gentle, kind, and tender. Take note of this, you who have rugged natures. You say it is your nature and you cannot help it. If anything changes it, it is the mercy of God in pardoning your sin. Is there not enough in the grace of God in pardoning your sin to change that rugged nature of yours? Certainly there is; otherwise you have little hope that your sin is pardoned. Therefore, if God has pardoned you, you must go and do likewise.

I am persuaded that many of you hoped and longed for this sermon, in which all these signs have been given together, and I wanted it to be the longer because I wished to lay the evidences fully before you. Here you have had the blessed man and woman described to you; but there are only few of them. Few can go away and say, “As we have heard, so it is.” But I hope a good number of you can. It was for you that this was preached and sent from heaven, so that you might feed upon it; and it is as needful as the bread you eat.

But there is one thing more that is very fitting to add to all that has been said, for without it I am afraid that many to whom the consolation of this text and doctrine belongs will go away with little comfort, because they do not know how to apply these signs. That is, to give some rules for how to make use of these signs and be able to apply them. And by the same rules you may come to know any other marks of trial concerning your spiritual state, and to make use of them in any other particular whatever.

It is a matter of great importance to us to test whether our sins are forgiven. For in times of danger our hearts are ready to sink, but the evidence that our sins are forgiven will hold up our hearts in the midst of the greatest dangers whatever, even if heaven and earth should run together, if only I have assurance of this. For that is what follows after David had pronounced him blessed whose sins were forgiven: “Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him” (Ps 32:6). There may be floods of great waters, but whoever has his sins forgiven, God will preserve him and surround him with songs of deliverance (Ps 32:7). But those whose sins surround them will have horror and terror surrounding them. Yet David, having assurance that his sins were pardoned, says, “Thou art my hiding place, and thou shalt compass me about” (Ps 32:7).

So if your hearts lay hold of the evidences that have been given, you may have comfort in the great water floods; God will be a hiding place to you. It matters very much that you work hard to put this beyond doubt, and do not put it off until a sickbed or deathbed time of examination.

But now, besides those evidences, there is another thing of great importance on this point: to give some rules for how to make use of them, or of any other evidences that may be given at any time for testing anything. The rules are especially for testing our state with regard to justification or sanctification, but they will help in the use of any other evidences whatever.

1. To enable you to apply those rules of trial and the evidences given: though you cannot find them all, yet if you find even one of them, you may take comfort from that one, though you do not feel the rest. You may be assured that the rest are there. Many a soul often hears evidences of the happy condition of those who are pardoned, and perhaps there are one, two, or three that they can catch hold of, but there are others they cannot take hold of. If you find even one of them in your heart, though you cannot feel or see the others, God still sees the others to be there within, though they are not made so perceptible to you. So, soul, take hold of what you can see or feel, and be assured the others are there, though they are not seen.

If you can take hold of one link of a chain, and all the others are fastened to it, you may be able to draw the whole chain to yourself; for by taking hold of one link you take hold of the whole, though you do not touch the others. So it is in the work of God’s graces: they are like links joined to one another, and if you can lay hold of one link, you may be assured of the others, although you do not see them.

It is with many on this point as it is with an ignorant man whose physician tells him he must take a medicine that must have such and such ingredients in it. When the apothecary has mixed it all, perhaps only one of these things can be seen in its color and outward appearance; perhaps one syrup takes up all the color on the outside. When it is brought to him, he says, “I was to have so many ingredients in this, and I see only one.” Yes, but though you see only one, the strength of them all may be in it, though only one gives the color. So it is with the graces of God’s Spirit. Though at present one appears, the strength and power of them all may be in the soul, though only one appears. Perhaps it is in this case as with a medicine in which you can see and taste only one among many ingredients, and yet the power of twenty may be there, though neither seen nor tasted. So it is with the work of God in the soul. Sometimes perhaps only one grace can be seen, tasted, or felt, and yet where that one is, all the others are.

So that is one rule: when you look for evidences and signs, if you can find even one in your souls, all are there. It is as it is with sin. Where one sin has dominion over the soul, though the others are not seen, we must still know that other sins have dominion over the soul too. Some people do live under the slavery of one sin more than another, one man under the power of covetousness, another under the power of ambition or some other sin. Such a man may be thought to be under the power of only one sin, but the truth is, he is a slave to all sin. Every natural man who is out of Christ is under the power of every sin; he is a slave to the devil in every sin. But because of the constitution of his body, and for some outward reasons, he may refrain from some particular sins that do not suit him so well; whereas if it would serve his own ends and purposes, he could commit any sin as readily as that one. This is a certain truth: whoever does not avoid every sin for conscience’ sake avoids none for conscience’ sake. Though he refrains from practicing some others, it is not out of conscience but for selfish ends. Therefore whoever is under the power of one sin is under the power of every sin.

Many think that all people are sinners, but as for themselves, they have only a few: “There is one sin I cannot leave, but I am free from all the others.” Do you keep from every sin but one? God will find you under the power of every sin, and God will charge you at his tribunal as one under the power of all sin.

Now on the other side, God’s people are greatly troubled that they cannot find the work of God’s grace in all the graces. They find one, but they miss another, because it is not stirring as evidently as the other. But as the truth is certain on the one side, concerning the wicked, so it is true on the other side, concerning the godly: as where there is one sin there is every sin, so where there is one grace there is all grace. Where there is one grace, there is the power of godliness in every grace. That is the first rule to help us make use of the evidences given before.

2. Whenever we have found any one evidence upon serious examination in the presence of God, and nothing at present appears positively to the contrary, but you are merely doubtful of the things you felt before because you do not feel them now, in this case we may and should turn back to what God has worked in the past, and build on the former workings of God’s Spirit in us. It is true that when we give evidences in our ministry of those who have grace, we may at times meet with people who have a sense of nothing, and who are in such a condition that they cannot know their own hearts or feel any workings upon them. Now, if it comes merely from a lack of feeling, and the contrary positive evil does not appear, but only a lack of feeling what you had and felt before, you are to turn back to the days of old, as David often says that he would “remember the days of old.”

Perhaps you will say, “Some hypocrites have thought they were in this condition. They have had many flashes, and yet they have proved worthless. How can we turn back to what came before, to when God worked on me? I can indeed remember when God drew my heart, and then I thought I could have embraced any evidence from the Word; I felt such workings in my heart. But I might have done all that, and yet all of it have been nothing but hypocrisy.”

I answer that the bare lack of feeling is certainly not ground enough for me to think it was all hypocrisy. For consider this. Suppose I groan under it as under an affliction, and long to feel again the manifestations I had before; I can take little comfort in my present case, and my soul is continually longing and panting after the workings of God’s grace that I had before. If this is so, and there is nothing to the contrary (you do not fall away to sin, or to the world to satisfy your soul in sinful ways, and your heart is still panting after God), then, if it is like this with you, you may take the comfort of what you had before and feed on it as provision laid up beforehand for your soul, as if you had it now.

But hypocrites who fall away from the visitations of God’s Spirit do not fall merely into a lack of feeling those former movings and workings of the Spirit. Their hearts come to be satisfied with something else, and they settle for some other contentments. It is not only a lack of feeling what they had before; their hearts run out from God into other ways of sin and wickedness. That is how it is with hypocrites. But you have this testimony that it is not so with you: although you lack the present sense of God’s work in you, your heart longs after God, and you are unsatisfied in this condition, and it is the greatest affliction that ever befell you. There is nothing else you let your heart run out to; you are longing to get your heart back into that blessed frame you were in before. Then certainly, peace be to you. You are to look back on what you have had before and wait on God for his return, for he will come, and your soul will rejoice in him again.

So it was with the martyr Mr. Glover. A little before he suffered, the Spirit of God seemed to leave him. He was in extreme darkness and had no feeling of any evidence of God’s love to him. He was to die the next day, and in his own mind all his evidences were lost. Yet his friends told him that God would appear, and they asked him to give them some sign if God came to him. That night he was in darkness, and until the officers came to take him to the stake, he still had no sense or evidence of God’s love. But when he was tied to the stake, he cried out, “He is come, he is come!” So you must not argue that because you have no present sense, you therefore have no evidence of your good condition. If you have had it before, you may build on it that your state is good, although you have no present sense. That is the second rule.

3. To help you make use of signs when you would put yourselves on trial: you must take care not to settle your state by trying yourselves in times of temptation. Do not judge your state by what you find and feel in times of temptation, for they are very unfit times to decide your condition by a trial, as when temptations are exceedingly strong and horror and fear come into the soul. Perhaps some here know what I mean when I speak of horror and fear coming in strongly upon them. That is a time when you need rather to call on God and fall on your knees in prayer than to look to the trial and examination of yourselves.

It is with many in this case as it has been with some who were struck with the horror of death before the judge and were given the book to read. Though they were good scholars and could read before, yet when the horror of death was upon them, they could not read one word. So it is with many of God’s children in times of strong temptation: they cannot read their evidences. They are like children whose eyes are bleary and blinded: give them the book, and they cannot read it. So when your hearts are under great temptations and afflictions, this is not a time for trial.

And by the way, if it is not a time for a godly person, much less is it for a wicked one. Many wicked people put it off to the day of death, and never so much as put themselves on trial until horror of conscience or fear of death drives them to it. It is a bad time for God’s people to try themselves then.

Suppose you want to weigh gold: you will not do it in a storm or wind. The trial of our state is like the weighing of gold, for we are to weigh ourselves by the balance of the sanctuary, so that we may know whether we will be of full weight when God comes to weigh us. For every soul must be weighed, and woe to those to whom God says what he said to Belshazzar. When the handwriting appeared on the wall, it was so terrible to him that “his knees smote one against another” (Dan 5:6). But what did it say? “Thou art weighed in the balance, and art found too light” (Dan 5:27). Many will find such a hand one day. Poor soul, you who thought yourself in a good condition and thought your sins were pardoned: “Thou art weighed in the balance, and art found too light.” Therefore it concerns you now to weigh yourselves in the balance of the sanctuary.

When you weigh gold, you must not hold the scales in the midst of wind, storms, and tempest that toss the balance up and down. It must be in a place where you can hold them steady, so that nothing may move them. For in the wind the lighter may be blown down and the heaviest end up on top; but if you hold them in a still place, you may test to a grain. The soul of man is like the scales in the wind: in a time of temptation you will have enough coming in to turn the balance, lift it up, and make you seem too light. Therefore when you want to weigh your condition, do it when your hearts are composed and you are yourselves; when your hearts are quiet, then lay your souls in the balance. Many weigh their hearts at a time when trouble and affliction are upon their spirits, but they cannot do it; all they do then amounts to nothing. There are only two things to be done then: either open your condition to someone or other who may help you, or else fall on your knees in prayer to God, to get help from him to support you under the temptations that are upon you and to deliver you from them. But it is no time for a man or woman to try themselves in times of strong temptation, when it may be said that a man or woman is hardly themselves.

4. When you find the Word on your side in anything, never let go your hold of the Word. When you are persuaded that the Word speaks well on your side in such and such a matter, never do anything against it. As we must not receive any comfort except by the Word, so we must not reject any comfort except by the Word. Someone may say, “I find something in the Word that is in my favor, but I am afraid I am not qualified in this way and that.” But do you find anything in the Word that gives you ground to think so? We must rest on the Word both ways. As we must not receive anything to build our comforts on unless it comes from the Word, so we must not receive anything to trouble us unless it comes from the Word. It must be the Word that wounds people, for the consciences of men and women are under the power of no creature but the Word.

Now, as there is no power in any creature in the world to raise a dejected soul and truly comfort a troubled conscience except the Word, so the people of God must know that they are so far above the power of all other things that nothing in the world should trouble them but the Word alone. They should count it a weak and vain thing to rest on the opinion of others for the comfort of their souls, rather than on what they find from the Word to show that they are in a good condition. In the same way, they should count it a vain thing in time of trouble to rest on their own notions, or on what others say, apart from what they have from the Word.

The soul says, “I am afraid my state is not good.” But, O my soul, is there anything in the Word that says this, that those who are like this are not pardoned? As I must not conclude that I am pardoned unless I can bring something from the Word that says so, so I must not conclude that my state is bad unless the Word says so too.

You say, “But I find many disorders and much wandering in my soul.” Let me ask you this: Where does God’s Word say that a man who has a great many wandering thoughts is not justified? Take a heart that is still under the remainder of some corruptions, and a soul that labors under them as much as under any burden in the world: where does the Word of God say that such a soul is not justified?

Many people in trouble of conscience, although they have some evidences and good ground from the Word in their favor, will still have many fears and doubts because of the remainder of such and such corruptions in them. But the ground of their doubts is their own fears, and nothing from the Word. So when anyone speaks and applies the Word to them, they cannot deny that it suits their condition and that God has shown mercy to them. But as soon as that person is gone, the fears and suggestions of their own hearts prevail against them to take away all their comforts, more than all the applications of the Word prevailed to uphold and continue their comforts.

It is just the same with many gracious people in their fears and doubts as it is with the wicked in their hopes. A wicked man has the Word against him, showing that he is not in a good condition, but his own self-love and fancy encourage him to presume that he is in a good state. He regards his own opinion and fancy, and on that presumes that his state is good, more than he regards anything said to him from the Word that it is not so. So with the people of God: although they are in a good state, their own fears so dampen their hearts that they make them question it. But the ground of it is their own fears, just as the ground of the wicked in thinking their state is good is their own opinions. So the people of God often think their state is bad from their own notions and opinions rather than from the Word.

Take this rule: as you must receive no comfort except from the Word, so you must not receive any trouble except from the Word. When you receive trouble in any other way, you do not consider that God has set your state so high that all your troubles depend on nothing but the Word. Therefore answer everything with Scripture. When the devil casts temptations before you, tell him to prove from the Word that your state is not good: “I have this from the Word to prove that it is good, and you have nothing to the contrary.”

In other matters you will not be put off so easily, as with the evidences of title to your property. Suppose a man comes and lays claim to it: although perhaps you cannot make out your title clearly, you will still tell him to prove the contrary and show what grounds he has to lay claim to it. The clamor and talk of other people will not make you give up your hold, or convince you that it was never rightly yours. But let the devil come and clamor against your souls, and you are ready to join with him and say, “It is so indeed. I am a hypocrite. I have no true grace or spiritual life. My soul is still under the curse of the law and the dominion of sin.”

How unworthily you behave toward the blessed Spirit of God, and toward all the grace and goodness of God that has been shown and made known to you concerning the pardon of your sins! How unfitting it is that at every clamor of Satan and every stirring of corruption in your own hearts, you should tear up the foundation of all your comforts by immediately calling all the work of God into question! Many a poor creature finds by evidences from the Word that their state is good and goes away cheerful; but if the next day there is any stirring of corruption, they let it all go and tear up the foundation of all their comforts. Do not walk so unworthily of the grace of God. Depend on the Word for your troubles as well as for your comforts. As you are not comforted by anything except what the Word of God speaks to you, so be discouraged by nothing except where you find the Word of God against you.

5. When at any time you are put to seeking your evidences and cannot find them, the best way is to renew them rather than spend time finding the old ones. For example, suppose a man or woman is searching for such evidences of salvation as they had before and cannot find them. Perhaps they are poring over their own hearts for such and such workings as they have had before, and cannot find them, and so are ready to conclude that all is wrong with them. They lie down like people without comfort because their condition is not good; they cannot find such evidences as they once had. Now in this case the best way is this: if I cannot find my evidences, or the use of them I had before, let me renew them. If the time I spend searching and discouraging my heart were spent instead in the actings and workings of my heart after God, to renew my evidences, perhaps I might have renewed them in that time. It is as in matters between men and women in this world. They have evidences, documents that would settle the matters in dispute; but perhaps they cannot find them, or they have grown so old that they cannot read them, and they spend a great deal of time over them. Yet if they went to the court where the rolls are kept, they might possibly have them renewed with less cost and time. So it is with the soul. When it cannot find such and such evidences, it spends a great deal of time and sits down in discouragement and disquiet of heart, when perhaps in less time it might have renewed them.

For example, suppose you are looking for this evidence, your calling, for God calls those whom he justifies. Now you are looking for your call, and you are troubled that you do not remember how God worked upon your heart then, in the past, and a great deal of time is spent. Can you not find how it was with you then? No? Then take this course: listen to what voice of God you hear in your heart now. Say to your soul, Do I not now find the work of God in me? Do I not find him now drawing my heart out of the world to himself, and does my heart not listen to this call? For the call of God is not only at first conversion; God is always calling and drawing the heart from the world to himself. If you cannot make use of God’s work in the past, make use of his present work upon you.

Again, those whom God justifies enter into covenant with God. For it was by way of covenant (as I told you): they give themselves up to God in an everlasting covenant. But you say, “When did I come into covenant with God? I am afraid I am not the man or woman in covenant with God; I cannot remember any such work.” Perhaps your heart sinks within you because you cannot clear up this work of entering into covenant with God in the past. Now take the time you spend searching for this work, and spend it in entering into covenant with God now, at this present time. It will be no hindrance to you that you cannot find what happened before, if now, at this present time, you can surrender yourself to God in an everlasting covenant. This is enough; do it. Now if you can find your hearts coming in now and yielding yourselves up into covenant with God, you may have the comfort of this evidence as fully as if you clearly remembered all the former transactions, and the work of God upon you when you first entered into covenant with him.

Again, I told you that those whose sins are pardoned were brought into the kingdom of Christ. But you will say, “I cannot remember how I was brought over into it.” Then take the scepter of Jesus Christ upon you now. Many trouble themselves, saying, “I never found such humblings and troubles for sin as you speak of, or as others have found.” How is it with your souls now? Do you find sin a burden to your souls now? Is it not your greatest affliction? If you were put to your choice, would you not rather suffer anything in the world than sin against God, and not only from convictions of conscience, but because you find a frame of spirit in your hearts suited to it? For a hypocrite may have convictions of conscience, but the frame of his spirit is not suited to them. In you there is a frame of spirit suited to the convictions of conscience within you. Though you cannot remember having such sorrows and troubles in convictions for sin as others have had while they were under the spirit of bondage, yet you may be comforted by the present frame of spirit that you have. And so in similar cases: if you cannot find your old evidences, set to work to renew your evidences, and do not spend your time lying down under the discouragements of your own hearts.

6. When you examine yourselves to find your evidences, carry this thought along with you, that you have to deal with God in the covenant of grace. This will be of wonderful use to you. Perhaps to some these are very dry things; they see little in them and scarcely know what they are. But I hope there are many others who know that there is an eternal state between God and their souls, and I hope I am speaking things that will be very precious to them. Yes, I say this to many of you. For while I am on this subject, I am speaking to those on whose hearts the fear of God has fallen, who have made it the great business of their lives, above all things in this world, to know on what terms they stand with God, and how it stands with them for their everlasting state. I know a great many people scarcely ever call these things into question, and to them these rules will be of little or no use at all. But if I speak to help and direct some troubled souls, or any one troubled soul, I will think my time well spent, though I do no good to others.

Therefore in your examinations always carry this with you: you have to deal with God in the covenant of grace, and not in a covenant of works. Certainly the reason so many are so troubled in their consciences about their eternal states is that they look upon God in the way of the covenant of works. If they find any corruptions stirring and breaking out, and temptations strong upon them, they immediately think all is lost and that God will never accept them. What is the reason? If we had to deal with God in a covenant of works, the least stirring of corruption would be enough to cast the soul down into eternal horror. Adam had a great deal of goodness before, by the image of God upon him; yet one sin would have cast him away eternally, had not a covenant of grace come in. Now, though people will acknowledge that there is a covenant of grace, yet when their corruption stirs, they behave as if it served no more purpose than if they had to deal with God in a covenant of works, and as if there were no covenant of grace at all.

Now what a dishonor this is to the riches of God’s goodness in the covenant of grace! That covenant tells us that we are not to be judged for our eternal state by the covenant of works. It tells us that he who must be our Judge for our eternal condition is our Advocate with the Father. And it tells us also that God accepts the uprightness and sincerity of the heart, and that the lack of perfection will never damn your soul. He who stands before the Lord to make atonement, and to be our Advocate pleading with the Father for us, is the one who must be the Judge of our eternal state. Therefore when I set myself before the Lord, I consider that I have to deal with him in a covenant of grace. Suppose I find and feel such and such corruptions and weaknesses in me: is it not possible that my state is happy by the covenant of grace? Collect yourselves and say, “Why am I passing sentence on my everlasting condition? Do I have to deal with God in the covenant of grace, and can these imperfections not stand with it? Why do I conclude that my state is bad because of the stirrings of such and such corruptions?”

The doubts and fears of most Christians arise from this: they do not clearly understand the difference between the covenant of grace and the covenant of works. Nothing in the world would so satisfy the consciences of men and women as a clear understanding of the covenant of grace and the covenant of works. Many people cry out against preachers, that they disquiet and trouble people’s hearts by their preaching. The truth is, no preachers cause so much trouble and perplexity of conscience as those who preach morality and nothing but the way of duty, and never bring people to see clearly the difference between the covenant of grace and the covenant of works. I appeal to you: who are the ones who most quiet and settle your consciences and satisfy your spirits? Are they not those preachers who open the difference between the covenant of grace and the covenant of works? Certainly those preachers who show you what the covenant of grace is are the only ones who quiet and satisfy conscience, and it is a truth that nothing can do it but that. You who are Christians, how you should labor, then, to get a further insight into the covenant of grace! Instead of other, less useful conversation, let this be the subject of your talk: the difference between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, or the blessings of this covenant, and that this is the covenant we must depend on, notwithstanding our weaknesses.

And now that I am speaking of this covenant, and that weakness may stand with the covenant of grace, many who have carnal hearts may be ready to abuse it. Take notice how dearly the comforts of your souls cost God. God will have his ministers comfort you, though revealing such things will endanger many a person’s soul. God is content to hazard the damnation of other people to comfort you, for certainly the things we speak for your comfort will be the damnation of many others. Oh, rich grace! Think like this: “O Lord, must the comforts of my soul cost so dearly? Must many souls be hazarded for my comfort, who take occasion to sin, abuse the grace that is held out to me, and so are likely to perish eternally? Oh, then, what need I have to make good use of this grace that comes to me at the hazard of the souls of so many others!”

If a man brought some precious balm to apply to a wound, and told the wounded man that not one drop of it cost less than a thousand pounds, would it not be highly prized? Now when we come and show you anything that may comfort your hearts and satisfy your souls, we must reveal things that not only cost much, but the least dram of gospel comfort cost something of infinite worth. And its cost may be reckoned in two ways. First, every drop of the balm of the gospel cost the blood of Christ. But besides this, the very revealing of it must cost the damnation of many souls, and yet God is content to venture that so that you may be comforted. We come in the name of God and preach the grace of the gospel, and we think many will be hardened by it, grow more complacent, and abuse God’s mercy. But then we satisfy ourselves with this: the comforting of any broken, troubled soul is so precious in the eyes of Jesus Christ that he is content to venture the hardening of many other souls. If they will be hardened, let them be hardened; Christ is content to venture it. By this we see how precious these comforts are, and therefore you need to prize them and not cast them off. Suppose a captain, to save the lives of two or three men, ventured the lives of a thousand men merely to save those two or three: were not those men’s lives very precious to him? So Jesus Christ ventures the hardening of the hearts of many for the comforting of a few. This shows that your comforts are precious things. You should not easily put them away, for they cost dearly.

7. In applying evidences: when you cannot see the work of faith reaching to assurance, still labor to put forth the work of the faith of adherence. There may be much working of the faith of adherence where there cannot be the faith of assurance. That is certain: there may be true faith adhering to Christ for the pardon of sin where the soul has no certain assurance of it. Many poor creatures are crying out, “If I had the faith of assurance, and a full persuasion that my sins were pardoned, I could be comforted.” But because they have not attained a full persuasion and assurance, they think they have no grace at all. Yet there may be faith in the pardon of sin where there is no reflective act of the soul by which the soul comes to know that it has faith and that its sins are pardoned.

In 1 John 2:3 John shows that there may be knowledge, and yet people may not know that they know: “Hereby we know that we do know him, if we keep his commandments.” “Hereby we know that we do know him.” Now knowing Christ and knowing that we know him are not the same thing. There is a knowing, and a knowing that we do know him; so there is a believing, and a knowing that we do believe. There may be a true work of grace, so that I know Christ, and know him to salvation, and yet do not know that I know him; that is, I lack the reflective act of faith, the knowing that I do know him. So then, where there is no faith of assurance there may be a faith of adherence: that is, when the soul sticks to Christ, and can give itself to him and venture itself upon Christ for pardon of sin, life, and salvation. That is the faith of adherence.

Suppose that in seeking my evidences (many of them being taken from the effects and fruits of faith) I cannot find them, and so cannot put forth a reflective act of the soul, which is the faith of assurance. Yet I may at that very time have a faith of adherence. You may feel your heart stick to Christ, and you may venture your soul on Christ, and that faith will save you, though you do not have a faith of assurance. That is, though you cannot find such evidences as would let you draw the conclusion, or form the judgment, that you are pardoned, yet if you have a faith of adherence, so that you can stick to Christ and venture your souls on him for life and salvation and all that is good, that faith will save you. Therefore, when on examining your evidences you cannot rise to such acts of faith as assurance is, then live by a faith of adherence. Stick to Christ. Say, “Here I will resolve to live and die,” and venture on the grace of God in Christ. Now for the soul to do this is a mighty work of faith, for if you can venture your souls on Christ, you will venture your estates on Christ, your names on Christ, and all that you have on Christ. So remember: if you do not have a faith of assurance, then venture yourselves on Christ by a faith of adherence, and comfort will come in that way.

8. If at any time you feel comforts from evidences flowing into your souls, and you are able to apply the comforts to yourselves, that the Lord has spoken to you by such and such signs of a pardoned sinner, take heed that you do not rest much on evidences. Rather, at that very time think to yourselves, “Though I have comforts now, I may lose them, and God may call me to another condition. God never gave me these helps to be my saviors, that I should rest on them. They are only bladders to help me swim, and God may take them away and call me to live on the bare actings of faith, and not at all on sense.” It is certain that he may do it. For when we bring these signs and evidences of grace, as they come from faith and are its effects and fruits, they are only like the bladders that hold up young swimmers who cannot swim without them, and teach them to swim. Those who have got the art can swim though the bladders are taken away; but take them away from the others, and they will sink. So these evidences are for young and weak Christians who cannot live on the primary acts of faith, which a strong Christian can do when all other things are taken away.

Therefore when we feel the comfort of any signs, let us not depend on this, for the Lord may take them away. And because he delights in the bare actings of faith, this is the reason God withdraws himself from the souls of his people, so that they do not have the use of signs and evidences as they had before: he would teach them to live on the more necessary acts of faith. God loves the voice of Job, “though he kill me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15): I will venture my soul on him, whatever becomes of me. When there is nothing else to rest on but God, then to live by actings of faith merely on him is something he greatly delights in. Therefore take heed that you do not rest so much on signs as to think all your comforts are lost and you are undone when you cannot use them as you have before.

9. When at any time you have lost the use of signs, do not conclude that all is gone and that you will never have the use of them again. This is what greatly hinders many poor Christians who are in trouble of conscience because they cannot find the evidence of the pardon of their sins, and that God accepts them in what they do. What do they do immediately? They give in to the horrible sentence of damnation against themselves. “God’s Spirit,” they say, “is gone now, and he will return no more; he will never come to me again.” Take heed that you do not fasten on any such thoughts as these, to pass sentence on your own states, or to conclude that God’s Spirit will not come again. Instead, humble your souls before the Lord, and wait on him.

10. When at any time all signs and evidences fail you, and you are ready to conclude that all is gone, even then keep up good thoughts of God. So did the bride in the Song of Songs. When her Beloved was gone, she still prized him. When she was asked, “What is thy beloved?” (Song 5:9), she said, “He is the chiefest of ten thousands” (Song 5:10); he is like this, and like this; and then she concludes, “He is altogether lovely” (Song 5:16). And this was at a time when he was gone, yet she kept good thoughts of him. So it is a good sign in any soul when, with trouble of conscience or any other trouble upon them, they keep good thoughts of God and Christ and the ways of God; when the soul says, “Whatever becomes of me, though I perish forever, yet God is good; his Word and his ways are good; his gospel and the covenant in his Son are good. Whatever troubles are upon me, yet God is righteous; and though God does not justify me, yet I will justify God.” If there is any soul who cannot find his evidences, or any of the signs spoken of before, you may make use of this. If you cannot find any other, do what you can to justify God. You are afraid that God will not justify you; you justify him.

Many people are sometimes like a wretched servant who has dealt falsely with his master. As long as he can make any profit out of his master for his own ends, perhaps he will speak well of him; but if his master turns him out of doors for his wickedness, then he rails at him. It is common for bad servants to do so when they are turned away for their wickedness. And so it is with many: when all goes well with them, they like the ways of God well enough; but if they come into such a condition that they think God will indeed cast them away, and that they are likely to perish, then they begin to have hard thoughts of God, and by degrees they speak against God and his ways. Take heed of this. Although you lack the evidences of his love and mercy, still keep good thoughts of God and of his ways in your hearts, and this will be a special help to bring the comfort and assurance of your justification into your souls.

And now I have finished this subject. I have shown you whose sins are pardoned; I have shown the various mistakes; and I have shown you certain infallible grounds from Scripture, evidences of the pardon of sin, and rules for how to make use of those evidences. Now, upon what you have heard, either you have testimony and assurance of the pardon of your sins, or you do not. If you find that your hearts do not answer to these evidences, or you are afraid that your sins are not pardoned, then receive an application by way of exhortation, to stir you up to seek after this blessedness.

I have now come to a use of exhortation, and it concerns us all, both those who are not pardoned and those who have assurance of the pardon of their sins. For there is no one who has assurance who may not make use of it. Christ taught his disciples to pray daily for the forgiveness of their trespasses as well as for their daily bread; and what we are to pray for, we are to seek after. So it concerns everyone. Blessedness is desirable to all. It is as natural for man, as a reasonable creature, to desire blessedness as it is for fire to burn. Only here is the great mistake in the world: all would have it, but they do not look for it in the right way.

Now, after all that has been said, so that you may not have slight thoughts of the pardon of sin and say, “I hope my sins are pardoned,” and the like, I will speak to awaken you. Suppose you were now set on the brink of the infinite ocean of eternity, and the bottomless gulf were ready to devour you, and the records of heaven were opened, and there it was shown you that your sins were not canceled but remain on the file. What you would do then, do now. For this is our time, and this is the great work of our lives: not to trouble ourselves about many things, but about this one thing, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. This is the great work, to seek to secure this blessing of the pardon of our sins, which is the foundation of all. In obtaining it we obtain all blessings. It ought to be our chief care, and we ought to lay out our chief strength and endeavors in seeking it.

And if God would be pleased to put his hand to your hearts and turn the stream of your thoughts and endeavors, the very turning of your hearts after this business is a great mercy. There is so much blessedness in it that not only the obtaining of it, but the very motion of the heart this way, is worth all the world. In Acts 2 we read that many thousands had their hearts pricked at hearing the Word preached, and they cried out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do to be saved?” Oh, that there were a disposition in people’s hearts to cry like this! We see that it is our blessedness if we have it; and if we do not have it, we are all cursed forever. What shall we do to get it? In Mark 10:17 we read of one who came running after Christ, saying, “What shall I do to be saved?” Oh, that your hearts were now in such a frame as to come running after Christ, saying, “What shall we do that our sins may be pardoned?” But before I come to anything else, it is necessary by way of caution or proviso to say three or four things.

1. Although I must seek after God for the pardon of sin, yet know that there is nothing in a natural man that is or can be acceptable. All his endeavors have nothing in them that can gain him acceptance with God. “But then,” someone will ask, “to what purpose should we try to do anything?” I answer: we must still be striving after the pardon of sin, although without Christ we can do nothing, and a bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit. Yet it is to some purpose that we be doing.

(1) God likes well the exercise of common gifts. Though they are not saving and do not reach to eternal life, yet God likes the exercise of them so far as there is anything good in them, and he commends them. When that young man came to Christ, Christ looked upon him and loved him (Mark 10:21). It was not with such a love as to save him and bring him to eternal life, yet God did show love to such a one. Therefore it is to some purpose that a man should set himself to do what he can, if it were only for that.

(2) It is to some purpose that the heart be stirring after God and Christ, because by this we will show that we are not as negligent of God and Christ and the things of eternal life as we were before.

(3) It is to some purpose, for in the stirring of the common works of God’s Spirit, God many times comes in with saving works. God does not work on people as on blocks of wood or stones. He sets them going by stirring up the common works of his Spirit, and at the time when these are most stirring, it is God’s usual way to come in with the saving works of his Spirit. Therefore it is not to no purpose that we urge poor creatures on to do what they can.

2. The second caution is this: whatever anyone does in seeking after Christ before he has union with Christ is not to be reckoned as the condition of the covenant of grace, or as a gospel work. There are no preparatory works for receiving Christ that are the condition of the covenant of grace. Though they are things we must follow after, yet they are not the condition of the covenant of grace. Now, that which is the condition of the covenant of grace sanctifies the one who has it, and follows upon our union with Christ. Though God usually carries the soul on in the way of legal terrors, humiliations, and the like, yet these are not the work of the covenant of grace. And therefore this may help many a poor soul who is troubled about terrors of conscience and humiliations, because they never had those degrees of them that others have had. Why, just as these things do not prepare and fit you for Christ, so the lack of them is no hindrance to receiving Christ.

3. The third caution follows on the other: though you put yourselves to the use of all means for receiving Christ, yet take heed that you do not rest in any of those preparatory works. There is a great deal of danger in that. Many souls are mistaken, and it is to be feared that this is where they go wrong: in resting on something they have done. It may be that God has awakened their consciences, and they fall to working, to humbling and reforming themselves, and there they rest. But this is a mistake. You must not rest until you find that you are in Christ, and until there is a union between Christ and your souls. The work is not done just because you are humbled and reformed and run a different course from what you did before. For “’Tis not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy” (Rom 9:16). Not of him that “willeth,” that is, who has some good affections toward it; nor of him that “runneth,” that is, however strong his endeavors may be, yet it is not of him either.

Many think they have peace in their souls on the strength of their good desires and endeavors. When their hearts are mightily stirred and they are wonderfully enlarged, they make no question but that all is done. They quiet their hearts with that and think there is no further work to be done. But it is not so. “Not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.” Though we must will, and we must run, yet there may be running and striving to enter in, and yet not entering. This is a very great point, to let all of us see what need we have of the free grace of God in pardoning our sin.

4. Though God does not bind himself to come in with pardon upon these preparatory works going before, yet the very possibility of obtaining it is worthy of the utmost endeavors of any soul in the world. Though God does not bind himself to give pardon upon those works, yet there is enough in it to require anyone to lay out his utmost endeavors. Even if we could do ten thousand times more than we can, the very possibility of obtaining pardon is worth calling forth all our strength. Know that the very possibility of having sin pardoned is enough to set all your hearts to work in seeking after it, though God does not bind himself to come in at that point and pardon.

It is not as though God would have his creature seek him, and then everything would be left to that seeking. No; for if it were granted that God foresaw something his creature would do, and on that basis would give him pardon, then all the world would be saved. But all the world does not do what it can. If God had bound himself to come in whenever people do what they can, all the world might be saved. But it is not so. God has left it this way: his creature, do what he can, must rely upon him. And when he does come in, he enters into the greatest and strongest bonds there can be to do his creature good. But I come now to press the exhortation to seek after the pardon of sin.

Question. You will say, “How must we seek it? And what is to be done?”

Answer. 1. In seeking pardon of your sins, set yourselves as in the presence of God, and press this upon your souls: “I am now looking after the pardon of sin, but how am I doing it? Does my heart so work in it that I can satisfy my own conscience in the work I do? Is it such a work as may testify my high respect for God, from whom I seek it? Is it such a work as shows that I am sensible this is the business of most infinite concern that I have in all the world? And am I sensible of the infinite power and majesty of God, as one who is infinitely above me?” When you seek after pardon, you must do it so that you can satisfy your consciences that your seeking is such a work as holds forth the glorious greatness of the God you are seeking after. Many pray in a slight way, saying, “God be merciful to me,” and mumble over a few words, and are done. Does this show that they have such an apprehension of the greatness of the power of the God they seek after? Surely not. That is the first.

2. If you will seek after pardon of sin, it must be such a seeking as may testify that you prize your life here in this world above all other things in it, because God gives you time in it to seek after him. Is your seeking such that it shows the time of your life is given you for this very end? If you were sensible of this, you would seek it in another manner than you do. You would seek it as a condemned man seeks his pardon. For certainly every man is a condemned man, and the time of your life is like a condemned man’s time between his condemnation and his execution.

Now, does your seeking testify and witness that you spend your time this way? Are your hearts so stirred in seeking pardon that it shows you account your lives precious and use them for this end, to get the pardon of your sin? If a condemned man has two or three days to seek a pardon, and he gives himself to drinking, gaming, and the like, certainly no one would think that this man spent his time as if it were given him to get his pardon. Look at the courses and lives of most people: are they such as testify that they live for that very end, to seek pardon? If people were as sensible of it as they should be, they would cry and weep and lament to God for the pardon of their sins. They would so carry themselves as would testify that they prize their lives at a high rate for this end, that they may seek the pardon of their sins.

3. It must be done so that you may have this testimony in your consciences: that you never sought after anything in the world as you have sought after this. However important any other occasion may have been, there is nothing after which your endeavors have been so powerful as after this. I appeal to you in this place: is the work of your souls after pardon like this? Can you say in your own consciences, “If any business ever took up my heart, this has; if ever my spirit was stirred up in anything in the world, it is in this”? Certainly, unless it is so, you have not done what God requires of you.

4. You must do it as one who apprehends that God is ready to be gone and to turn away from you. You must seek after him as apprehending that, for all you know, God is just going away; and if you do not have it now, it is uncertain whether you will ever have it. The soul must cry as a poor criminal does when the judge is on the bench. He cries all the while; but when the judge is ready to rise and is going off, then he cries, “Mercy, mercy!” When he thinks that if he lets the judge go, he will never see his face again, then he cries in earnest. So it should be with every soul that understands the danger of losing it.

You should seek after it as looking on yourselves as standing before God, the Judge of all the world, with the sentence of death passed against you. Yet for the present God is looking on you and allows you to look on him. But seek as apprehending that God is ready to turn aside, and that you do not know whether he will ever grant you such an opportunity of seeing him again. Oh, if only a man would seek after God as a God ready to turn aside from him, whom for all he knows he will never see again! Certainly, if you know the evil of sin and the blessedness of the pardon of sin, what a deep impression such an apprehension would make on your hearts!

5. Seek after it in such a way that you may testify that you would sanctify the great name of God in it. I do not say you can do it, but you must endeavor after it, and desire that what you do may have some resemblance to it. There is no work that God ever did from all eternity that has as much of his name in it as this work of the pardon of sin has, much less more. This is a positive work of God, and it is for this end, to declare his name. The works and counsels of God about this were the greatest thing God ever did. You heard much about the glory of God in this work when the doctrine was opened. Now what I press on you in this use is this: in seeking pardon of sin, know that you are to endeavor after it in such a way that your endeavors may hold forth the apprehensions your souls have of the great name of God.

Certainly we sanctify God’s name when we perform it so, when there is a work on our souls suitable in some measure to the excellent and glorious name of God that appears, in some measure, in the work we are engaged in. For example, if it is the speaking of some attribute of God, I sanctify God’s name when I have a reverent regard for God with reference to that attribute. So when I give God praise for a mercy, I sanctify God’s name when there is a work on my heart suitable to the glorious name of God that appears in the mercy bestowed on me. So if I seek after God for a blessing, I reverence God’s name when there is a disposition in my heart somewhat suitable to the glorious name of God that appears in that blessing.

So too in seeking to sanctify God’s name in seeking pardon of sin: you do it when there is such a frame in your heart as may hold forth to men and angels that this work of yours has some kind of suitableness to the glorious name of God that appears in it. This is to sanctify the name of God, and this is a great work. This is the great thing for which you were made, and the great thing for which the counsels of God, yes, the deep counsels of God, were set to work from all eternity.

Now the dispositions of our spirits must be such as may show the great end that the wisdom and counsels of God had in it, and therefore it must be a great work that will show that. For certainly those whom God pardons, he makes to understand what pardon means. Now then, if your seeking is such that you know what it is you are seeking after, then it must also show that you understand that the name of God is exceedingly glorious in it. And as you apprehend this, so your heart will work after it accordingly. Therefore, when you are alone and you find your hearts working this way, say, “What am I doing? Do I so call upon him and seek after him that this work of mine declares to God and to my own conscience that I am seeking it in a way that shows the glorious name of the great God is in it? Certainly, if I do not do it this way, I take God’s name in vain.”

6. Further, you must seek after it now as you would wish you had sought it if you were now to answer before the Lord for all your sins. I put it to every one of you: have you not been on your sickbeds, and in your own apprehension near to death? Has not God awakened your consciences, so that you have been afraid on account of your sins? Whatever temper your souls were in then, know that it concerns you every day, through the whole course of your lives, to have the same apprehensions you had at that time. Do now as you would have done then. Certainly you do not understand what pardon of sin means if you do not seek it this way.

7. Do it as you think in your conscience the damned souls in hell would do if God should give them a possibility. What would they do if God should proclaim to them a possibility of pardon? What would they do? You may imagine various things they would do; and here the point comes fully to my hand, to urge you to say, “Oh, what shall I do?” If we were to preach to them in hell, do you think there is any one of them who would not cry mightily to the God of heaven? It is not likely that any one of such an audience would fail to cry mightily to God, if the great counsels of God concerning the pardon of sin were preached to them. And will not every one of you now cry mightily to God for it? Certainly, if they would do it in hell, why should you not do it now? What you think they would do, do now, not with a few slight, empty expressions, but with all your might.

8. Do this: seek after it in such a way as to desire, if it were possible, that you might bring as much glory to God as he would have had from you if he had damned you forever. This is an excellent frame of spirit, though you may not know it; but even if you do not, you should still set yourselves to this kind of work, and God may come in. You cry out for pardon, but you never cry out for God’s honor: “Oh, what will become of the honor of God that he has lost by me, and the dishonor I have brought on him?” Say, “O Lord, I have dishonored your name. Oh, that I might honor your name as much as I have dishonored it! O Lord, you might make up your honor in my eternal damnation. But, O Lord, if I could do anything that might make up the dishonor I have brought you by my sin, if I could do anything in which you might have any honor, I would do it.”

For a close, I will put this to you as something to consider: whatever you would do upon any supposition (suppose your danger were as great as it ever was in all your lives), what you would do then, do now. You must do all that can be done by a creature. Now if you would do more on such a supposition as this, and yet, after all those sermons you have heard on the evil of sin, and now on the great blessedness of the pardon of sin, you do not do what a creature is able to do, how can you look for pardon of sin in the face of God? And therefore what you would do upon any such supposition, do now, even if you should not obtain pardon. Suppose you were now ready to be damned; yet is it not better to do it than not to do it?

Having spoken of these general things, I come now more particularly to the other part of the question: What is to be done?

1. This is to be done: be sure you take your heart off from every other imaginary blessedness. Certainly there is no one in the world whose heart has not been running out after something else. Now you must get your heart off that thing, whatever it is. It may be your heart was set upon friends, or upon pleasures of the flesh, and you thought yourself happier the more liberty you had for your lust, and the like. Now you must be convinced that you have fed upon ashes, and have not been able to say, “There is a lie in my right hand” (Isa 44:20). Say, “But God has now shown me there is a lie. I have looked for happiness elsewhere, but now I see it is not to be found there.” Win your soul fully to this: “O my soul, are you taken off from all other things? Has God convinced you that you may have honors, riches, and pleasures, and yet be a reprobate? Woe is me for the time that I have lost! I have laid out my time and money for another blessedness, when blessedness is to be found nowhere but in the grace of God.”

2. Let conscience have free liberty to show you your sins and charge them upon you, yes, to accuse and condemn you; and help your conscience along. When conscience accuses and condemns, then condemn yourself. If you would be pardoned, give conscience scope and liberty. It is very dangerous, when God begins to stir the hearts of men and women, to put any stop or check on conscience there. The wisest course is to give conscience liberty, for it will have liberty one day to accuse and condemn you; why will you not give it liberty now? Conscience will one day bring all your evil deeds before you and accuse you; let it accuse and condemn you now. And certainly, if you do so, you are in a very good way to come to have absolution of your sins in your conscience now. For at the great day the books will be opened. Now bring a day of judgment, as it were, upon yourself. Contract the throne of God into your own heart, call for the book of conscience, and say, “Conscience, what do you have to say against me, so that I may get it blotted out now, and it may not be read against me at the day of judgment?”

3. Be willing to own all your sins. Confess them and lay them open, with all the heartbreaking circumstances and aggravations you possibly can. The Lord knows your sins whether you confess them or not; but God will have you come and lay them open; God will have you come and charge yourself with them. It is a very good thing to open your conscience freely before the Lord, not in a slight way, but in anguish and bitterness of spirit, bewailing your sins and crying out against them in prayer and petition.

4. Be willing to accept the punishment of sin. Say, “O Lord, as I thus charge and acknowledge, bewail and cry out against my sin, so here I am, Lord, ready and willing to accept the punishment of my sin.” The soul that is in this frame is in an encouraging way toward the pardon of sin.

5. Resolve to avoid sin, whatever comes of it. At the very time when you are seeking pardon of sin, be sure to resolve never to sin again. For know that, for all you know, the very next sin you commit may make God come upon you for all your former sins.

6. And then, cast out whatever has been gotten by false ways; make restitution, as Zacchaeus did (Luke 19).

7. Be sure that you will be put off with nothing but pardon of sin. Never rest, but keep your soul always in a waiting frame, looking up to God for pardon.

To all these things I will add this: all of them must have reference to the great work of the Son of God. When you cry out, “What shall we do?” though I have spoken of various things, yet know that everything is with reference to Christ, the Son of God, God and man. Look on him as the head of the second covenant, offering himself up for our sins. Let your eye be on him. And as you give your conscience liberty to charge your sins on your own soul, so charge them on Christ, the head of the second covenant; have an eye to him for their discharge. Do you vomit up your sin by confession and cry to God for pardon? Remember to cry to him through the mediation of Jesus Christ. Look on him who must make up the breach, restore you to favor, and remove the curse.

In every work be sure you keep your eye on Christ, and make use of these rules in such a way as may further the venturing of your soul on Christ. Unless your soul rises to this, so that these things work you to Christ, all the rest is only a natural work. As I said before, you should let conscience condemn you, and you should have anguish of spirit; yet know that all these are only natural works, except so far as they serve with reference to Christ.

And now that I have shown you what you are to do, what is it that you will do? Will you set up your resolution that, through the grace of God in Christ, you will set about whatever has been told you? Then you are happy. But if you do not do it, it may be you will wish you had done it when sin lies heavy on you. Then you will cry for God to be merciful to you, but then God and conscience will say, “I warned you at such a time, in such a place. Were you not put there in a way to seek after pardon? What did you do after you went away? The next day you went among your companions and were as drunk and as wicked as ever before.” If it is so, then trouble will come upon you. It may be that some poor creature who sat in the same pew with you had a heart to seek pardon, and is absolved before men and angels, and at the day of judgment will sit at Christ’s right hand; and you, who heard the same word and have neglected it, now come to have your soul lie forever under the weight and burden of your sins. God forbid that such a difference should be made!

You have heard the way; seek after the pardon of your sin. Do not let it be in vain that all these sermons have been preached to you. In Acts 10:43, when they preached about pardon of sin, the text says, “To him give all the prophets witness.” Oh, that you might come in and bear witness that this day remission of sin was preached to you! Oh, that while you hear this word the Holy Spirit might fall upon you, that your hearts might be fired with strong resolutions to set about this work in the power of the Holy Spirit, and to rest in nothing short of a pardon! Now I come to give you some encouragements, and they will work in one of two ways: either they will draw you to Christ, or they will forever stop your mouths, so that you will have nothing to say against him. I will name fifteen encouragements to you.

1. The time of your life is given to you for this very end, to seek the pardon of your sins. Suppose a man has some great business to do that concerns his life, and someone comes to him and says, “Sir, you have taken the very nick of time; otherwise you would have been lost forever.” Just so, this is the very nick of time given to you to obtain the pardon of your sins and an interest in the blood of Christ.

2. Not only is this time granted you for this end, but the means the Lord has brought you under is a great argument that he intends mercy for you. You may conclude that there are more of God’s elect who may have pardoning mercy now than in former times. The light of the gospel is breaking forth, and certainly there are more to be brought in. The gospel is the fruit of Christ’s death, and it is given for the sake of the elect. In Acts 18:9-10 the Lord bids Paul go and preach, for he had many people there. Paul would meet with opposition, but the Lord tells him to go and not be afraid, for he has many people in that place. It is true, the rain will fall on the roof tiles as well as on the tender herbs and grass; but certainly, where God sends his Word, he has people to be gathered in. If you take notice of God’s providence in this point, it may greatly encourage you to come in. Certainly there are many in this congregation, and in others where the Word is preached, whom he will pardon. When the blind man heard that it was Christ passing by, he cried out for mercy; many told him to hold his peace, but he cried all the more, and Christ stood still and called him to himself (Mark 10:46). Now if you see your sin and cry out for pardon, Christ will call you, that he may give pardoning mercy to you, as he did to Bartimaeus.

3. It may be that you are not only under the means of grace and the outward call, but you are beginning to feel an inward call. There are some stirrings of God’s Spirit within you. Before, you could say that you wondered what was the matter with people that they ran after sermons; but now you are beginning to feel the effect of it yourself, and the glory of God appears to you in this place when you are hearing his Word. From this you may reason as Manoah’s wife did: “Certainly if God had intended to have killed us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands; neither would he have showed us all these things” (Judg 13:23). So say to your soul, “If God had intended to kill me, he would not have been so willing to draw me after him, nor would he have shown me all these things.” Let that be an encouragement to you.

4. The reason God keeps this world in being is so that he may give pardon to his elect. Certainly this world would have been dissolved long ago if it were not so that he might bring pardon to his elect, and to those who see their sins. This must be a great encouragement to a soul, that is, to those who see their sins, to come in. When this pardoning work is done, Christ will deliver up his kingdom to his Father. Suppose a condemned criminal came to sue out his pardon, and someone said to him, “It is well, sir, that you have come, for the king would not have kept his court here so long, except that you might come in.” Would that not be a great encouragement? So I say: were it not that people might come and obtain the pardon of their sins, the court of this world would have been broken up long before now.

5. The principal aim of the Scriptures is this very end, to reveal the pardoning grace of God. Here you have the heart of God laid open. Christ wept and mourned that sinners would not come in, so that they might be pardoned and saved. I have read a story that in Athens there was a temple, and in it a woman weeping; in one hand she held a bleeding heart, and with the other she was writing pardons. So Christ stands weeping over you, that you will not come in (Luke 19:41-42). He holds a bleeding heart, bleeding for you, in the one hand, and with the other hand he is ready to write you a pardon.

6. No, he does not only weep. But the sixth encouragement may be this: he sends his ambassadors to woo you to come in, and tells them they must not take a denial at your hands (2 Cor 5:20). They entreat and beg, as in his name; indeed, it is the pleading and entreating of God himself. Suppose a king sent one of his attendants to a poor condemned prisoner and said, “Go and tell that man that he must come for his pardon. Tell him I beg him; take no denial from him. I beg him to come in.” Would this not show the great willingness of the king to pardon? God does just this. He sends his ministers and begs you to come in and take a pardon. It is as certain that God speaks this way by his ministers as if you heard God speaking himself. This should move you to come in. Christ begs and entreats you to be reconciled, so that his blood might not be shed in vain. Since it is so, that God begs you to come in, why should you not come in and take the pardon of your sin? Why can you not come in and give up yourself, and all you have and are, to him?

7. Know that it is the great office and work of Christ’s mediatorship to bind up the broken hearts of wounded sinners: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he hath anointed me, he hath sent me to preach good tidings to the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Isa 61:1). In the New Testament this is applied to Christ. Now since this is the great work for which Christ came into the world, to bind up the brokenhearted, see whether you cannot rely on Christ by an act of faith. This should be a great encouragement.

8. Consider that the God you have to deal with is one whose very nature is mercy itself. If so, he is free in his mercy. As the sun shines because it is its nature to shine, so the mercy of God must work freely, because it is his nature, just as fire burns naturally. God pardons because he delights in mercy (Exod 34; Mic 7:18). You say that you are a poor sinner. Well, though that is so, you may still say, “Though God can see nothing in me, yet since he is a God who delights in mercy, this may move me to come in.” For:

(1) He has more delight in pardoning any sinner than in all the creatures of heaven and earth. God delights in all the works of his hands, but he delights in this more than in all of them. He delights in them all, but not so much as in magnifying his grace in Jesus Christ, for in this he magnifies his Son. Therefore he has more pleasure, and takes more delight, in pardoning a poor humbled sinner than in all the other works of his hands.

(2) No one can take as much pleasure in the salvation of his own soul as God takes in pardoning your sin. The reason is that this is the greatest design God has: the setting forth of his glory in his pardoning mercy in Christ. Therefore this may be a great encouragement.

(3) God is more delighted in the work of your heart closing with free grace than in all the legal works of humiliation. What does Christ say? That this is the good will and pleasure of God. And David was called a man after God’s own heart. Why? Because he was a man who would do his will. So this is a great encouragement. Though many abuse it and pervert it to their own destruction, God will still have it taught, so that you might have the comfort of it. Therefore you should close with God and come in, and take hold of his pardoning mercy.

9. Though God has taken such a way of mercy to pardon sin, he loses nothing in his justice. Christ has so ordered things that God’s glory will in no way be diminished; his justice will be satisfied. Therefore you need not say, “I have so sinned against God that I do not know, I cannot tell, how to make up his glory.” Care has already been taken for that, and so it need not discourage you.

10. There are sinners now triumphing in heaven as vile as any of you here, however black and vile you may be. So do not be discouraged by the greatness of your sins. Though they are very great, that need not keep you out; others as vile as you are now in heaven.

11. Make your sin as great as you possibly can, yet this need not keep you from coming to God; since, for all that either men or angels know, you have as much interest in Christ as any saint in heaven ever had. If you come in and lay hold on Christ, your very laying hold on Christ will plainly show that you have a right to him. Therefore do not be discouraged, but come in.

12. Upon your closing with Christ, you will find such a change as was never worked in any other creature. Though you were vile and filthy, more vile and filthy than a newborn child, through the original and actual sins bred in you, yet you will be made cleaner than a child, and purer in the eyes of God than any child washed from its filth. Would you not do anything to be pure in the eyes of God? Make use of what I say, and you will be clean. When you hear ministers speak the threatenings of God, you quarrel with the man and say, “He preaches nothing but terror.” Alas, it is our delight to preach the pardoning grace of God. But we must show the evil of sin, and we do it so that you might come in and embrace mercy. For know this: we delight to preach mercy more than anything else. And know that if you desire that all your thoughts, ways, and actions may be for God’s glory, he will not reproach you for coming in to him: “He that cometh to Christ, he will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). Though you have been ever so great a sinner, you may still come in and close with Christ; for whoever comes to him, whatever he may be, he will in no way cast out.

13. You will fill heaven with joy, and there will be more music in heaven than at the coming of any prince into his kingdom. And I may say to you that even in this place, if you come in, the angels will rejoice at it, for there are many angels standing around you. Therefore take heed how you conduct yourselves, for they come to see your behavior. Take special care that your hearts are set on the work you have come about, for they are here to see how you carry yourselves.

14. In obtaining the pardon of sin and closing with Christ by faith, you are made an heir of the whole world (Rom 4:13). How many of you mariners, and others, venture on dangerous voyages to get great estates in this world! And you count those happy who are born to great estates. Why, by closing with Jesus Christ by faith for the remission of sins, you are made heirs of the whole world. I do not mean the world to come, but this present world. Though surely none of you desire more of it than will carry you to heaven, still you are true and proper heirs of the whole world. “All is yours”; the Scripture is very clear on it, at the end of 1 Corinthians 3, but I cannot stay now to enlarge on it.

15. For anything you know, you are one of God’s elect, and there is nothing you are required to do that God has not promised to enable you to do. For there is such a transaction between God and Christ that whoever will be saved will not only have favor granted to him, but will be enabled to do whatever God requires of him. Grace will be given to every one of God’s elect. And now, if you come in and give up yourself, and all that you are, have, or can do, to Christ, how do you know that you are not one of the elect, and so will be made happy forever? But if, after all that has been said, you go away with slight thoughts of this rich and transcendent grace of pardoning mercy, and do not immediately set about the work of obtaining it, be ashamed and confounded forever, but let the pardoning mercy of God be magnified forever.