The Doctrine of the Law and Grace Unfolded in Modern English

“For ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14).

In the three preceding chapters, the apostle is pleading for the salvation of sinners by grace, without the works of the law. He does this to confirm the saints, and also to win over all those who opposed the truth of this doctrine, or else to leave them all the more without excuse. To do this, he first undertakes to show the state of all men by nature, that is, as they come into the world by natural birth. So in the third chapter he says, “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none that understandeth; there is none that doeth good…” (Rom 3:10-12). It is as if he had said: It seems there is a generation of men who think to be saved by the righteousness of the law. But let me tell them that they are badly deceived, because they have already sinned against the law. For by the disobedience of one, many, yes, all, were brought into a state of condemnation (Rom 5:12-20).

Now in the sixth chapter he acts as if he had turned around to the brethren and said: My brethren, you see now that it is clear and evident that we inherit eternal life freely, by the grace of Christ. And again, for your comfort, my brethren, let me tell you that your condition is wonderfully safe, because you are under grace. For, he says, “Sin shall not have dominion over you.” That is, neither its damning power nor its filthy power shall rule you so as to destroy your souls. “For ye are not under the law”; that is, you are not under what will damn you for sin. “But” you are “under grace”; that is, you stand in such a relation to God that though you have sinned, you will still be pardoned. “For ye are not under the law, but under grace.”

If anyone should ask what the word “under” means, I answer: it means that you are not held, kept or shut up by the law so as to appear before God under that administration, and under none but that. Or, to put it another way, you are not now bound by the authority of the law to fulfill it and obey it, so that you have no salvation unless you do. Or again, you are not in such a state that if you transgress against any one tittle of it, you must be condemned by its power. No, no, for you are not under it in that way; that is, you are not under the law like this.

Again, “For ye are not under the law.” What is meant by this word “law”? The word “law” in Scripture can be taken in more ways than one, as could be shown at length. There is the law of faith, the law of sin, the law of men, and the law of works, otherwise called the covenant of works, or the first or old covenant. “In that he saith a new covenant,” which is the grace of God, commonly called the covenant of grace, “he hath made the first old,” that is, the covenant of works, or the law (Heb 8:13).

I say, therefore, that the word “law” and the word “grace” in this sixth chapter of Romans set forth the two covenants that all men are under; that is, every man is under either the one or the other. “For ye are not under the law”: that is, you to whom I am now writing these words, who are and have been effectually brought into the faith of Jesus, you are not under the law, or under the covenant of works. So he does not apply these words to all, but to some, when he says, “But ye.” Mark that: ye, you believers; ye, you converted people; ye, you saints; ye, you who have been born. Ye: “for ye are not under the law,” implying that others are, namely those who are in their natural state and have not been brought into the covenant of grace by faith in Jesus Christ.

Understood this way, then, the words reveal these two truths.

First Doctrine. There are some in gospel times who are under the covenant of works.

Second Doctrine. There is never a believer under the law as it is the covenant of works; every believer is under grace through Christ. “For ye,” you believers, you converted people, ye “are not under the law but under grace”; or, in other words, you are delivered and brought into, or under, the covenant of grace.

The First Doctrine

To begin with the first: that there are some who are under the law, or under the covenant of works. Please look at that scripture in the third chapter of Romans. There the apostle, having spoken of sins against the law and of the law’s sentences pronounced against those who are in that condition, says, “What things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law.” Mark that: “it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God” (Rom 3:19). That is, it speaks to all those who are under the law as a covenant of works, who are still in their sins and unconverted, as I told you before.

Again he says, “But if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law” (Gal 5:18). This again implies that those who stand answerable for sinning against the law, or who are for the works of the law as it is the old covenant, are under the law and not under the covenant of grace.

Again he says, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse” (Gal 3:10). That is, those who are under the law are under the curse. For mark this: those who are under the covenant of grace are not under the curse. Now, there are only two covenants. It must follow, then, that those who are under the curse are under the law, since those who are under the other covenant are not under the curse but under the blessing. “So, then, they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham” (Gal 3:9), but the rest are under the law.

Now I will proceed to what I intend to speak about. First, I will show you what the covenant of works, or the law, is, and when it was first given, together with its nature. Second, I will show you what it is to be under the law, or covenant of works, and the miserable state of all those who are under it. Third, I will show you who they are that are under this covenant, or law. Fourth, I will show you how far a man may go and still be under this covenant, or law.

What the Covenant Is

The covenant of works, or the law, spoken of here is the law delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai in two tables of stone, in ten particular branches or heads. For this, see Galatians 4. There the apostle speaks of the law, and also of some who, through the delusions of false doctrine, had been brought back under it, as it were, or at least were leaning that way. In Galatians 4:21 he says: As for you who desire to be under the law, I will show you the mystery of Abraham’s two sons, whom he had by Hagar and Sarah. These two signify the two covenants. The one named Hagar signifies Mount Sinai, where the law was delivered to Moses on two tables of stone (Exod 24:12; Exod 34:1; Deut 10:1).

Whoever is under this covenant is, for the present, destitute of and altogether without the grace of Christ in his heart. “For I testify again to every man,” he says, speaking to the same people, that “Christ has become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law” (meaning the law given on Mount Sinai): “ye are fallen from grace” (Gal 5:3-4). He does not mean that anyone can be justified by the law. His meaning is that all who seek justification by the works of the law are not people who seek to be under the second covenant, the covenant of grace.

The apostle also speaks again of these two covenants and says, “But if the ministration of death” (or the law, for it is all the same) “written and engraven in stones” (mark that) “was glorious, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit” (or the covenant of grace) “be rather glorious?” (2 Cor 3:7-8). It is as if he had said, It is true that there was a glory in the covenant of works, and a very great excellence appeared in it, that is, in the law given in the stones on Sinai. Yet there is another covenant, the covenant of grace, that exceeds it for comfort and glory.

When It Was Given

But though this law was delivered to Moses from the hands of angels in two tables of stone on Mount Sinai, that was not the first time this law appeared to man. Even this law, in substance, though possibly not so openly, was given to the first man, Adam, in the garden of Eden, in these words: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen 2:16-17). This commandment, given to Adam then, contained in it a prohibition against doing any of those things that were and are counted evil. At that time it did not appear so plainly, in so many particular heads, as it did when it was delivered again on Mount Sinai; but it was still the very same. And I will prove that this way.

God commanded Adam in paradise to abstain from all evil against the first covenant, and not from some sins only. But if God had not commanded Adam to abstain from the sins spoken against in the Ten Commandments, he would not have commanded him to abstain from all sins, but only from some. Therefore he must have commanded him then to abstain from all the sins forbidden in the law given on Mount Sinai. Now, that God commanded Adam to abstain from all evil or sin against any of the Ten Commandments when he gave him the command in the garden is evident from this: he punished sins committed against the commands later delivered on Mount Sinai before they were delivered there. That will appear as follows.

The first, second, and third commandments were broken by Pharaoh and his men. They had false gods, against which the Lord executed judgment (Exod 12:12), and they blasphemed their true God (Exod 5:2), and that did not escape punishment (Exod 7:17-25). For their gods could deliver neither themselves nor their people from the hand of God; but “in the thing wherein they dealt proudly, he was above them” (Exod 18:11).

Again, some judge that the Lord punished Jacob’s sin against the second commandment, which he was in some measure guilty of in not purging his house of false gods, with the defiling of his daughter Dinah (Gen 34:2).

Again, we find that Abimelech thought sin against the third commandment so great that, to guard against his fear of harm that Abraham, his son, and his son’s son might do to him, he required no other security from Abraham than Abraham’s oath (Gen 21:23). We see the same between Abimelech and Isaac (Gen 26:28-31). We find the same in Moses and the Israelites, who dared not leave the bones of Joseph in Egypt because of the oath of the Lord, since his name would have been abused by their doing so (Exod 13:19).

And we find the Lord rebuking his people for breaking the fourth commandment (Exod 16:27-29).

And for breaking the fifth, the curse came upon Ham (Gen 9:25-27). And Ishmael, dishonoring his father by mocking Isaac, was cast out, as we read in Genesis 21:9-10. Lot’s sons-in-law, for slighting their father, perished in the overthrow of Sodom (Gen 19:14 and following).

The sixth commandment was broken by Cain, and so dreadful a curse and punishment came upon him that it made him cry out, “My punishment is greater than I can bear” (Gen 4:13).

Again, when Esau threatened to kill his brother, Rebekah sent Jacob away, saying, “Why should I be deprived also of you both in one day?” This hints to us that she knew murder was to be punished with death (Gen 27:45), which the Lord himself had likewise declared to Noah (Gen 9:6).

Again, we see a notable example of the Lord’s justice in punishing murder in the Egyptians and Pharaoh. They drowned the Israelites’ children in the river (Exod 1:22), and they themselves were drowned in the sea (Exod 14:27).

Sin against the seventh commandment was punished in the Sodomites and the others with them by the utter destruction of their city and themselves (Gen 19:24-25). Yes, they suffer “the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 7). Also, the male Shechemites were all put to the sword for the sin committed by Hamor’s son (Gen 34:25-26).

Our first parents sinned against the eighth commandment in taking the forbidden fruit, and so brought the curse on themselves and their descendants (Gen 3:16). Again, Jacob counted death the punishment due for breaking this commandment (Gen 31:30, 32), and so did Jacob’s sons (Gen 44:9-10).

Cain, sinning against the ninth commandment (Gen 4:9), was therefore cursed with respect to the earth (Gen 4:11). And Abraham, though he was the friend of God, was blamed by Pharaoh for false witness and sent out of Egypt (Gen 12:18-20), and both he and Sarah were reproved by Abimelech (Gen 20:9-10, 16).

Pharaoh sinned against the tenth commandment, and was therefore plagued with great plagues (Gen 12:15, 17). Abimelech coveted Abraham’s wife, and the Lord threatened death to him and his household unless he restored her. Yes, though he had not come near her, yet for coveting and taking her the Lord shut fast the wombs of his household (Gen 20:3, 18).

Further Arguments

I could have spoken more fully to this, but I do not want to be too tedious; I would rather say what I have to say as briefly as I can. But before I leave it, I will give you an argument or two more besides, to clear this further: that the substance of the law delivered on Mount Sinai had been delivered by the Lord to man before that, in the garden.

First, “death reigned over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression” (Rom 5:14), that is, even though they did not take the forbidden fruit as Adam did. Now if the transgression had been nothing else, or if sin had been laid to the charge of none but those who ate of that fruit, then those born to Adam after he was shut out of the garden would have had no sin, since they did not actually eat of that fruit. And so they would not have been slaves to death. But since death reigned from Adam to Moses, that is, from the time of Adam’s transgression of the law as first given until the time the law was given on Mount Sinai, it is evident that the substance of the Ten Commandments was given to Adam and his descendants under that command, Eat not of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. But if anyone says that death reigned over them because of their father’s sin, I answer this: although original sin is laid to the charge of his descendants, yet they were also plagued for the sins they actually committed.

And again, the apostle says, “For where no law is, there is no transgression” (Rom 4:15). For, he says, “sin is not imputed when there is no law; nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses” (Rom 5:13-14). But if there had been no law, there would have been no transgression, and so no death to follow after as its wages. For death is the wages of sin (Rom 6:23), and sin is the breach of the law: an actual breach in our particular persons, as well as an actual breach in our public person (1 John 3:4).

Again, the sins for which those people mentioned above were punished are no other sins than those against the law given on Sinai. Therefore the law the Lord gave earlier to Adam and his descendants is the same as the one given afterward on Mount Sinai. Again, the conditions of the law on Sinai and of the law in the garden are exactly the same: the one says, Do this and live, and the other says the same. Also, judgment is pronounced against men in both alike. Therefore it appears that this law is the very same as the one given on Mount Sinai.

Again, the apostle speaks of only two covenants, namely grace and works, and everyone is under these two covenants: some under the one, and some under the other. Now this law given to Adam is one of them; therefore the law on Sinai is one of them too, and the very same as this. And that this is the truth, I say, I know, because the sins against the law on Sinai were punished by God, for the breach of it, before it was given there. So it plainly appears to be the truth, for it would be unrighteous of God to punish for a law that was not broken. Therefore it was the very same as the law on Sinai.

Now the law was given on Sinai to expose more clearly the sins that had been committed against it before. For though the very substance of the Ten Commandments was given in the garden before they were received from Sinai, yet they lay so darkly in man’s heart that his sins were not so clearly exposed as they were afterward. Therefore, the apostle says, the law was added (Gal 3:19), or, to put it more plainly, given on Sinai, on tables of stone, “that the offence might abound,” that is, that it might be more clearly made manifest and appear (Rom 5:20).

Again, we have a notable picture of this at Sinai, in the very giving of the law. First, the law was given twice on Sinai, to signify that its substance had indeed been given before. And second, the first tables given on Sinai were broken at the foot of the mountain, and the others were preserved whole. This signified that though the law given before was the true law, the same as the one given on Sinai, yet it was not so easy to read and take notice of, because the stones were not whole but broken, and so the law written on them was somewhat defaced and disfigured.

Objection. But someone may object and say, “Though the sins against the one are the sins against the other, and so they agree in that, it still does not appear that the one is therefore the same covenant of works as the other.”

Answer. You will grant that what was given to Adam in paradise was the covenant of works, for it runs like this: Do this and live; do not do it and die; indeed, “Thou shalt surely die.” Now there is only one covenant of works. If, therefore, I prove that what was delivered on Mount Sinai is the covenant of works, then all will be put beyond doubt. And that this is so is evident.

1. Consider that the two covenants are called this in Scripture: the one the administration of death, and the other the administration of life; the one the covenant of works, the other the covenant of grace. But the law delivered on Sinai is called the ministration of death; therefore it is the covenant of works. “But if,” he says, “the ministration of death, written and engraven on stones was glorious …” (2 Cor 3).

2. The apostle, writing to the Galatians, labors to drive them off from trusting in the covenant of works. But when he comes to reveal what that law or covenant is, laboring as he is to take them off from trusting in it, he plainly tells them it is the law that was given on Sinai (Gal 4:24-25). Therefore what was delivered in two tables of stone on Mount Sinai is the very same as what was given before to Adam in paradise, for both run alike. The law in the garden says, Do this and live; but “in the day thou eatest thereof” (or do not do this) “thou shalt surely die.”

And so does this law on Sinai, as is evident when he says, “the man which doeth those things shall live by them” (Rom 10:5). And in case they break them, even any one of them, it says, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the (whole) book of the law to do them” (Gal 3:10). Now that this has been cleared up, I will proceed.

A second thing to be spoken to is this: to show what it is to be under the law as it is a covenant of works. I will speak to it in this way.

To be under the law as it is a covenant of works is to be bound, on pain of eternal damnation, to fulfill every particular point of the Ten Commandments by doing them, and to do it completely and continually. Do this, and then you shall live; otherwise, “cursed is every one that continueth not in all,” that is, in every particular thing, or “things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal 3:10). The man who is under the first covenant stands this way, and only this way, as he is under that covenant, or law. Poor souls! Because they are ignorant of the nature of that covenant of works, the law they are under, they do not think their state is half so bad as it is. And yet, alas, there are none in the world in so sad a condition as they are; for the truth is, they do not understand these things.

He who is under the law as it is a covenant of works is like a man who is bound by the law of his king, on pain of banishment, or of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, not to break any of the king’s commandments. So it is here: those who are under the covenant of works are bound, on pain of eternal banishment and condemnation, to keep within the bounds of the law of the God of heaven. In this case the covenant of works may be compared to the laws of the Medes and Persians, which, once made, cannot be altered (Dan 6:8). You find that when a law was made and issued that no one should ask a petition of anyone, God or man, except of the king alone, and this law was established by the king (Dan 6:9), Daniel broke it; and let everyone do whatever they could, into the lions’ den Daniel must go (Dan 6:16). So here, I say, a law has been given, and sealed with the truth and the word of God, that “the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezek 18:4). Whoever remains under this covenant and dies under it must and shall go into the lions’ den. Yes, worse than that, for they shall be thrown into hell, to the very devils.

But to help you understand this better, let me speak to a few particulars. Know this:

1. The law of God, or covenant of works, does not confine itself to one particular branch of the law. It extends into many, even into all ten commandments, and those ten into a great many more, as might be shown. So the danger does not lie only in breaking one or two of these ten; it lies in breaking any one of them. As you know, if a king were to issue ten particular commands to be obeyed by his subjects on pain of death, then if any man breaks any one of these ten, he commits treason as surely as if he had broken them all. He is liable to have the sentence of the law passed on him as certainly as if he had broken every one of them.

2. Again, you know that when the king has issued his laws, a man may keep and obey them for a long time; yet if at last he slips and breaks those laws, he is immediately arrested and condemned by that law. These things are clear concerning the law of God as it is a covenant of works. If a man keeps nine of the commandments and yet breaks only one, that one broken commandment will as surely destroy him and shut him out from the joys of heaven as if he had actually broken them all; for in effect, that is just what he has done. There is a notable scripture for this in James 2:10, which runs like this: “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” That is, he has in effect broken them all, and shall have the voice of them all crying out against him. And it must be so, says James, because “he that said,” or that law which said, “Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law” (Jas 2:11). Take it like this: it may be that you never made yourself a god of stone or wood, or at least never worshiped such things as greatly and as openly as the heathen do. Yet if you have stolen, or borne false witness, or lusted after a woman in your heart (Matt 5:28), you have broken the law. And if you live and die under that covenant, you must certainly perish forever by the law; for the law has settled that beforehand, saying, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things.” Mark this, I beg you: “in all things.” That is the word, and that seals the doctrine.

3. Again, though a man does not covet, steal, murder, or worship gods of wood and stone, and so on, yet if he takes the Lord’s name in vain, he is gone forever if he lives and dies under that covenant. “Thou shalt not take the name of thy Lord God in vain”: there is the command. But what if we do? Then he says, “the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” No; though you live as holy a life as you possibly can, and walk as carefully as anyone ever did, yet if you take the Lord’s name in vain, you are lost by that covenant: “For I will not” (mark it, “I will not,” however great the danger he is in) “I will not hold him guiltless that taketh my name in vain” (Exod 20:7). And it is the same with any other of the ten: only break them, and your state is beyond recovery if you live and die under that covenant.

4. Though you should keep this covenant, or law, even all of it, for a long time, for ten, twenty, forty, fifty, or sixty years, yet if you happen to slip and break one of the commandments just once before you die, you are also gone and lost by that covenant. For mark this: “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things”; that continueth not in all things, mark that, “which are written in the book of the law to do them.” But if a man keeps all the law of God his whole lifetime and sins only once before he dies, that one sin is a breach of the law, and he has not continued in doing the things contained in it. For to continue, in the sense of this scripture, is to hold on without any failure at all, whether in thought, word, or deed. Therefore, I say, though a man lives up to the law all his lifetime, and sins only once, at the very end, before he dies, he is sure to perish forever if he dies under that covenant.

For, my friends, you must understand that the law of God is “yea” just as the gospel is. As those who are under the covenant of grace shall surely be saved by it, so, even so, those who are under the covenant of works and the law shall surely be damned by it, if they continue there. This is the covenant of works and its nature: it will not let off anything, no, not a mite, to the one who lives and dies under it. “I tell thee,” says Christ, “thou shalt not depart thence,” that is, from under the curse, “till thou hast paid the very last mite” (Luke 12:59).

5. Again, you must consider that this law does not only condemn words and actions, as I said before; it also has authority to condemn the most secret thoughts of the heart when they are evil. So even if you speak no evil word at all, such as swearing, lying, jesting, deceiving, or any other word that tends toward sin or has the smell of it, yet if just one vain thought should happen to pass through your heart just once in your whole lifetime, the law takes hold of it, accuses you, and will also condemn you for it. You may see one instance that stands for all in Matthew 5:27-28. There Christ says that though a man does not lie with a woman physically, yet if he only looks on her and lusts after her in his heart, the law, rightly expounded, counts him as one who has committed the sin, and he has thereby brought himself under the law’s condemnation. And it is the same with all the rest of the commandments. If any evil thought only passes through your heart, whether against God or against man, in the least degree, even if perhaps you do not notice it, yet the law takes hold of you for it. By its authority it convicts you, condemns you, and executes you for doing it. “The thought of foolishness is sin” (Prov 24:9).

6. Again, the law is of such a nature and severity that it does not only inquire into the general course of your life in various matters, to see whether you are upright there or not. It also follows you into all your holy duties and watches over you there, to see whether you do everything rightly. That is, it watches whether your heart has no wandering thoughts in it when you pray, and whether you perform every holy duty you do perfectly, without the least mixture of sin. And if it finds you slipping, or failing in the least degree in any holy duty you perform, the law takes hold of that and finds fault with it, so as to make all the holy duties you ever did worthless because of it.

I say, if there is only one vain thought when you are hearing a sermon, or only one vain thought when you are praying, or in anything else at all, whether civil or spiritual, that one vain thought once in your whole lifetime will make the law take such hold of it that, for that one thing, it throws open all the floodgates of God’s wrath against you. And by that covenant it brings eternal vengeance on you beyond recovery. So, I say, look whichever way you will, fail in whatever you will, and do it as seldom as you possibly can, whether in civil or spiritual things, as I said before (that is, whether in the service of God, or in your employments in the world, such as your trade or calling, in buying or selling in any way, in anything at all). I say, if the law finds you at fault in any particular, or guilty in the least degree, it calls you an offender. It accuses you to God. It blocks all the promises that are joined to the law, and leaves you there as a cursed transgressor against God and a destroyer of your own soul.

Here, by the way, I want you to notice that it is not my intention at this time to enlarge on the several commandments one by one. That would be very tedious, both for me to write and for you to read; if you want a fuller treatment of this, read Dod on the commandments. I only want you to do this much as you read this: stop, sit still for a quarter of an hour, muse a little in your mind, and say to yourself, “Did I ever break the law, yes or no? Have I ever, in my whole lifetime since I was born, had one sinful thought pass through my heart, yes or no?” And if you find yourself guilty, as I am sure you cannot help but do unless you shut your eyes to your everyday practice, then, I say, conclude that you are guilty of breaking the first covenant. And when this is done, be sure, in the next place, not to forget it straightaway and put out of your mind that you are condemned by that same covenant. Then do not rest content until you find that God has sent you a pardon from heaven through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, the mediator of the second covenant. And if God will only give you a heart to take this counsel of mine, I have no doubt that these words of mine will prove an instrument to direct your heart to the right remedy for the salvation of your soul.

So much now concerning the law, and its severity on the person who is found under it, having offended against it or broken any particular of it, whether in thought, word, or action. And now, before I go on to the next thing, I will answer four objections that lie in my way, and that are also the kind most of the world stumbles over.

Four Objections

Objection 1. “But,” you will say, “it seems to me you speak very harshly; it is enough to dishearten anybody. Suppose, then, that a man, after he has sinned and broken the law, repents of his wickedness and promises to do so no more. Will God not have mercy then, and save a poor sinner then?”

Answer 1. I told you before that the covenant, once broken, will carry out on the offender what it threatens to lay on him. And as for your supposing that your repenting and promising to do so no more may help matters well, and put you in a condition to obtain the mercy of God by the law, these thoughts flow from gross ignorance, both of the nature of sin and of the nature of the justice of God. And if I were to describe a man who is in a lost condition at present, I would brand him with just such a mark of ignorance as this.

Answer 2. This second answer explains the first. The law, as it is a covenant of works, does not allow any repentance that leads to life for those who live and die under it. For once you have broken the law, it never speaks good to you; nor does God have any regard for you at all, if you are under that covenant, in spite of all your repentings and your promises to do so no more. “No,” says the law, “you have sinned; therefore I must curse you. For it is my nature to curse, yes, and to do nothing but curse, everyone who transgresses against me in any point” (Gal 3:10). They broke my covenant, “and I regarded them not, saith the Lord” (Heb 8:9). Let them cry, I will not regard them; let them repent, I will not regard them. They have broken my covenant and done what I did not delight in. Therefore, by that covenant I curse and do not bless; I damn and do not save; I frown and do not smile; I reject and do not embrace; I charge sin and do not forgive it. They broke my covenant, “and I regarded them not.” So I say, if you break the law, the first covenant, and are found there, then God, looking at you through that covenant, has no regard for you, no pity for you, no delight in you.

Objection 2. But does the law not have promises as well as threatenings? It says, “The man which doeth these things shall live” (mark that, he shall live) “by them,” or in them (Rom 10:5; Gal 3:12).

Answer 1. To break the commandments is not to keep or fulfill them. But you have broken them; therefore the promise does not belong to you by that covenant.

Answer 2. The promises that belong to the law are conditional, and so they are not performed unless there is full and continual obedience to every particular of it, and that without the least sin. “Do this” (mark it, do this) and afterward you shall live. But if you break one point of it once in your whole life, you have not done the law; therefore the promises that follow the law do not belong to you if you have committed one sin. Let me give you a plain illustration. Suppose a law is made by the king that if any man speaks a word against him, he must be put to death, and this law must not be revoked but must certainly be carried out on the offender. Though a promise is made to those who do not speak a word against him, that they will have great favor from him, yet this promise is nothing to the offender. He is not likely to have any share in it, or to be any the better for it. On the contrary, the law he has broken must be carried out on him, for his sin shuts him out from any share of, or in, the promises.

So it is here. There is a promise made, indeed; but to whom? Why, to none but those who live without sinning against the law. But if you, I say, sin against it once in your whole lifetime, you are lost, and not one promise belongs to you if you continue under this covenant. It seems to me that prisoners at the bar who have broken the law, and the charge a just judge gives them, show us a great deal of the law as it is a covenant of works, and of how it deals with those who are under it. The prisoner who has offended cries out for mercy. “Good my lord, mercy,” he says; “please, my lord, pity me.” The judge says, “What can you say for yourself, why sentence of death should not be passed on you?” “Why, nothing but this: I beg my lord to be merciful.” But he answers again, “Friend, the law must take its course; the law must not be broken.” The prisoner says, “Good my lord, spare me, and I will never do it again.” In spite of the man’s outcries and sad condition, the judge, if he carries out the law as he ought to do, must pass judgment on him according to the terms of the law, and the sentence of condemnation must be read to the prisoner, even though it makes him fall down dead to hear it. And that is just how it is with the law of God.

Objection 3. Yes, but for all your haste, sometimes the judge also grants pardons and forgives some offenders in spite of their offenses, even though he is a judge.

Answer. That is not because the law is merciful, but because the love of the judge is shown, not the love of the law. I beg you to mark this distinction. For if a man who has deserved death by the law is nevertheless forgiven his offense, it is not because the law says, “Spare him”; it is the love of the judge, or chief magistrate, that sets the man free from the condemnation of the law. But mark this: here the law of men and the law of God differ. The law of man is not so irrevocable; if the sovereign pleases, he may sometimes grant a pardon without satisfaction being given for the offense. But the law of God is of this nature: if the man is found under it, and is a transgressor, or one who has transgressed against it, then before that prisoner can be released, full and complete satisfaction must be given to it, either by the man’s own life or by the blood of some other man. For “without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Heb 9:22); that is, there is no deliverance from under the curse of the law of God. And therefore, however the law of man may sometimes be set aside by showing mercy without full satisfaction being given, yet the law of God cannot be so contented. It will not give way in the least, so that the offender should escape the curse and not be damned, unless someone gives full and complete satisfaction to it for him and brings the prisoner into another covenant, namely, the covenant of grace, which is easier, and soul-refreshing, and sin-pardoning.

I say, therefore, you must understand that if a law is made that reaches a man’s life, to take it away for the offense the offender has committed against it, then it is clear that if the man is spared and saved, it is not the law that gives him this advantage. It is the mere mercy of the king, either because he has received a ransom or satisfaction some other way, or because he is moved to it by his own love for the person he saves. Now, you too have transgressed and broken the law of God. If the law is not carried out on you, it is not because the law is merciful or can pass over the least offense you have committed; your deliverance comes another way. Therefore, I say, however it may be with the laws of men where they are corrupted and perverted, the law of God is of such a nature that it calls for nothing less than your own blood or the blood of some other man. That blood must ransom you from its curse, which is due to you for your transgression; it must satisfy the law’s cries, its doleful cries; and it must even present you pure and spotless before God in spite of this fiery law. If the law does not have it, you are lost, even if you had a thousand souls. For “without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Heb 9:22): no forgiveness of the least sin against the law.

Objection 4. But, you will say, “I do not only repent of my former life and promise to do so no more; now I also work hard to be righteous and to live a holy life. And now, instead of being a breaker of the law, I work hard to fulfill it. What do you say to that?”

Answer. Suppose you could walk like an angel of God. Suppose you could fulfill the whole law, and live from this day to the end of your life without sinning in thought, word, or deed, which is impossible. But suppose, I say, it were so. Why, your state is as bad as it ever was, if you are under the first covenant. For, first, I know you dare not say that you have not sinned at one time or another. And if so, then the law has condemned you. And if so, then I am sure that you, with all your actions and works of righteousness, cannot remove the dreadful and irresistible curse that is already laid on you by the law you are under and have sinned against. Though you live the holiest life that any man can live in this world, if you are under the law of works, and so not under the covenant of grace, you must be cut off without remedy. For you have sinned, however well you may live afterward.

The reasons for what has been said are these.

1. The nature of God’s justice calls for it. That is, it calls for ruin beyond recovery on those who transgress against this law. For justice gave the law, and justice expects to have it obeyed completely and continually; otherwise justice is resolved to take its course and carry out its office, which is to punish the one who transgresses against it. You must understand that the justice of God is as unchangeable as his love. His justice cannot change its nature: it is justice if it is pleased, and it is justice if it is displeased. In this case the justice of God may be compared to fire. Suppose a great fire is made in some place. If you keep out of it, it is fire; if you fall into it, you will find it fire. And therefore the apostle uses this as an argument to stir up the Hebrews to stick close to Jesus Christ, so that they do not fall under the justice of God, in these words: “For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29). If you fall into it, it is not for you to get out again, as some do who fall into a material fire. No, the one who falls into this must lie there forever, as is clear where he says, “Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings, and with devouring fire?” (Isa 33:14). For justice, once offended, does not know how to show any pity or compassion to the offender. It runs on him like a lion, takes him by the throat, and throws him into prison, and there he is sure to lie, and that to all eternity, unless infinite satisfaction is given to it, which is impossible for any of us, the sons of Adam, to give.

2. The faithfulness of God calls for ruin beyond recovery to be poured out on those who live and die under this covenant. If you had sinned only one sin against this covenant and yet afterward escaped damnation, God would have to be unfaithful to himself and to his Word, which both agree as one. First, he would be unfaithful to himself, that is, to his justice, holiness, righteousness, wisdom, and power, if he were to try to stop his justice from running its course in damning those who have offended it. And second, he would be unfaithful to his Word, his written Word, and would deny, disown, and break what he has said in it: “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail” (Luke 16:17), or be made of no effect. Now, if he did not take vengeance, as he has certainly declared in it, on those who fall and die within the threat and the sad curses pronounced there, then his Word could not be fulfilled.

3. Otherwise he would disown the sayings of his prophets and gratify the sayings of his enemies. His prophets say he will take vengeance; his enemies say he will not. His prophets say he will remember their iniquities and repay them into their bosom; but his enemies say they will do well and will have peace, though they walk after the imagination of their own hearts, and are not as strict as the Word commands, and do not do what it says (Deut 29:19-20). But let me tell you, if you had a thousand souls, and each of them were worth a thousand worlds, God would set them all ablaze with fire if they fall within the condemnation of his Word and you die without a Jesus, even the right Jesus; “for the Scriptures cannot be broken” (John 10:35). What! Do you think that God, Christ, the prophets, and the Scriptures will all lie for you, and falsify their words for you? It will be a poor gamble to venture your soul on that.

And the reasons for it are these: first, because God is God; and second, because man is man.

First, because God is perfectly just and eternally just, perfectly holy and eternally holy, perfectly faithful and eternally faithful. That is, he is without any variableness or shadow of turning, but remains perfectly the same, and he could as soon cease to be God as alter or change the nature of his Godhead. And being thus the perfection of all perfections, he gave out his law to be obeyed. But if anyone offends against it, they fall into the hands of this eternal justice of his, and so must drink of his irrevocable wrath, which is the carrying out of that same justice. I say, this being so, once the law is broken, justice takes its place. Then faithfulness follows, to see that the sentence is carried out, and also to testify that God is true, and that he does pronounce his unspeakable, unbearable, and unchangeable vengeance on the offending party.

Second, because you are not as infinite as God, but a poor created weed that is here today and gone tomorrow, and are not able to answer God in his essence, being, and attributes, you are bound to fall under him. For neither your soul nor your body can do anything infinite in such a way as to satisfy this God, who is an infinite God in all his attributes.

The Misery of Man Under This Law

But to show you to good purpose the misery that man is in by reason of this law, I beg you to take notice of the following particulars, besides what has already been said. First, I will show the danger people are in by reason of the law as they come from Adam; second, the danger they are in as they are under it particularly, in their own persons.

First. The danger they are in by reason of the law as they come from Adam.

1. As they come from Adam, they are in a sad condition, because he left them a broken covenant. Or take it this way: because they, while they were in him, broke that covenant along with him. Oh, this was the treasure that Adam left to his posterity: a broken covenant! So much so that death reigned over all his children, and still does to this day as they come from him, both natural and eternal death (Rom 5). It may be, drunkard, swearer, liar, thief, that you do not think of this.

2. He not only left them a broken covenant, but he himself also made them sinners against it. Adam made them sinners: “By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (Rom 5:19). And this is worse than the first.

3. Not only so, but he also robbed them of the strength by which at first they were enabled to stand, and left them no more than dead men. O helpless state! O how beggarly and miserable the sons of Adam are!

4. Not only so, but also, before he left them, he was the conduit pipe through which the devil conveyed his poisoned spawn and venomous nature into the hearts of Adam’s sons and daughters. By this they are at this day so strongly and so violently carried away that, by reason of sin, they fly to hell and to the devil as fast as chaff before a mighty wind.

5. In a word, Adam led them out of their paradise; that is one more. He put out their eyes; that is another. And he left them to the leading of the devil. Oh, sad! Can you hear this and not have your ears tingle and burn on your head? Can you read this and not feel your conscience begin to throb and stab? If so, surely it is because you are either possessed by the devil or out of your mind.

Second. But I will pass over this and come to the second thing: the cause of their being in a sad condition, which is that they are under the law in their own particular persons.

1. Those who are under the law, then, are in a sad condition, because they are under that which, through our weakness, is more ready to curse than to bless. They are under what is called the ministration of condemnation (2 Cor 3). That is, they are under that dispensation, or administration, whose proper work is to curse and condemn, and nothing else.

2. The condition of those who are under the law is sad, because they are not only under that ministration which condemns, but also under one that waits for an opportunity to condemn. The law does not wait so that it may be gracious; it waits to curse and condemn. It came on purpose to uncover sin. “The law entered,” says the apostle, “that the offence might abound” (Rom 5:20), that is, that sin might appear to be indeed what God hates. And it came also to curse for what has been committed, as he says: “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal 3:10).

3. They are in a sad condition, because the administration that those under the law are under always finds fault with the sinner’s obedience as well as with his disobedience, if it is not done in a right spirit. And those who are under that covenant cannot do it in a right spirit, because they are destitute of faith. Therefore, I say, the law rebukes them, saying, “This was not well done; this was done by halves; this was not done freely; and that was not done perfectly and out of love to God.” And this is why some men, though they labor to live as holy as they possibly can according to the law, still do not live a peaceful life. They are full of self-condemnation, full of guilt and torment of conscience. They find themselves failing here and falling short there, leaving undone this good which the law commands, and doing that evil which the law forbids. And the law never gives them one good word for all their pains.

4. Those who are under the law are in a sad condition, because they are under that administration which will never be content with what the sinner does. If you are under this covenant, work as hard as you can, and the law will never say, “Well done”; it will never say, “My good servant.” No; it will always be driving you faster and hurrying you harder, giving you fresh commands, which you must do, and which must not be left undone, on pain of damnation. Indeed, it is a master that will curse you, not only for your sins, but also because your good works were not as well done as they ought to have been.

5. Those who are under this covenant or law are in a very sad state, because this law commands impossible things of the one who is under it. And yet it does nothing but right in this. For man at the first had strength in Adam to stand, if he would have used it, and the law was given to them, as I said before, when man was in his full strength. Therefore it is no unfairness if it still commands the same, since God, who gave you strength, did not take it away.

I will give you a comparison to make this clear. Suppose I give my servant ten pounds with this charge: “Lay it out to my best advantage, so that I may have my own back again with profit.” Now if my servant, contrary to my command, goes and spends my money in a disobedient way, is it any unfairness in me to demand from my servant what I gave him at first? No; and though he has nothing to pay, I may lawfully throw him into prison and keep him there until I have satisfaction.

So it is here. The law was delivered to man at the first, when it was possible for him to have fulfilled it. Now then, though man has lost his strength, God is still just in commanding the same work to be done. Yes, and if they do not do those same things (things, I say, that are impossible for them to do), it is just for God to damn them, seeing it was they themselves who brought themselves into this condition. Therefore the apostle says, “What things soever the law” (or its commands) “saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Rom 3:19). And this is your sad condition, you who are under the law (Gal 3:10).

But suppose someone objects and says, “But the law does not command impossible things of the natural man.” I would answer in this case as the apostle did in another very much like it: they are “understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm” (1 Tim 1:7). For does not the law command you to love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your might, and so on? And can the natural man do this? How can those who are accustomed to do evil do what is commanded in this particular? “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” (Jer 13:23).

Does the law command you to do good, and nothing but good, and that with all your soul, heart, and delight? That is what the law, as a covenant of works, calls for. And can you, being carnal, do that? Why, there is no man of understanding who, if he heard you say so, would not say that you were either bewitched or stark mad.

6. Those who are under the law are in a sad condition, because even though they follow the law, or covenant of works (I say, even though they follow it), it will not lead them to heaven. No, on the contrary, it will lead them under the curse. It is not possible, says Paul, that anyone should be justified by the law, or by our following of it. For by the law “is the knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20), and by it we are condemned for that sin; and this is far from leading us to life, since it is the ministration of death (2 Cor 3). And again: “Israel, which followeth after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but by the law, and by the works thereof” (Rom 9:30-32).

7. Those who are under the law are in a sad condition, because they do not know whether they will ever have any wages for their work or not. They have no assurance of the pardon of their sins, nor any hope of eternal life. Poor hearts that they are, they work for they know not what, just like a poor horse that works hard all day and at night has a dirty stable for his pains. So you may work hard all the days of your life, and at the day of death, instead of having a glorious rest in the kingdom of heaven, you may (no, you shall) have for your sins the damnation of your soul and body in hell to all eternity. For, as I said before, if you sin, the law takes no notice of any good work you have done, but takes its advantage to destroy and cut off your soul for the sin you have committed.

8. Those who are under the law are in a sad condition, because they are under that administration in which God does not smile on their souls, if they die there. For the administration through which God smiles on his children is the covenant of grace, they being in Jesus Christ, the Lord of life and consolation. But it is quite otherwise with those who are under the law. They have his frowns, his rebukes, his threatenings, and they must be dealt with very severely: “For they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord” (Heb 8:9).

9. They are in a sad condition, because they are outside the faith of Christ. Those who are under the law do not have the faith of Christ in them, for the dispensation they are under is not the administration of faith. “The law is not of faith,” says the apostle (Gal 3:12).

10. Because they have not received the Spirit. For the Spirit is received by the hearing of faith, and not by the law, nor by its works (Gal 3:2).

11. In a word, if you live and die under that covenant, Jesus Christ will neither pray for you nor let you have one drop of his blood to wash away your sins, nor will you be so much as one of the least in the kingdom of heaven. For all these privileges come to souls under another covenant, as the apostle says: “For such are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14). That is, such as have a share in the benefits of Jesus Christ, or such as are brought out from under the first covenant into the second, or from under the law into the grace of Christ’s gospel. Without this covenant of grace, and without being found in it, no soul can have the least hope of eternal life, no joy in the Holy Spirit, no share in the privileges of saints, because they are tied up from them by the limits and bonds of the covenant of works.

For you must understand that these two covenants have their own separate bounds and limits, for ruling and keeping in subjection, or for giving freedom to, the parties under them. Now those who are under the law are within its compass and jurisdiction, and are bound to be in subjection to it. And living and dying under it, they must stand or fall by it, as Paul says: “To his own master he standeth or falleth” (Rom 14:4). The covenant of grace also grants liberty and freedom to those who are under it, together with commanding their subjection to the things contained in it. I will speak to this further hereafter.

Why the Law Was Added and Given

But now I want the former things to appear still more plainly, that is, what the sad condition is of all those who are under the law. So, as I have shown you something of the nature of the law, I will also show that the law was added and given for this purpose: that it might be so with those who are outside the covenant of grace.

First. God gave the law that sin might abound (Rom 5:20); not that it should take away sin in anyone, but to uncover the sin which is already begotten, or which may hereafter be begotten, by lust and Satan. I say, this is one proper work of the law: to make sin manifest. It is sent to find fault with the sinner, and it watches so that it may do so. It takes every advantage to accomplish its work in those who give ear to it, or who do not give ear, if it has rule over them. I say, it is like a man sent by his lord to look and pry into the labors and works of other men, taking every advantage to uncover their weaknesses and failings and to scold them; yes, to throw them out of the Lord’s favor for the same.

Second. Another great end for which the Lord added or gave the law was that no man might have anything to lay to the Lord’s charge for condemning those who transgress against it. You know that if a man were brought before an officer or judge and condemned there, and yet by no law, the one who condemned him might very well be rebuked or reproved for passing that judgment. Yes, the man himself might have better ground to plead for his liberty than the other would have to plead for condemning him.

But it shall not be so on the judgment day; it shall be quite the contrary. For then every man shall be forced to lay his hand on his mouth and hold his tongue at the judgment of God when it is passed on them. Therefore the apostle says, “What things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law.” That is, all the commands, all the cursings and threatenings spoken by the law, are spoken, he says, “that every mouth may be stopped.” Mark this, I beg you: “it saith,” he says, “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Rom 3:19).

So now, suppose some on the judgment day should object against the judgment of God, as those in Matthew 25 do, saying, “Lord, when saw we thee thus and thus?” and, “Why do you pass such a sad sentence of condemnation on us? Surely this is injustice, and not fairness.” Now it was to prevent this that the law was given. Yes, and so that it might prevent you to good purpose, God gave it early, before either your first father had sinned or you were born.

So again, suppose these objections should be offered against the Lord’s proceedings in justice and judgment, saying, “Lord, why am I condemned like this?” and, “I did not know it was sin!” Now it was against these two that the law was given, and given early, so that both of them are answered. If the first comes in and says, “Why am I judged? Why am I damned?” then the law will come in, even all the ten commandments, with every one of their cries against your soul. The first will say, “He has sinned against me; damn him!” The second will also say, “He has transgressed against me; damn him!” The third will say the same, together with the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth. Indeed, all of them will discharge themselves against your soul if you die under the first covenant, saying of him or of them, “They have transgressed against us; damn them, damn them!”

And I tell you also that these ten great guns, the ten commandments, discharging themselves in justice against your soul, will so rattle in your conscience that, in spite of all you can do, you will immediately be put to silence and have your mouth stopped. And let me tell you further: if you appear before God to have the ten commandments discharge themselves against you, you would be better off tied to a tree, with ten, yes, ten thousand of the biggest cannons in the world fired at you. For these could go no further than to kill the body; but the commandments will bring both body and soul to be tormented in hell with the devil to all eternity.

Third. Again, if the second thing should be objected, saying, “But, Lord, I did not think this was sin, or that the other thing was sin, for nobody told me so,” then the giving of the law will take that away too. The law will say, “No, but I was given to your father Adam before he had sinned, or before you were born, and I have been in your soul ever since to convict you of your sins and to rebuke you for doing what was not right. Did I not secretly tell you at such a time, in such a place, when you were doing such a thing with such a person, or when you were all alone, that this was a sin, and that God forbade it, and therefore if you committed it, God would be displeased with you for it? And when you were thinking of doing such a thing at such a time, did I not say, ‘Hold back; do not do it! God will strike you and punish you for it if you do it’? And besides, God so ordered it that you had me in your houses and in your Bibles, and you could also speak and talk about me.” As the law pleads the truth like this, you will be forced to confess that it is so.

Indeed, it will be so in some measure even with the very Gentiles and barbarous peoples, who fall far short of the light we have in these parts of the world. For the apostle says, “The Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law,” that is, not written as we have it, yet they “are a law unto themselves: which show the works of the law written in their hearts” (Rom 2:14-15). That is, they have the law of works in them by nature, and therefore they will be left without excuse. For their own consciences will stand up for the truth of this, as he says: “Their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.” Yes, but when? Why, “in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel” (Rom 2:15-16). So this, I say, is another end for which the Lord gave the law: that God might pass sentence in righteousness, without being charged with any injustice by those who will fall under it in the judgment.

Fourth. Another end for which the Lord gave the law was that those who die outside Jesus Christ might not only have their mouths stopped, but also that their persons “might become guilty before God” (Rom 3:19). And indeed this will be the ground of their silence, as I said before: they will find themselves guilty, with their consciences backing the truth of the judgment God has passed on them. “They shall become guilty”; that is, they will be fit vessels for the wrath of God to be poured into, being filled with guilt by reason of their transgressions against the commandments. Thus, therefore, those under the first covenant will be “fitted to destruction” (Rom 9:22), just as wood or straw, when well dried, is fitted for the fire. And the law was added and given, and speaks, to this very end: that sins might be shown, that mouths might be stopped from quarreling, and that “all the world” (mark it, “the world”) “may become guilty before God,” and so be overthrown in justice forever and ever because of their sins.

And this will be so for these reasons.

1. Because God has a time to magnify his justice and holiness, as well as to show his forbearance and mercy. We read in Scripture that his eyes are too pure to behold iniquity (Hab 1:13), and then we shall find it true. We read in Scripture that he will magnify the law and make it honorable, and then he will do it indeed. Now, because the Lord does not strike as soon as he is provoked by sin, poor souls will not know or regard the justice of God, nor do they consider the time in which it must be exalted. That time will be when men drop under the wrath of God as fast as hail in a mighty storm.

Now, therefore, look to it, all you who count the long-suffering and forbearance of God as slackness (2 Pet 3:9), and who, because for the present he keeps silent, think that he is like yourselves (Ps 50:21-22). No, no; but know that God has his set time for every purpose of his, and in its time it shall be exalted most marvelously, to the everlasting astonishment and overthrow of the soul that is dealt with by justice and the law. Oh, how God will exalt his justice! Oh, how God will exalt his holiness! First, by showing men that in justice he cannot and will not regard them, because they have sinned; and second, in that his holiness will not allow such unclean wretches to remain in his sight, his eyes are so pure.

2. Because God will make it appear that he will be as good as his word to sinners. Sinners must not expect to escape forever. Though they may escape for a while, yet for all that they shall not go unpunished. No, they shall have their due to the last farthing, when every threatening and curse shall be accomplished and fulfilled on the head of the transgressor. Friend, you never speak an idle word but God will call you to account for it; you never tell a lie but God will reckon with you for it. No, not one thing will pass in all your lifetime that God, the righteous God, will not bring to trial by his law on the judgment day, if you die under that law.

Third. But you will ask, “Who, then, are these people who are under the law in this way?”

Answer. Those who are under the law may be divided into three ranks of people. Either they are, first, the grossly profane; or they are more refined, and these may be of two kinds, some of a lower sort and some in a more eminent way.

First. Those are under the law as a covenant of works who are openly profane and ungodly wretches. They are the sort who not only delight in sin but also boast of it, and brag at the very thought of committing it. Now, as for people like these, there is a scripture in Paul’s first letter to Timothy, 1 Timothy 1:9-10, which is a notable one to this purpose. “The law,” he says, “is not made for a righteous man” (not, that is, as it is a covenant of works), “but for the” unrighteous, or “lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars” (look to it, you liars!), “for perjured persons, and,” in a word, “if there be any other thing that is not according to sound doctrine.”

These are one sort of people who are under the law, and so under its curse. What they have coming to them is to drink up the brimful cup of God’s eternal vengeance. Therefore I beg you not to deceive yourselves. For “know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:9-10).

Poor souls, you think that you may keep your sins, your lusts and your pleasures, and still do pretty well, and be let off free on the day of judgment. But see what God says of such people in Deuteronomy 29:19-20. Such a person will “bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace.” I shall be saved, he thinks; I shall do as well as others on the day when God judges the world by Jesus Christ. But God says, I will not spare them. No, my anger and my jealousy will smoke against them. How far? Even to the carrying out upon them of all the curses written in the law of God. Indeed, God says, I will be even with them, “for I will blot out their names from under heaven.”

And indeed it must of necessity be so. Such souls are unbelievers, in their sins and under the law, and the law cannot and will not show them any mercy. It is not the administration of mercy and life, but the administration of death and destruction, as you have it in 2 Corinthians 3:7, 9. All those who are openly profane and scandalous wretches, every one of them, are under it. They have been under it ever since they came into the world to this day. And they will certainly live and die under that same dispensation, and then be damned to all eternity, unless they are converted from under that covenant into and under the covenant of grace, which I will speak of in its place.

And yet for all this, how swaggering and full of themselves are our poor wanton and wicked ones in this day of God’s patience! They act as if God would never have a reckoning with them, as if there were no law to condemn them, as if there were no hellfire to throw them into. But oh, how they will be deceived when they see Christ sitting on the judgment seat, having laid aside his priestly and prophetic office, and appearing only as a judge to the wicked! How deceived they will be when they see all the records of heaven unfolded and laid open; when each of them sees his own name missing from the book of life and written in the book of the law; when they see God in his majesty, Christ in his majesty, the saints in their dignity, but themselves in their impurity! What will they say then? Where will they flee then? Where will they leave their glory (Isa 10:3)? Oh, sad state!

Second. Those also are under the law who do not merely break and disobey the law in this way, but follow after the law as hard as ever they can, seeking to be justified by it. That is, though a man should abstain from sins against the law, and labor to fulfill the law, and give himself up to the law, yet if he looks no further than the law, he is still under the law. And for all his obedience to the law, the righteous law of God, he will be destroyed by that law.

Friend, you must not think that none but profane people are under the law. No, you must understand that a man may be turned from a vain, loose, openly profane way of life and from sinning against the law, to a holy, righteous, religious life, and yet be in the same state, under the same law, and as sure to be damned as the others who are more profane and loose. You may say this is very strange, yet I will both say it and prove it to be true.

Read with understanding the scripture in Romans 9:30-31, where the apostle, speaking of this very thing, says, “But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness.” Mark it: they followed after the law of righteousness. Yet in spite of their earnest pursuit, their hunting after the law of righteousness, Israel “hath not attained to the law of righteousness.” This tells us that however earnest, fervent, restless, serious, ready, eager and willing a man may be to follow the law and its righteousness, if he is under that covenant he is gone. He is lost. He is deprived of eternal life, because he is not under the ministration of life, if he dies there.

Read also the scripture in Galatians 3:10, which says, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse.” Mark it: those who are of the works of the law. Now, to be of the works of the law is to be of the works of its righteousness. That is, it is to abstain from sins against the law and to do its commands as nearly as ever such men can for their lives, with all the strength they have. Therefore I beg you to consider this. For men’s ignorance of it is the reason why so many go on supposing they have a share in Christ because they are reformed and abstain from sins against the law. Yet when all is said and done, they will be damned notwithstanding, because they have not been brought out from under the covenant of works and put under the covenant of grace.

Objection. “But can you really make these things plainly evident from the Word of God? It seems to me very strange reasoning, that a man should labor to walk according to the law of God as much as he possibly can, and yet that this man, in spite of all this, should still be under the curse. Please clear it up.”

Answer. Truly, I know full well that this seems very strange to the natural man, to the one who is still in his unbelief, because he goes by deluded reason. But for my part, I know it is so, and I will labor to convince you of the truth of it.

1. The law is so strict and severe that if a man sins against it only once, he, I say, is gone forever by the law, if he lives and dies under that covenant. If you want to be satisfied about the truth of this, just read Galatians 3:10, where it says, “Cursed is every one” (that is, not one person will escape it under that covenant) “that continueth not in all” (mark it, in all) “things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”

(1) Please mark this. Here, in the first place, is a curse if all things written in the book of the law are not done, and done continually too, that is, without any failing or a single slip, as I said before. Now there is not one person in the world who did not, before they ever began to yield obedience to the least command, sin against it in their own persons by breaking it. The apostle, it seems to me, is very notable for clearing this up in Romans 3 and Romans 5. In the one he works to prove that all had transgressed in the first Adam, as he stood as a common person, representing both himself and us in his standing and falling. “Wherefore,” he says, “as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men.” Mark that. But why? “For that all have sinned” (Rom 5:12). That is, because all are by nature guilty of original sin, the sin that was committed by us in Adam. So this is one reason why none can be justified by their obedience to the law: they have broken it in the first place in their first parents.

(2) But in case this should be opposed and rejected by quarrelsome people, though there is no ground for it, Paul has another argument to back up his doctrine. He says that we have already proved that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin. “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.” “They are all gone out of the way, they are together” (mark it, together) “become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” “Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips.” Their “mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood.” In a word, “Destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace have they not known.” Now then, he says, having proved these things so clearly, the conclusion of the whole is this: “That what things soever the law saith,” both in showing sin and in cursing for it, “it saith” all “to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Rom 3:10-19).

So here, I say, lies the ground of our not being justified by the law: in the first place, we have sinned against it. For know this for certain: if the law gets the least advantage over you by your sinning against it, all that you will ever hear from it afterward is nothing but “Curse, curse, curse him, ‘for not continuing in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.’”

2. You cannot be saved by the righteous law of God, the first covenant, for this reason too. Besides the miserable state you were already in through original and actual sins before you followed the law, you have committed several sins against the law since you turned to it. “In many things we offend all” (Jas 3:2). So now your righteousness toward the law is mixed at times with lustful desire, fornication, covetousness, pride, the rising of your heart against God, coldness of affection toward him, reluctance in good duties, idle words, strife in your heart, and the like. These things being so, I say, the righteousness of the law has become too weak through this flesh of ours (Rom 8:3). And so, notwithstanding all our obedience to the law, we are still, through our weakness, under the curse of the law. For, as I said before, the law is so holy, so just and so good that it cannot allow any failing or slip by those who look for life by it. “Cursed is every one that continueth not in everything” (Gal 3:10).

Paul knew this full well, and it made him throw away all his righteousness. But you will say, that was his own righteousness. Answer. Yes, but the very righteousness he calls his own he also calls the righteousness of the law (see Phil 3:7-10). And he counts it but dung, but as dirt on his shoes, so that he might be found in Christ, and so be saved by him “without the deeds of the law” (Rom 3:28).

3. But suppose the righteousness of the law that you have were pure and perfect, without the least flaw or fault, without the least mixture of the least sinful thought. Even so, it would fall far short of presenting you blameless in the sight of God. And I prove that by these arguments.

(1) The first argument is this: whatever is not Christ cannot redeem souls from the curse; it cannot completely present them before the Lord. Now the law is not Christ. Therefore the moral law cannot, by all our obedience to it, deliver us from the curse that is due to us (Acts 4:12).

(2) The second argument is this: any righteousness that is not the righteousness of faith, that is, by believing in Jesus Christ, cannot please God. Now the righteousness of the law as a covenant of works is not the righteousness of faith. Therefore the righteousness of the law as we perform it, while we are under that covenant, cannot please God. The first part is proved in Hebrews 11:6: “But without faith it is impossible to please him.” Mark it: it is impossible. The second is proved this way: “The law is not of faith” (Gal 3:12; Rom 10:5-6), compared with Galatians 3:11-12: “But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith.”

But for the better understanding of those who are slow to grasp things, I will prove it this way.

[1] The soul that has eternal life must have it by right of purchase or redemption (Heb 9:12; Eph 1:7).

[2] This purchase or redemption must be through the blood of Christ. “We have redemption through his blood.” “Without shedding of blood is no remission.” Now the law is not in a position to die, and so to redeem sinners by the purchase of blood, which is the satisfaction justice calls for. Read the same scriptures (Heb 9:22). Justice calls for satisfaction, because you have transgressed and sinned against it, and it must have satisfaction. Therefore all that you could ever do cannot bring in redemption, though you follow the law right up to the nail-head, so to speak, because none of this is the shedding of blood. Believe it, and know it for certain: though you had sinned only one sin before you turned to the law, that one sin will murder your soul, unless it is washed away by blood, even by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed when he hung on the cross on Mount Calvary.

Objection. But you will say, “It seems to me that giving ourselves up to live a righteous life should make God like us the better, and so let us be saved by Christ, because we are so willing to obey his law.”

Answer. What moves God to have mercy on sinners is not that they are willing to follow the law, but that he is willing to save them. “Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go to possess their land” (Deut 9:4-6). Now understand this. If your will to do righteousness were the first moving cause why God had mercy on you through Christ, then it could not be freely by grace. Freely, I say! But the Lord loves you and saves you on free terms, having nothing beforehand to make him accept your soul but only the blood of Christ. Therefore, to allow such a principle is to allow that grace is to be obtained by the works of the law. That is as gross a darkness as lies in the darkest dungeon of Popery, and it is also directly opposed to Scripture. For we are “justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ”; not through the good that is in ourselves or done by us, no, “but by faith, without” (mark that) “without the deeds of the law” (Rom 3:24-28). Again, “Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph 2:9). No, no, he says, “Not according to our works,” or righteousness, “but according to his own purpose.” Mark it: “according to his own purpose and grace, which was” a free gift, “given us in Christ Jesus,” not lately, but “before the world began” (2 Tim 1:9).

Objection. But you will say, “Then why did God give the law, if we cannot have salvation by following it?”

Answer. I told you before that the law was given for the following reasons.

1. That you might be convinced of your sins by it, and that your sins might indeed appear very sinful to you. The law does this in these ways: (1) by showing you what a holy God he is who gave the law; and (2) by showing you your vileness and wickedness, in that you, contrary to this holy God, have transgressed against and broken this holy law of his. Therefore Paul says, “the law entered, that the offence might abound,” that is, by showing the creature the holiness of God and also its own vileness (Rom 5:20).

2. That you may know that God will not damn you for nothing on the day of judgment.

3. Because he would have no quarreling with his just condemnation of them on that day.

4. Because he will make you know that he is a holy and pure God.

Question. “But since you have spoken this far, I wish you would do so much as to show in some particulars both what men have done, and how far they have gone, and what they have received, while still under this covenant, which you call the ministration of condemnation.”

Answer. This is a somewhat difficult question, and it needs to be answered not only carefully but also soundly, and driven home. The question has three particulars: first, what men have done; second, how far men have gone; third, what they have received; and all this while still being under the law, or covenant of works, and so in a state of condemnation.

First. As for the first, I have already said something about it in general; but for your better understanding I will speak of it more particularly.

1. A man has been, and may be, convinced of his sins and troubled for them, and yet be under this covenant. And this may be in a very heavy and dreadful way, so much so that he may find the weight of his sins intolerable and too heavy for him to bear. So it was with Cain: “My punishment,” he says, “is greater than I can bear” (Gen 4:13).

2. A man living like this, under a sense of his sins, may repent and be sorry for them, and yet be under this covenant, and yet be in a damned state. When Judas saw what was done, he “repented” (Matt 27:3).

3. Men may not only be convinced and repent for their sins, but they may also want the prayers of God’s children for them too, and yet be under this covenant and curse. “Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, in haste, and he said, I have sinned; entreat the Lord your God that he may take away from me this death” (Exod 10:16-17).

4. A man may also humble himself for his offenses and disobedience against his God, and yet be under this covenant (1 Kgs 21:24-29).

5. A man may make restitution to men for the wrong he has done them, and yet be under this covenant.

6. A man may do much work for God in his generation, and yet be under this first covenant. So it was with Jehu, who did what God told him to do (2 Kgs 9:25-26). And yet God threatens even Jehu. For though he did the thing the Lord commanded him, he did not do it from a right principle. If he had, the Lord would not have said, “Yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu” (Hos 1:4).

7. Men may hear and fear the servants of the Lord, and reverence them very highly. Yes, and when they hear, they may not only hear, but hear and do, and do it gladly too; and not one or two things, but many. Mark it: many things, gladly. And yet they may be lost, and yet be damned. “For Herod feared John.” Why? Not because John had any civil power over him, but “because he was a just man and an holy, and observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly” (Mark 6:20). You may think that because you hear such and such, you are therefore better than your neighbors. But know for certain that you may not only hear, but hear and do, and that not with a reluctant will but gladly (mark it, “gladly”), and yet still be a Herod, still an enemy to the Lord Jesus. Consider this, I beg you.

Second. But now to the second thing, which is this: How far may such a person go? What may such a person attain to? How far may he come, and still be an undone man under this covenant? I answer:

1. Such a person may be received into fellowship with the saints, as they walk together in a visible way; they may walk hand in hand together. “The kingdom of heaven,” that is, a visible company of those who profess Christ, is likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom, and “five of them were wise, and five were foolish” (Matt 25:1-2). These, in the first place, are called virgins, that is, such as are clear of the pollutions of the world. Second, they are said to go out, that is, from the rudiments and traditions of men. Third, they agree to take their lamps with them, that is, to profess themselves the servants of Jesus Christ, who wait on him and for him. And yet when he came, he found half of them, virgins though they were, who had lamps, and who had also gone out from the pollutions of the world and the customs of men, to be such as lost their precious souls (Matt 25:12). They would not have done that if they had been under the covenant of grace, and so not under the law.

2. They may attain to a great deal of honor in that company of professors, the kind of thing that may be counted honor, so much so that they may be trusted with church affairs and carry the money bag, as Judas did. I do not say this to shame the saints, but I warn them as those who are beloved. Yet I do say it on purpose, so that, if the Lord will, it may knock at the door of the souls of professors. Consider Demas!

3. They may attain to speaking the word as ministers, and become preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, so much so that the people where they live may even take up a proverb about them, saying, “Is he among the prophets?” His gifts may be so rare, his tongue so fluent, and his matter so fitting, that he may speak with the tongue of an angel, and speak of the hidden mysteries, yes, of all of them (mark that), and yet be nothing. He may yet be none of those whom the Lord has savingly anointed with the Spirit of grace, but may live and die under the curse of the law (1 Cor 13:1-4).

4. They may go further still. They may have the gifts of the Spirit of God, which may enable them to cast out devils and to remove the biggest hills or mountains in the world. Indeed, you may be so gifted as to prophesy of things to come, the most glorious things, even the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to reign over all his enemies, and yet be no more than a Balaam, a wicked and a mad prophet (2 Pet 2:16; Num 24:16-25).

5. They may stand like this not only for a while, for a little season, but until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with his holy angels. Yes, and they may not be found out by the saints until that very day. “Then all those virgins arose,” the wise and the foolish. Then! When? Why, when this voice was heard: “Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him” (Matt 25:1-6). And yet they were outside the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet they were under the law.

6. Further still, they may not only continue in a profession until then, supposing themselves to be under the grace of the gospel when in fact they are under the curse of the law; but even when the bridegroom has come, they may still be so confident that their state is good that they will even argue the case with Christ, why they are not let into the kingdom of glory, saying, “Lord, Lord, we have eaten and drunk in thy presence; and thou hast taught in our streets.” Further, “Have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils?” And not only that, but “done many,” mark it, we have “done many wonderful works.” Further still, they were so confident that they commanded, in a commanding way, saying, “Lord, open to us.”

See here, I beg you, how far these people went. They thought they had been intimately acquainted with Jesus Christ. They thought he could not help but save them. They had eaten and drunk with him, sat at the table with him, received power from him, and used that same power: In your name we have done this and that, and even worked many wonderful works (Matt 7:22; Luke 13:25-26). And yet these poor creatures were shut out of the kingdom.

Oh, consider this, I beg you, before it is too late. Otherwise you may be saying, Lord, let us come in, when Christ is saying, Thrust him out (Luke 13:28). You may be crying, “Lord, open to us,” when he is saying, “Depart, I know you not.” And though you think of having joy, you may have “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Third. But the third thing touched on in the question was this: What may such a person, who is under the curse of the law, receive from God?

1. They may receive an answer to their prayers from God at times, for some things they stand in need of. I find in Scripture that God did hear these persons whom the apostle says were cast out. See Genesis 21:17: “And God heard the voice of the lad,” even of cast-out Ishmael; “and the angel of the Lord called to Hagar” (who was the bondwoman, and under the law; see Gal 4:30) “out of heaven, and said unto her, Fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.”

Friends, it may be that you think, because you have had your prayers answered in some particular things, that you may therefore suppose your condition is very good as to your eternal state. But you must know that God hears the cry of a whole company of Ishmaelites, the sons of the bondwoman, who are under the law as a covenant of works. I do not say he hears them as to their eternal state. But he hears them as to the various straits they go through in this life; yes, and gives them ease and relief from their trouble. Here this poor wretch was almost perishing for a little water, and he cried, and God heard him; yes, he heard him out of heaven. Read also Psalm 107:23-29. “He gave them their desire, but he sent leanness into their soul” (Ps 106:15).

But some may say, “It seems to me even stranger that God should hear the prayers, the cries, of those who are under the law, and answer them.”

Answer. I told you before: he does not hear them as to their eternal state, but as to their temporal state. For God as their Creator takes care of them, and causes the sun to shine on them and the rain to fall gently on what they have (Matt 5:45). Indeed, he gives the beasts of the field their appointed food, and hears the young ravens when they cry, and these are far below man (Ps 147:9). I say, therefore, that God hears the cries of his creatures and answers them too, though not as to their eternal state. He may damn them nevertheless when they die, for all that.

2. They may receive promises from the mouth of the Lord. There are many who have had promises made to them by the Lord in a most remarkable way, and yet, as I said before, they are such as are cast out and called the children of the bondwoman, which is the law. “And the angel of the Lord called to Hagar out of heaven” (she was the bondwoman), saying, “Fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him” (mark, there is the promise), “for I will make him” (the son of the bondwoman) “a great nation.” See Genesis 21:17-18.

3. Indeed, they may go further, for they may receive another heart than they had before, and yet be under the law. There is no one, I think, except those who do not know what they are saying, who will think or say that Saul was under the covenant of grace. Yet after he had talked with Samuel and had turned his back to leave him, the Scripture says, “God gave him another heart” (1 Sam 10:9). Another heart, mark that, and yet an outcast, a rejected person (1 Sam 15:26, 29).

Friends, I beg you, do not let these things offend you. Let them rather stir up in your hearts an inquiry into the truth of your condition. Be willing to be searched to the bottom, and willing also that everything which has not been planted by the Lord’s right hand may be rejected. And let there be a reaching after better things, even the things that will not only make your soul think your state is good now, but will enable you to look sin, death, hell, and the curse of the law, together with the Judge, in the face with comfort. Seek to have such a real, sound, effectual work of God’s grace in your soul that when you hear the trumpet sound and see the graves fly open and the dead come creeping out of their holes, when you see the judgment set, the books opened, and all the world standing before the judgment seat, then, I say, you may stand, and have that blessed sentence spoken to your soul: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt 25:34).

Objection. But, you will say, for all this, “We cannot believe that we are under the law, for these reasons. First, because we have found a change in our hearts. Second, because we deny that the covenant of works will save anyone. Third, because, for our part, we judge ourselves far from legal principles. For we have come up into as perfect a gospel order, as to practice and discipline in church affairs, as any in England today, as we judge.”

Answer to the first reason. When a man’s belief is grounded on anything done in him, or by him only, that man’s belief is not grounded on the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and intercession of Jesus Christ. For the man who indeed has good ground for his eternal salvation has his faith settled on that object with which God is well pleased or satisfied, and that is the man who was born of Mary, even her firstborn Son. That is, he applies by faith to his soul the virtues of Christ’s death, blood, righteousness, and the rest, and looks for satisfaction of soul nowhere else than there. Nor does that soul seek to give God any satisfaction for justification in any other way. Instead, it willingly and cheerfully accepts and embraces the virtues of Christ’s death, together with the rest of the things he did himself on the cross as a sacrifice, and has done since as a priest, advocate, mediator, and so on. And it so really and effectually receives the glories of these things that by them (mark that), by them he is “changed into the same image, from glory to glory” (2 Cor 3:18).

So much in general; but now more particularly.

1. To think that your condition is good because there is some change in you from a loose, profane life to a stricter, honest, and civil life and conduct; I say, to think this testimony sufficient to rest the weight of your salvation on, is very dangerous. It is dangerous, first, because such a soul lays the weight of its salvation somewhere other than on the man Christ Jesus who died on the cross. And it is dangerous, second, because his confidence is not grounded on the Savior of sinners, but on his turning from gross sins to a more refined life, and perhaps to the performance of some good duties, which is no savior. I say, this is very dangerous. So read it, and the Lord help you to understand it.

For unless you lay the whole weight of the salvation of your souls on the merits of another man, namely Jesus, and on what he did and is doing outside you, then for certain, as sure as God is in heaven, your souls will perish. And this must not be merely notional either, as with an assent of the understanding only. It must be by the wonderful, invisible, invincible power of Almighty God, working in your souls by his Spirit such a real, saving, holy faith as can, through the operation of the same Spirit by which it is worked, lay hold on and apply these most heavenly, most excellent, most meritorious benefits of the man Christ Jesus. And it must apply them not only to your heads and fancies, but to your very souls and consciences, so effectually that you may be able by the same faith to challenge the power, madness, malice, rage, and destroying nature of sin, the law, death, and the devil, together with hell and all other evils, throwing your souls on the death, burial, resurrection, and intercession of that man Jesus outside you (Rom 8:32-40).

2. But do you think there was no change in the five foolish virgins spoken of in Matthew 25:1-3? Yes, there was such a change in those very people that the five wise ones could admit them to walk with them in the purest ways and institutions of the gospel of Christ; and yet they were only foolish. Indeed, they walked with them, or will walk with them, until the Lord Jesus Christ comes bursting down from heaven; and yet they are only foolish virgins, and yet only under the law, and so under the curse, as I said before.

The second reason. But, you say, “We have disowned the covenant of works, and turned from that also.”

Answer to the second reason. This is sooner said than done. Alas, alas! Poor souls think that because they say, “Grace, grace, it is freely by grace,” they are therefore under the covenant of grace. A very wide mistake! You must understand this much: though you may be people who can speak of the grace of the gospel, yet if you yourselves are not brought under the very covenant of grace, then, for all your talk and profession, you are still very far wide of any sense of, or share in, the covenant of the grace of God held out in the gospel.

Many of the Jews had a clearer understanding than to conclude that the law, and only the law, was the way to salvation. For they, even those who did not receive the Christ of God, expected that a savior would come (John 7:27, 41-43). But they were men who did not have the gospel spirit, which alone is able to lead them to the very life, marrow, or substance of the gospel in right terms. And so, being muddy in their understandings, caught between thoughts of a savior and thoughts of the works of the law, and thinking that these works must be accomplished to obtain a savior and his mercy toward them; I say, between these they fell short of a savior.

So it is with many poor souls in these days. They think they must be saved by the Savior alone, yet they think there is something to be done on their part to obtain the Savior’s goodwill: their humiliation for sin, their turning from it, their promises and vows and resolutions to become new men, their joining in church fellowship, and what not. And so, bringing this along with them as a means to help them, they fall short of eternal salvation if they are not converted. See that scripture, Romans 9:30-32.

The apostle says there that those who did not seek obtained, while those who did seek fell short. “What shall we say then?” he says. “That the Gentiles which sought not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness,” yes, “even the righteousness which is of faith.” And what else? Why, “but Israel which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.” How did that come about? “Because,” he says, “they sought it not by faith, but as it were.” Mark, he does not say altogether, no, but “as it were”; that is, because as they sought, they leaned a little on the side upon the works of the law.

And let me tell you, this is such a hard thing to beat men off of that even when Paul himself took the work in hand, he found enough to do about it. How he has to labor in the first ten chapters of his epistle to the Romans to establish those who even professed largely in the doctrine of grace, and also in that epistle to the Galatians! And yet he lost many, do what he could. Now, the reason the doctrine of grace goes down so hard, even with professors, in truth and effectually, is this: there is a principle naturally in man that argues against it, and argues like this. “Why,” says the soul, “I am a sinner, and God is righteous, holy, and just. Therefore, since his holy law has been broken by me, I must by all means, if I ever expect to be saved, first be sorry for my sins; second, turn from them; third, follow after good duties and practice the good things of the law and the ordinances of the gospel; and so hope that God for Christ’s sake may forgive all my sins.” This is not the way to God as a Father in Christ, but the way, the very way, to come to God by the covenant of works, or the law. I will clear these things up more fully when I speak to the second doctrine.

Again, therefore, as for those who profess the gospel today, most of them are such that, for all their profession, they are very ignorant of its glorious influence and luster. I say, they are ignorant of the virtue and power of the glorious things of Christ held out by and in the gospel; and this shows that they are not under the covenant of grace, but rather under the law or old covenant (2 Cor 4:3).

For instance, if you come among some professors of the gospel, in general you will find them quite busy and ripe, and able to hold you in a very long discussion on several points of that same glorious gospel. But if you come to the same people and ask them about heart-work, or what work the gospel has worked in them, and what showing they have had of its sweet influences and virtues on their souls and consciences, they may perhaps give you an answer like this: “I do find by the preaching of it that I am changed, and turned from my sins in good measure, and I have also learned” (but only in tongue) “to distinguish between the law and the gospel, so that I can plead for the one, that is, for the gospel, and can also show the weakness and unprofitableness of the other.” And this far, it is likely, they may go. But that is not far enough to prove them under the covenant of grace, though they may have their tongues so largely tipped with the profession of it. See 2 Peter 2:20, where he says, “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (which was not a saving knowledge), “they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end” of that man “is worse than the beginning.” See Matthew 25:1-4 and following, and also Matthew 7:22.

Objection. But, you will say, “Is not this a fair declaring of the work of grace? Or does it not show, beyond all contradiction, that we are under the covenant of grace, when we are able not only to speak of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, but also to tell, and that from experience, that we have been changed from worse to better, from sin to a holy life, by leaving sin, and that by hearing the word preached?”

Answer. 1. A man may, in the first place, be able to talk of all the mysteries of the gospel, and that like an angel of God, and yet be no more in God’s account than the sounding of a drum, brass, or the tinkling of a cymbal. These are things that, for all their sound and great noise, are utterly without life and motion; and so such men are counted by God as nothing, that is, no Christians, no believers, not under the covenant of grace for all that (1 Cor 13:1-4).

2. Men may not only do this, but may also be really changed, for a season, from what they formerly were, and yet be nothing at all in the Lord’s account as to an eternal blessing. Read 2 Peter 2:20, the scripture I mentioned before. For indeed that one scripture is enough to prove all I want to say on this very point. If you observe, these following things are folded up in it:

(1) That reprobates may attain to a knowledge of Christ.

(2) That this knowledge may be of such weight and force that, for the present, it may make them escape the pollutions of the world, and this by hearing the gospel. “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end of that man is worse than the beginning.” Some professors, take them at their best, are only like dogs spewing out their filth for a time. Now, to see that they are reprobates, dogs, or sows, read further: “But,” he says, “it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire” (2 Pet 2:21-22).

The third reason. But, you say, “Our practices in the worship of God will testify for us that we are not under the law. For by God’s goodness we have attained to as exact a way of walking in the ordinances of God, and as near to the examples of the apostles, as any churches ever have since the primitive times, as we judge.”

Answer to the third reason. What then? Do you think that walking in the order of the churches of old, as to the matter of outward worship, is sufficient to clear you of your sins on the day of judgment? Or do you think God will be content with a little bodily submission to things that will vanish and fade like a flower, when the Lord comes from heaven in flaming fire with his mighty angels (2 Thess 1:7-8)? Alas, alas, how such professors as these will fall before the judgment seat of Christ! Then a question like this, “Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment?” (Matt 22:12), will strike them speechless, and they will fall down into everlasting burnings, thousands in a heap. For you must understand that on that day it is not your crying “Lord, Lord” that will do you any good, nor your saying that you have eaten and drunk in his presence that will keep you from standing at Christ’s left hand. On that day the principle will be inquired into as well as the practice.

Question. “The principle?” you will say. “What do you mean by that?”

Answer. I mean that the Lord Jesus Christ will then inquire and examine whether the spirit you acted from was legal or evangelical. That is, was it the spirit of adoption that drew you out to the thing you took in hand, or a mere moral principle, together with some shallow and common insight into the outward way of worshiping God according to gospel rule?

Question. But perhaps you will say, “How is this to be made plain and brought to light?”

Answer. I will answer this briefly as follows. First, then, take the man who takes up any of God’s ordinances, such as prayer, baptism, the breaking of bread, reading, hearing, giving to the poor, or the like. I say, whoever practices any of these, or anything like them, supposing that by doing so he will win the love of Christ to his own soul, does what he does from a legal spirit and not from an evangelical or gospel spirit. For example, a man may suppose that God will hear him for the sake of his prayers, or his alms, or his humbling of himself, or because he has promised to make it up to God later. But there is no such thing as satisfaction made to God by our prayers or by anything else we can do. I say, there is no such way of being reconciled to God. And it is the same when people think that, because they have got into this or that ordinance, and crowded themselves into this or that fellowship, they have therefore found pretty good shelter from the wrath of the Almighty. Alas, poor souls, there is no such thing! No, God will set his face so firmly against such professors that his very looks will make them tear their own flesh. Yes, they will wish they had the biggest millstone in the world hung around their necks and were thrown into the middle of the sea.

For let me tell you, friends, though you can content yourselves now without the holy, harmless, undefiled, perfect righteousness of Christ, a day is coming when not one of you will be saved except those who are, and shall be found, clothed with that righteousness. To all the rest God will say, “Take them, bind them hand and foot, and cast them into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 22:13). For on that day Christ will not say to people, “Come, which of you made a profession of me and walked in church fellowship with my saints?” No, the inquiry then will be, who has the reality of the truth of grace worked in their hearts. And for certain, whoever misses that will surely be thrown into the lake of fire, there to burn with the devils and with damned men and women, there to undergo the wrath of an eternal God; and that not for a day, a month, or a year, but forever, forever, forever and ever. There is that which cuts to the quick! So look to it, and consider now what you are doing and on what you hang your souls. For not every peg will hold in the judgment. Not every foundation will be able to hold up the house against those mighty, terrible, soul-drowning floods and destroying storms which will then roar against the soul and body of a sinner (Luke 6:47-49). And if the principle is rotten, everything will fall; it will all come to nothing.

Now, the principle is this: not to do things because we want to be saved, but to do them for this reason, namely, because we truly believe that we are saved and shall be saved. But do not mistake me. I do not say we should slight any holy duties; God forbid! But I do say that whoever looks for life because he does good duties is under the covenant of works, the law, however eminent, frequent, fervent, and zealous his duties may be. Yes, and I say, as I said before, that if any man, or men, or multitudes of people attain ever so high, so eminent, and so clear a practice and gospel order in church discipline, yet if it is done for this end I have been speaking of, from this principle, these sad things I have mentioned must and shall fall to their share.

Objection. But you will say, “Can a man use gospel ordinances with a legal spirit?”

Answer. Yes, as easily as the Jews could use and practice circumcision, though it was no part of the moral law, the Ten Commandments. For I will be bold to affirm this: it is not the commands of the New Testament administration that can keep a man from using that administration itself in a legal spirit. Know this for certain: it is the principle, not the command, that makes the one who submits to the command either legal or evangelical, and so makes his obedience to that command spring either from legal convictions or from evangelical principles.

Now, the devil is wonderfully subtle and crafty in this. He allows people to practice the ordinances and commands of the gospel, so long as they do them in a legal spirit, from a spirit of works. (I beg you, do not think that because I say this I am against the ordinances of the gospel. I honor them in their places; yet I would not have any of them idolized, or done in a wrong spirit.) For he knows that if he can just get the soul to go on in such a spirit, then however many duties they do, he will hold them securely enough. He knows full well that by this they set up something in the place of Christ, or at least give something, though only a little, a share with the Lord Jesus Christ in their salvation. And if he can just get you here, he knows that he will make you fall short of life by Christ. For you will be depending a little on the one, and so your whole dependence will not be on the other, that is, on Christ, taking him on his own terms. And this will happen though you busy yourself very much in a suitable walk, in outward conformity to the various commands of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And let me tell you plainly: I truly believe that just as Satan, by his instruments, drew many of the Galatians through circumcision (though, as I say, it was not one of the commands of the moral law) to become debtors to keep the whole moral law on pain of eternal damnation, so also in the time of the gospel Satan uses even some of the commands laid down in the gospel to bind the soul over to keep that same law, when the thing is done and walked in by and in that same spirit. For, as I said before, it is not obedience to the command that makes the one who submits to it evangelical, or of a gospel spirit. On the contrary, it is the principle that leads the soul out to do the command that makes those who practice any command, together with the command they practice, either legal or evangelical. Take prayer, for instance. It is a gospel command; yet if the one who prays does it in a legal spirit, he makes what is in itself a gospel command an occasion of leading him into a covenant of works, since he does it by and in that old-covenant spirit.

Again, giving to the poor is a gospel command; yet if I give alms from a legal principle, the command is not gospel to me but legal, and it binds me over, as I said, to keep the whole law. “For he is not a Jew,” nor a Christian, “which is one outwardly” (that is, one only by outward submission to the ordinances of prayer, hearing, reading, baptism, the breaking of bread, and so on). “But he is a Jew,” a Christian, “which is one inwardly” (Rom 2:28-29): one who is rightly principled, and who practices the ordinances of the Lord as the Spirit of the Lord leads him out, from a true and saving faith in the Lord. The men spoken of in Matthew 7, for certain, for all their great declaration, did not do what they did from a right gospel spirit. Had they done so, no doubt the Lord would have said, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” But since the Lord Jesus turns them away into hell, despite their great profession of the Lord and of their doing things in his name, it is evident that, for all they did, they were still under the law, and not under the covenant that true believers are under, namely, the covenant of grace. And if so, then all the duties they did, which they boasted of before the Lord, were not done in and by a right evangelical principle or spirit.

Again, the apostle says, “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Rom 14:23). But there are some who practice even baptism and the breaking of bread, along with other ordinances, and yet are unbelievers. Therefore, when unbelievers do these things, they are not done in faith; they are sin. Now, to do these things in sin, or without faith, is not to do things in an evangelical or gospel spirit. Also, for those who do these things in a legal spirit, the very practice of them does not bring them under the law of Christ as head of his church. Rather, the works they do so contradict the gospel of God, or the covenant of grace, that those who do them this way actually set themselves up against the covenant of grace. And the very performance of them has such force that it is enough to drown those who are subject to it under the covenant of works. But poor souls are not aware of this, and there lies their misery.

Question. But have you no other way of showing how the things of the gospel are done from a legal principle, besides those you have already mentioned?

Answer. So that you may be fully satisfied on this point, I will show you the very manner and way that a legal or old-covenant-converted professor (excuse the term) proceeds at the beginning, the middle, and the end of his doing of any duty or command, or whatever it is he does.

1. He thinks this or that is his duty, and as he considers it, he is soon persuaded in his own conscience that God will not accept him if he leaves it undone. He sees that he falls short of his duty, as he supposes, while this remains undone, and he judges that God is angry with him until the thing is done. So, in the second place, he sets about doing the duty, so that by doing it he may pacify his conscience, persuading himself that now the Lord is pleased with him for doing it.

2. Having done it, he is content and sits down at his ease until some further conviction of duty comes. When he sees and knows that, he does it as before, from the same principle as the former, and so goes on in his progress of profession. This is to do things from a legal principle and from an old-covenant spirit. For this is how that covenant runs: “The man that doth these things shall live in them,” or “by them” (Lev 18:5; Ezek 20:11; Gal 3:12; Rom 10:5). But more of this in the application of this doctrine.

Objection. But you will say, “By these words you seem to deny that there are conditional promises in the gospel. That is clear, since you strike at practices that are conditional and that are commanded to be done on those conditions.”

Answer. What I strike at is this: that a man in or with a legal spirit should not, no, cannot, do any conditional command of the gospel acceptably as far as his eternal state is concerned, because he does it in an old-covenant spirit. “No man putteth new wine into old bottles” (Mark 2:22); new wine must have new bottles. A gospel command must have a gospel spirit, or else the wine will break the bottles, or the principle will break the command.

Objection. “Then you do grant that there are conditional promises in the New Testament, just as in the moral law, or Ten Commandments.”

Answer. Though this is true, the conditional promises in the New Testament do not call on the same people, in the same unregenerate state, to fulfill them on the same conditions.

The law and the gospel are two distinct covenants. They are made in different ways, and the nature of their conditions is not the same either. As the apostle says, the righteousness of the law says one thing, and the righteousness of faith says another (Rom 10:4-6). That is, the great condition in the law is, If you do these things, you shall live by them. But the condition, even the greatest condition laid down for a poor soul to fulfill as to salvation (for that is what we are speaking of), is to believe that my sins are forgiven me for Jesus Christ’s sake, without the works or righteousness of the law on my part to help it forward. “To him that worketh not,” says the apostle (that is, for salvation), “but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith” (mark it), “his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom 4:5). So that we, he says, “conclude that a man is justified by faith without” (mark again) “without the deeds of the law” (Rom 3:28).

But again, there is not one condition in the gospel that can be fulfilled by an unbeliever. So whether there are conditions or not makes no difference to you who are without the faith of Christ, for it is impossible for you in that state to do them in a way that leaves you any better off as to your eternal state. Therefore, so that you do not wreck your soul on the conditions laid down in the gospel (as you will if you set about doing them only with a legal spirit), I say, to prevent this, see if you can fulfill the first condition. That is, believe that all your sins are forgiven you, not for any condition that you have done or can do, but merely for the sake of the man who hung on Mount Calvary between two thieves, some sixteen hundred years ago and more. And I say, see if you can believe that at that time, when he hung on the cross, he gave full satisfaction for all your sins, before you in your own person had committed a single one. I say, see if you can believe this; and take care that you do not deceive yourself with a merely historical, notional, or traditional acknowledgment of it.

And secondly, see if you can fulfill this condition so well that its very virtue and power on your soul will move you to fulfill those other conditions, truly out of love for that man who, as you should believe, has frankly and freely forgiven you everything, without any condition performed by you to move him to it, according to that saying in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15. Then your doing will spring from a different principle than it otherwise would. That is, you will not act and do things because you want to be accepted by God, but because you have some good hope in your heart that you are accepted by him already, and that not on your own account, but wholly and solely on another man’s account. For this is how the gospel spirit of faith runs: “We believe” (mark it), “We believe, and therefore speak” (2 Cor 4:13). So we believe, and therefore do. Take care, then, that you do not do in order to believe, but rather believe so effectually that you may do, even all that Jesus requires of you, from a right principle, even out of love to your dear Lord Jesus Christ. I will speak to this more fully shortly.

Objection. “But what do you mean by those expressions, Do not do that you may believe, but believe so effectually that you may do?”

Answer. When I say, Do not do that you may believe, I mean: do not think that anything you can do will procure or purchase faith from God for your soul. For that is still the old-covenant spirit, the spirit of the law, to think to have it for your doing. Those who are saved are saved by grace through faith, and that not of themselves, not for anything they can do; for both are the free gift of God, “not of” doing, or “of works, lest any man should” be proud and “boast” (Eph 2:8-9). Now, some people are so ignorant as to think that God will give them Christ, and so all his merits, if they will only be watchful and do something to please God, so that they may obtain him at his hands. But let me tell them, they could quickly lose a thousand souls, if they had so many, by going to work this way, and be none the better for it. For the Lord does not give his Christ to anyone on such conditions. He gives him freely, that is, without regard to anything that is in you (Rev 22:17; Isa 55:1-2). To him that is athirst will I give. He does not say, I will sell, but, I will give him the water of life freely (Rev 21:6).

Now, if Christ gives it, and that freely, then he does not sell it for anything that is in the creature. But Christ gives himself, as his Father also does, and that freely; not because there is anything in us, or done by us, that moves him to it. If it were by doing, then, as Paul says, “Grace is not grace,” since it is obtained by works. But grace is grace, and that is why it is given to people without their works. And if it is by grace, that is, if it is a free gift from God, without anything foreseen as done or to be done by the creature, then it is not of works; that is clear. Therefore it is grace, without the works of the law. But if you say, “No, it comes from something in the man, done by him, that moves God to it,” then you must conclude either that grace is no grace, or else that works are grace and not works. Just read Romans 11:6 with understanding.

Now, before I go any further, it may be necessary to say a word or two to some poor souls who are willing to close with Jesus Christ, and would gladly take him on his own terms. But they are muddled in their minds and have not yet come to understand the terms and conditions of the two covenants, and so they are kept back from closing with Christ. And it is all because they see they can do nothing. For example, go to some of these souls and ask them how they are doing, and they will tell you at once that they are so bad it cannot be expressed. If you tell them to believe in Jesus Christ, they will answer that they cannot believe. If you ask them why they cannot believe, they will answer that it is because their hearts are so hard, so dead, so dull, so backward to good duties. If only their hearts were better, if they were more earnest, if they could pray better and keep their hearts from running after sin so much, then they could believe. But should they believe with such vile hearts, and presume to believe in Christ while they are so filthy?

Now, all this is because the spirit of the law still rules in such souls and blinds them, so that they cannot see the terms of the gospel. To clear this up, take the substance or drift of what these poor souls say, which is this: “If I were better, then I think I could believe; but being as bad as I am, that is the reason I cannot.” This is just to do something so that I may believe, to work so that I may have Christ, to keep the law so that I may have the gospel; or, to put it this way, to be righteous so that I may come to Christ. O man, you must go right back again; you are out of the way! You must believe because you cannot pray, because you cannot do. You must believe because there is nothing in you by nature that is good, or that desires good; otherwise you will never come to Christ as a sinner. And if so, then Christ will not receive you. And if so, then you may see that to keep away from Christ because you cannot do is to be kept from Christ by the law, and to stand off from him because you cannot buy him. Having thus said something along the way to direct those souls who would come to Christ, I will return to the former discussion, from which this objection arises.

Objection. “But just now you were urging souls to fulfill the first condition of the gospel, namely, to believe in Christ and so be saved; yet now you say it is by grace alone, without condition. So by these words, first, you contradict what you said before; and also you imply that people may be saved without the condition of faith, which seems a very strange thing to me. I would like you, therefore, to clear up what you have said, to my satisfaction.”

Answer. 1. Though there is a condition commanded in the gospel, he who commands the condition does not leave his children to their own natural abilities, to fulfill it in their own strength, as the law does. Rather, the same God who commands that the condition be fulfilled himself helps his children by his Holy Spirit to fulfill it. “For it is God which worketh in you” (mark it, “in you,” believers) “both to will and to do of his own good pleasure” (Phil 2:13). “Thou also hast wrought all our works in us,” and for us (Isa 26:12). So if the condition is fulfilled, it is not done by the creature’s ability. But,

2. Take faith either way you like, as a gift of God or as an act of ours: if we speak properly of salvation, it is neither the first nor the second cause of our salvation, but the third, and even then only as an instrument. That is, it only lays hold of and applies to us that which saves us, namely, the love of God through the merits of Christ. These are the two main causes of our salvation, without which all other things are nothing, whether faith, hope, love, or whatever else we can do. The great apostle of the Gentiles speaks fully to this, for he says, “God, who is rich in mercy, loved us, even when we were dead in sins” (Eph 2:4-5). That is, he loved us when we were without faith, and that was the reason we believed. For by that love he has made us alive together through the meritorious cause, which is Christ, and so has saved us by grace, that is, out of his own voluntary love and good will. And the effect of this was that he gave us faith to believe in Christ. Read Ephesians 2:4-8 soberly.

Faith, as the gift of God, is not the Savior; and as our act, it merits nothing. Faith was not the reason God gave Christ in the first place, nor is it the reason God converts people to Christ. Rather, faith is a gift bestowed on us by the gracious God, and its nature is to lay hold of Christ, whom God had already given as a ransom to redeem sinners. This faith draws its nourishment and supplies from the same God who first gave it. Through the Spirit, it is the only instrument that keeps the soul in a comfortable frame, both to do and to suffer for Christ. It helps the soul receive comfort from Christ when it can get none from itself, and it bears up the soul in its progress toward heaven. But that it is the first cause of salvation, I deny; or that it is the second, I deny. It is only the instrument, or hand, that receives the benefits God prepared for you before you had any faith. So we do nothing for salvation as we are men. But if we speak properly, it was God’s grace that moved him to give Christ as a ransom for sinners. And it is the same God, with the same grace, who gives the soul faith to believe, and so by believing to close with him whom God, out of his love and pity, sent into the world to save sinners. So all the works of the creature are shut out as far as justification and life are concerned, and people are saved freely by grace. I will say no more here; but in my discussion of the second covenant I will answer a hell-bred objection or two, to warn sinners beforehand to beware how they turn the grace of God into wantonness.

And so, you see, I have spoken to you briefly about the law: first, what it is and when it was given; second, how sad the condition is of those who are under it; third, who they are that are under it; fourth, how far they may go, and what they may do and receive, and still be under it. This has been done by way of answers to several questions, for the better satisfaction of those who may be in doubt about the truth of what has been delivered.

Now, in the next place, I will come to some application of the truth of what has been said. But first I will say something about the second doctrine, and then afterward I will say something by way of use and application to this first doctrine.

The second doctrine I am now to speak to is this: to show that the people of God are not under the law but under grace. “For ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14).

You may well remember that from these words I observed these two great truths of the Lord: first, that there are some in gospel times who are under the law, or covenant of works; and second, that there is never a believer under the law, or covenant of works, but under grace. I have spoken something to the first of these truths, namely, that there are some under the law, together with who they are and what their condition is. Now I am to speak to the second, and to show you who they are, and what their condition is, who are under grace.

But before I come to that, I will speak a few words to show you what the word “grace” signifies in this place. (I touched on this in the first doctrine.) For the word “grace” in Scripture sometimes refers to favor with men (Esth 2:17; Gen 33:10; Gen 39:4; Gen 50:4). Sometimes it refers to the holy qualities of the saints (2 Cor 8:7). And sometimes it sets forth the condescension of Christ in coming down from the glory he had with his Father before the world was, to be made of no reputation and a servant to men (2 Cor 8:9; Phil 2:7). Again, it is sometimes taken for the free, rich, and unchangeable love of God to man through Jesus Christ, who for our cause and for our sakes made himself poor.

And that is how it is to be understood in these words: “For ye are not under the law,” to be cursed, and damned, and sent headlong to hell, “but” you are “under grace,” to be saved, to be pardoned, to be preserved, and kept by the mighty power of God, through faith (which is purely the gift of grace) unto eternal glory. This one scripture alone proves the same: “For by grace are ye saved” (Eph 2:8), by free grace, by rich grace, by unchangeable grace. And you are saved from the curse of the law; from the power, guilt, and filth of sin; from the power, malice, madness, and rage of the devil; from the wishes, curses, and desires of wicked men; from the hot, scalding, flaming, fiery furnace of hell; from being put on trial as criminals, convicted, judged, condemned, and chained with the chains of our sins to the devils for all eternity. And all this freely, freely by his grace (Rom 3:24), by rich grace, by unchangeable grace. For he says, “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed” (Mal 3:6). This is grace indeed.

The word “grace” in this scripture, then (Rom 6:14), is to be understood of the free love of God in Christ to sinners, by virtue of the new covenant. By it he delivers them from the power of sin, from the curse and condemning power of the old covenant, and from the destroying nature of sin by its continual workings. All this is evident if you read the words with understanding as they stand. “For,” he says, “sin shall not have dominion over you.” That is, it shall not domineer over you, reign over you, or destroy you, even though you have transgressed against the covenant of works, the law. And the reason is given in these words: “For ye are not under the law,” that is, under what accuses, charges, condemns, and carries out sentence on the soul for sin, “but under grace,” that is, under what frees you, forgives you, keeps you, and justifies you from all your sins and adversaries, or from whatever may come in to lay anything to your charge to damn you.

For in this sense, that is truly called grace which sets a man free from all his sins and delivers him from all the curses of the law, and from whatever else can be laid to his charge. It does this freely, without God looking ahead to see what good the offender will do. And it also keeps the soul by the same power, through faith (which is also God’s own gift), unto eternal glory.

Again, consider that it is a pardon that is not conditional but freely given. First, it is set in opposition to works: “Ye are not under the law.” Second, the promise made to them, “Sin shall not have dominion over you,” does not carry any condition to be performed on their part. It is given merely and solely because they were under grace, that is, because they had the grace of God extended to them. “Sin shall not have dominion over you: for” (mark the reason) “ye are not under the law, but under grace.”

The words being opened in this way, and the truth laid down, that there is never a believer under the covenant of works, but under grace, the free, rich, unchangeable love of God, it remains for us first to prove the doctrine, and after that to proceed.

The Doctrine Proved

Now in the doctrine there are two things to be considered and proved: first, that believers are under grace; second, that they are not under the law as a covenant of works, for that is how you must understand me. For these two we need go no further than the very words themselves. The first part of the words proves the first part of the doctrine: “Ye are not under the law.” The second part proves the other: “but” ye are “under grace.” But besides these, consider with me a few things that demonstrate these truths.

1. They are not under the law, because their sins are pardoned. That could not be if they were dealt with according to the law and as being under it. For the law allows no repentance, but accuses, curses, and condemns everyone who is under it: “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal 3:10). But, I say, if believers have their sins forgiven, it is because they are under another covenant, a new one: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with them.” “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb 8:8, 12).

2. They are not under the law, because their sins and iniquities are not only forgiven, but forgiven freely. Those who stand in the first covenant, and continue there, are never to have a single sin forgiven unless they can give God complete satisfaction. For the law demands it at their hands, saying, “Pay me that thou owest” (Matt 18:28). Oh, but when God deals with his saints by the covenant of grace, it is not so. For it is said, “And when” he saw “they had nothing to pay, he frankly” and freely “forgave them” all (Luke 7:42). “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely” (Hos 14:4). I will blot “out thy transgressions for mine own sake …” (Isa 43:25).

3. The saints are not under the law, because the righteousness in which they stand justified before God is not their own actual righteousness by the law. It is theirs by imputation, and it is really the righteousness of another, namely, of God in Christ (2 Cor 5:21; Phil 3:8-10). “Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all,” that is, imputed to “them that believe” (Rom 3:22). But if they were under the old covenant, the covenant of works, then their righteousness would have to be their own, or there would be no forgiveness of sins. And yet it is impossible for a man’s righteousness by the law to save him. “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” but if you transgress, “sin lieth at the door,” says the law (Gen 4:7).

4. In a word, whatever they receive comes to them freely: whether it is conversion to God, or pardon of sin; whether it is faith or hope; whether it is righteousness or strength; whether it is the Spirit or his fruits; whether it is victory over sin, death, or hell; whether it is heaven, everlasting life, and glory beyond words; or whatever else it may be. God had no prior regard to what they would do, or should do, to obtain it. But let us take this piece by piece.

(1) In a word, are they converted? God finds them first, for he says, “I am found of them that sought me not” (Isa 65:1).

(2) Do they have pardon of sin? They have that freely too: “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely” (Hos 14:4).

(3) Do they have faith? It is the gift of God in Christ Jesus. And he is not only its author, that is, its beginner, but he also perfects it (Heb 12:2).

(4) Do they have hope? God is its first cause: “Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope” (Ps 119:49).

(5) Do they have righteousness? It is the free gift of God (Rom 5:17).

(6) Do they have strength to do the work of God in their generation, or anything else God would have them do? That too is a free gift from the Lord, for without him we neither do nor can do anything (John 15:5).

(7) Do we have comfort or consolation? We do not have it for what we have done, but from God through Christ, for he is the God of all our comforts and consolations (2 Cor 1).

(8) Do we have the Spirit, or his fruits? It is the gift of the Father: “how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13). And again: “Thou hast wrought all our works in us” (Isa 26:12).

And so, I say, whether it is victory over sin, death, hell, or the devil, it is given to us by the victory of Christ: “But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:57; Rom 7:24-25). Heaven and glory, too, are the gift of him who richly gives us all things to enjoy (Matt 25).

So these things, if they are duly and soberly considered, will give satisfaction on this point. I might have added many more to make these things clear, such as these:

(1) When God came to man to convert him, he found him a dead man (Eph 2:1-2). He found him an enemy to God, to Christ, and to the salvation of his own soul. He found him wallowing in all kinds of wickedness, and taking pleasure in it with all delight and greediness.

(2) He had to make him alive by putting his Spirit into him, and to bring him over by the Spirit’s mighty working.

(3) He had to reveal Christ Jesus to him, for man was altogether senseless and ignorant of this blessed Jesus (Matt 11:25, 27; 1 Cor 2:7-10).

(4) He had to break the snare of the devil, and to let poor man, poor bound and fettered man, out of the chains of the enemy.

Now we must go on. The things we are to treat in the second place are these. First (besides the reasons already given), why is it a free and unchangeable grace? Second, who are those that are actually brought into his free and unchangeable covenant of grace, and how are they brought in? Third, what are the privileges of those who are actually brought into this free and glorious grace of the glorious God of heaven and glory?

Why This Grace Is Free and Unchangeable

To open this up, we must consider first how, and through whom, this grace comes to be, first, free to us, and second, unchangeable. This grace is free to us through conditions that lie in another, that is, by way of covenant or bargain. For this grace comes to us by way of covenant or bargain, yet a covenant made with another for us.

1. As to its coming by way of covenant, contract, or bargain, though not one made personally with us, please consider these scriptures. It is said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen: I have sworn unto David my servant” (Ps 89:3). The word David in this place means Christ, as it does also in these scriptures: Ezek 34:23-24 and Ezek 37:24-25. Again: “And as for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant,” speaking of Christ, “I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water” (Zech 9:9-11). Again: “Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money” (Isa 52:3). “Blessed be the Lord,” therefore, says Zacharias, “for he hath visited and” also “redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began; that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hands of all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant,” or bargain (Luke 1:68-72).

And if anyone should be offended at how plain these words are, as some poor souls may be through ignorance, let them be pleased to read Isaiah 49:1-12 soberly. There they may see that it is as plain a bargain as if two people were making a bargain between themselves and agreeing on several conditions on both sides. But more of this later. I could give you more scriptures, but please consider the second point.

2. Now, this covenant, I say, was made with one, not with many, and its conditions were also confirmed with one, not with several. First, that the covenant was made with one, see Galatians 3:16: “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” And again: “And this, I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God, in Christ…” (Gal 3:17). The covenant was made with the seed of Abraham: not the seeds, but the seed, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, our head and undertaker in the things concerning the covenant.

3. The condition was made with one, and also accomplished by him alone, not by several; yet it was accomplished in the nature of many, and for the everlasting deliverance of many, even by one man, Jesus Christ. This is clear from Romans 5:15-17 and what follows. And in Zechariah 9:11 the Lord says to Christ, “And as for thee.” Mark it: “As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant,” or, as for you whose covenant was by blood. That is, the condition of the covenant was that you should spill your blood. And since in God’s account this has been done, he says that he, according to his condition, has let the prisoners go, or sent them “out of the pit wherein is no water.”

The scriptures in Galatians 3:16-17 cited above are notably to our purpose. Verse 16 says the covenant was made with Christ; verse 17 says it was also confirmed in or with God in him. Please read with understanding. “Now,” says Paul, “the promises were not made unto seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” … “The law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.” Not that the covenant was made with Abraham and Christ together, as two persons who were the undertakers of it. The promise was made with, or to, Abraham afterward; but the covenant was made with Christ before.

Further, the covenant was not made personally with Abraham, no, nor with any of the fathers, nor in such a way that they were the persons who should stand bound to accomplish it, either in whole or in part. This is very clear.

1. It is clear because this covenant was not made between God and the creature. It was not made with another poor Adam, who stood only on the strength of natural abilities. No, this covenant was made with the second Person, with the eternal Word of God, with him who was in every way as holy, as pure, as infinite, as powerful, and as everlasting as God (Prov 8:22-31; Isa 9:6; Zech 13:7; Phil 2:6; Heb 1; Rev 1:11-17; Rev 22:13, 17).

2. This covenant or bargain was made in deed and in truth before man existed. Oh, God thought of the salvation of man before there was any transgression by man! For it was then, I say, and not since then, that the covenant of grace was made with the one who undertook it. All the other sayings of Scripture serve to show us that glorious plan and design which was agreed on before time between the Father and the Son. This may very well be concluded as a truth from the word of God, if you consider, first, that the Scripture declares that the price was agreed on by the Son before time; second, that the promise was made to him by the Father before time, that he should have his bargain; and third, that the choice of who should be saved was made before time, even before the world began.

(1) For the first, that the price was agreed on before the world began: consider the word that speaks of the price that was paid for sinners, even the precious blood of Christ. It says of him, “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who by him do believe…” (1 Pet 1:20-21). Mark it: it was foreordained, or agreed on, between the Father and his Son before the world began.

(2) The promise from God to the Son was also made in the same way. This is clear where the apostle says, with comfort to his soul, that he had “hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began” (Titus 1:2). That promise could be made to none but the Mediator of the new covenant, because there was no one else to whom it could be made but him.

(3) The choice was also made then, even before man had any being in this world. This is evident where he says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Eph 1:3-4). Indeed, if I thought it necessary here, I would show you at length and very clearly that God not only made the covenant and its conditions with Christ before the world began, but that the very qualifications of the saints, as part of the covenant, were then agreed on by the Father and the Son, according to these scriptures (Eph 1:3-4; Eph 2:10; Rom 8:28). Perhaps I may touch on this further later on. If I thought this would meet with any opposition, I would say more about it here. But to go on:

3. This covenant was not made with any of the fathers, either in whole or in part, as its undertakers. If it had been, we would also have to conclude that they are co-partners with Christ in our salvation, and so that Christ is not the only Mediator. But it would be blasphemy for anyone even once to imagine such a thing. And therefore, by the way, when you read in Scripture of the new covenant as though it was made with Adam, Noah, Abraham, or David, you should consider it this way with yourself:

(1) God spoke to them in that way to show or signify to us how he made the covenant that he made with Christ before the world began, since they were types of him.

(2) He did it so that he might let them understand that he was the same then as he is now, and now as he was then. He would also let them understand that it was then resolved between his Son and himself that in later ages his Son should, in their nature, from their loins, and for their sins, be born of a woman, be hanged on the cross, and so on, for them. For all along you may see that when he speaks to them of the new covenant, he mentions their seed, their seed, always aiming at Christ. Christ, the seed of the woman, was to break the serpent’s head (Gen 3:15). Now to Abraham and his seed was the promise made (Gen 17); his seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven, and so on (Ps 89:36); still pointing at Christ.

(3) He did it to stir up their faith and expectations to be constant to the end in waiting for what he and his Son had agreed on before time, and what he had declared to the world by the prophets since that agreement.

(4) It appears that the heart of God was much delighted in it too. This is evident in that he was always, in every age, declaring to them what he had prepared for them beforehand. Oh, this good God of heaven!

Objection. But perhaps you will say that the Scriptures say plainly that the new covenant was and is made with believers. They say, “The days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I led them out of the land of Egypt…” (Heb 8:8-10). So, you say, it does not run with Christ alone, but with believers also: he will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and Judah, and so on (Jer 31:33).

First answer. It cannot mean that the new covenant was made with Christ and with the house of Israel and Judah as its undertakers. In that sense it was made with Christ alone. This is clear because it was made long before the house of Israel and Judah existed, as I showed before.

Second answer. These words here are spoken, first, to show the end of the ceremonies rather than the beginning or rise of the new covenant. Pay attention a little. The apostle is laboring to drive the Jews, to whom he wrote this epistle, away from the ceremonies of the law (the priests, altar, offerings, temple, and so on). He labors to bring them to the right understanding of the thing and things that those ceremonies held forth, which were to come and to put an end to them. If you understand the Epistle to the Hebrews at all, it is a discourse showing that, now that the Son of God has come, an end is put to the ceremonies. For they were to continue just so long and no longer. “It,” says the apostle, “stood in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation” (Heb 9:10); that is, until Christ came. “But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come…” (Heb 9:11) puts an end to the things and ordinances of the Levitical priesthood. Read the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth chapters of Hebrews, and you will find this true.

So then, when he says, “The days come in which I will make a new covenant,” it is rather to be understood as a changing of the administration. It is a taking away of the type, the shadow, the ceremonies, from the house of Israel and Judah, and relieving them by the birth of Christ, the death of Christ, and the offering of the body of him whom the shadows and types pointed out to be indeed the one whom God the Father had given by covenant as a ransom for the souls of the saints. It is also to manifest the truth of that covenant which was made between the Father and the Son before the world began. For though the new covenant was made before the world began, and everyone in all ages was saved by the virtue of that covenant, yet that covenant was never so clearly made manifest as at the coming, death, and resurrection of Christ. And therefore the scripture says, “He hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling; not according to” the “works” of righteousness which we have done, “but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” There is the covenant. But it was “made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim 1:9-10). Therefore, I say, these words are meant to reveal that the time had come to change the dispensation, to take away the type and bring in the substance, and so to make more clearly manifest what before lay hidden in dark sayings and figures. And it is usual with God to speak in this way.

Again, if at any time you find in Scripture that the covenant of works is spoken of as the first covenant that was manifested, and so as coming before the second covenant, you must understand that it was first only as to manifestation. That is, it was given to man first, yet it was not made before the covenant that was made with Christ. And indeed it was necessary that it should be given or made known first, so that by it a way might be made for the second, through its discovering of sin and of the sad state that man was in after the fall because of sin. It was necessary also so that the other might be made all the more welcome to the sons of men.

And in this, Christ in due time most gloriously answered to Adam, who was the figure of Christ as well as of other things (Rom 5). Yet the second Adam was before the first, and the second covenant was also before the first. This is a riddle. For just as the first covenant was made with the first Adam, so the second covenant was made with the second Adam. For these are, and were, the two great public persons, or representatives of the whole world, as to the first and second covenants. And therefore you find God speaking in this way in Scripture concerning the new covenant: “My covenant shall stand fast with him.” “My mercy will I keep for him for evermore,” says God; “my covenant shall stand fast with him” (Ps 89:28). This him is Christ, if you compare this with Luke 1:32. “My covenant will I not break” (namely, the covenant that was made with him) “nor alter the thing that is gone out of my mouth. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David” (Ps 89:34-35). David here is to be understood as Christ, for this was spoken to David figuratively, in the person of Christ. That was God’s usual way of speaking of the glorious things of the gospel in the time of the law, as I said before.

The conditions too were concluded on, and it was agreed that Christ would fulfill them. This is clear if you understand what he says in John 12:27, where he foretells his death: “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I” into the world “unto this hour.” It is as if he had said: My business now is not to shrink from the sufferings that are coming upon me. These are a great part of the conditions contracted in the covenant that stands between my Father and me. Therefore I will not pray that this be absolutely removed from me. For “for this cause came I” into the world; this very thing was the terms of the covenant. By this you may see that “we are under grace.”

Now in a covenant there are three things to be considered. First, what it is that is covenanted for. Second, the conditions on which the persons concerned in it agree. Third, if the conditions on both sides are not fulfilled according to the agreement, then the covenant does not stand but is made void. And in these particulars this new covenant is very exactly fulfilled and made good in Christ.

1. The thing, or things, covenanted for was the salvation of man, and this was made good in Christ. “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). “The Son of man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Luke 9:56). “I gave my life a ransom for many. And this is the will,” or covenant, “of him that sent him, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day” (John 6:39).

2. As for the conditions agreed on, they run like this:

(1) On the Mediator’s side, that he should come into the world; and then on the Father’s side, that he should give him a body. This was one of the glorious conditions between the Father and Christ: “Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not.” That is, the old covenant must not stand, but must give way to another sacrifice which you have prepared, which is the giving up of my manhood to the strokes of your justice; “for a body hast thou prepared me” (Heb 10:5). This proves that we are under grace.

(2) On the Mediator’s side, that he should be put to death; and on God the Father’s side, that he should raise him up again. This too was concluded on, to be done between God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. On Christ’s side, he was to die to give his Father’s justice satisfaction, and so take away the curse that was due to us wretched sinners because of our transgressions. And God his Father, being fully and completely satisfied in every way, was by his mighty power to revive him and raise him up again. God has “brought again … our Lord Jesus”: that is, from death to life, through the virtue, or effectual satisfaction, that he received from the blood that was shed according to the terms “of the everlasting covenant” (Heb 13:20).

(3) On the Mediator’s side, that he should be made a curse; and on the Father’s side, that through him sinners should be inheritors of the blessing (Gal 3:13-14). What wonderful love does this show in the heart of our Lord Jesus, in suffering such things for our poor bodies and souls? This is grace.

(4) On the Mediator’s side, that there should be by him a victory over hell, death, and the devil, and the curse of the law; and on the Father’s side, that these should be communicated to sinners, and they set at liberty by them. “Turn you to the stronghold,” says God, “ye prisoners of hope; even today do I declare that I will render double unto thee” (Zech 9:12). Why so? It is because of the blood of my Son’s covenant (Zech 9:11).

This is what made Paul bold. Though he felt a body of death, and the sting that death strikes into the souls of all who are found in their sins, he could still say, “O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin.” That is true, and the terrible law of God aggravates that sting and drives it home with unbearable torment and pain. But shall I be daunted by this? No, “I thank my God through Jesus Christ he hath given me the victory” (1 Cor 15:55-57). So now, though I am a sinner in myself, yet by believing in Jesus Christ, the Mediator of this new covenant, I can triumph over the devil, sin, death, and hell, and say: Do not fear, my soul, seeing the victory over all my enemies has been won through my Lord Jesus. This is the way to prove ourselves under grace.

(5) On the Mediator’s side, that by doing all this he should bring in everlasting righteousness for saints (Dan 9:24); and that for this the Father should give them an everlasting kingdom (1 Pet 1:3-5; Eph 1:4; 2 Tim 4:18; Luke 22:28-29).

3. But, in the next place, this was not all. The covenant of grace, with its conditions, was not only concluded on by both parties to be done. Jesus Christ also had to be put into office by the Father, authorized to do by way of office everything that was concluded on concerning this covenant. I will therefore also speak a word or two about the offices, or at least some of them, that Christ Jesus carried out and still carries out as the Mediator of the new covenant, which the Levitical law also pictured beforehand in types. For this is the way to prove that we are not under the law, but under grace.

First. The first office of Christ, after the covenant was made and agreed upon, was this: Jesus was to become bound as a surety, and stand pledged under oath to see that all the conditions of the covenant agreed between him and his Father would be carried out by him, according to the agreement. After that, he was to be the messenger from God to the world, to declare the mind of God about the tenor and nature of both covenants, and especially of the new one. The Scripture says that Jesus Christ was made not only a priest by an oath, but also a surety, or bondsman, as in Hebrews 7:21-22. In verse 21 the writer speaks of the priesthood of Christ, that it was with an oath. And in verse 22 he says, “By so much” also “was Jesus made a surety of a better testament,” or covenant.

Now the covenant was made with an oath not only on Jesus Christ’s side, but also on God the Father’s side, so that it might be a firmer ground of security to all those who are, or are to be, the children of the promise. I think it is wonderful to consider that the God and Father of our souls, through Jesus Christ, should be so set on the salvation of sinners that he would make a covenant with his Son Jesus for their security, and also that an oath should pass on both sides to confirm their resolve to do good. It is as if the Lord had said, My Son, you and I have made a covenant here, that I on my part should do such and such, and that you on your part should do so and so. Now, so that we may give these souls the best ground of comfort there can be, an oath shall pass on both sides, so that our children may see that we really do love them. “Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel,” in making the covenant, “confirmed it by an oath: that we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Heb 6:17-18; Heb 7:21). Notice: the sixth chapter says that God confirmed his part by an oath, and the seventh says that Christ also was made, or set in his office, by an oath. Again, “Once,” says God, “have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David,” “nor alter the thing that is gone out of my mouth” (Ps 89:34-35), as was cited before.

Here you may see that God and Christ were in good earnest about the salvation of sinners. For as soon as ever the covenant was made, the next question was who should be bound to see that all the things agreed between the Father and the Son were fulfilled. The angels could have no hand in it. The world could not do it. The devils would rather see sinners damned than wish them the least good. So Christ looked, and there was no one to help. However heavily the burden lay on his shoulder, he had to bear it himself. For there was no one besides himself to uphold it, or even so much as to step in and be bound to see the conditions mentioned above fulfilled, either in whole or in part (Isa 63:1-7). So he had to be not only the one with whom the covenant was made, but he also had to become its bondsman, or surety. And so he stood bound to see that each and every particular thing agreed upon would be duly and orderly fulfilled, in both manner and matter, at the time and place, according to the agreement. Is not this grace?

Now as for the nature of a surety and his work, in some respects it is well known to most people, so I will be very brief about it.

1. You know that a surety is present when the bargain is made, and so was Christ: “Then was I by him” (Prov 8:30).

2. A surety must consent to the terms of the agreement, or covenant, and so did Christ Jesus. Now what he pledged would be done for sinners, according to the terms of the covenant, was this:

(1) That a complete satisfaction should be given to God for the sins of the world. For that was one great thing agreed upon when the covenant was made (Heb 10:5, 17).

(2) That Jesus Christ should, as I said before, bring in an everlasting righteousness to clothe the saints, his body, with (Dan 9:24-25). Here is grace.

(3) That he should take it upon himself to see that all of them are presented without spot or wrinkle on the day of his glorious appearing from heaven to judgment, and to acquit them before the judgment seat.

3. Again, in the work of a surety the creditor requires that the surety stand by what he is bound to, and on the surety’s side there is consent to this.

(1) The creditor expects that if the debtor goes bankrupt, the surety will take on the payment. However it may be in other engagements, this is how it is in this one. Is not this grace?

(2) The creditor expects the surety to be an able man. Now our surety was, and is, in this case suitable in every way, for he is heir of all things.

(3) The creditor appoints the day, and also expects the covenant to be kept and the debt paid by the time appointed. And it is required of sureties, as well as of stewards, that they be found faithful, that is, that they pay the debt according to the bargain. Therefore it is said, “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son … made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law” (Gal 4:4-5), according to his suretyship. This is how grace comes to the saints.

(4) The creditor expects his money to be brought into his house, to his own dwelling. Jesus, our surety, is faithful in this also. For by his own blood, which was the payment, he has entered into the holy place, even into heaven itself, which is God’s dwelling place, to render the value and price that was agreed upon for the salvation of sinners. But I will speak more of this under another head, so I pass over it here.

4. Again, if the surety stands bound, the debtor is free, and if the law issues any process to arrest anyone, it will be the surety. By the law of man, the debtor together with the surety is liable to pay the debt; but by the covenant of grace, Christ our surety alone is liable. And oh, how wonderfully true this proved when Christ our surety came down from heaven! God’s law seized on the Lord Jesus, and handled him so cruelly, and pressed its demands on him so hard, that it would never let him alone until it had accused him, condemned him, executed him, and wrung his very heart’s blood out of his precious heart and side. Yes, and more than this too, as I will show hereafter.

Second. After Jesus Christ had stood bound and had become our surety in the things that belong to this covenant, his next office was to be the messenger of God, making known God’s mind and the terms of the covenant to the poor world. The prophet foresaw this long before, when he says, “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me.” He is speaking there of John the Baptist: “And he shall prepare the way before me.” Then he speaks of Christ to the people, saying, “And the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple.” Who is he? “Even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in”; that is, Christ. “Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts” (Mal 3:1).

Now the covenant had been made beforehand between the Father and the Son, and Jesus Christ had become bound to see all its conditions fulfilled. That being done, he comes down from heaven to earth to declare to the world what God the Father and he had agreed on before, and what the Father’s mind was toward the world concerning the salvation of their souls. And indeed, who could be better sent on such an errand than he who stood by when the covenant was made? Than he who shook hands with the Father in the making of the covenant? Than he who had become a surety on behalf of poor sinners, according to the terms of this covenant?

Now, you know, a messenger usually brings some errand to those he is sent to: either word of what has been done for them, or of what the sender would have them do for him, or something of that kind. Now what a glorious message our Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven to declare to poor sinners, and that from God his Father! I say, how glorious it was! And how sweet it is to you who have seen yourselves lost by nature! And it will also look glorious to you who are seeking after Jesus Christ, if you will only consider the following things about what he was sent to do.

1. Jesus Christ was sent from heaven to declare to the world, from God the Father, that the Father was wonderfully filled with love toward poor sinners: first, in that he would forgive their sins; second, in that he would save their souls; and third, in that he would make them heirs of his glory. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.… For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16-17).

2. God sent Jesus Christ to tell the poor world how he would do this for poor sinners and yet be just, and yet do his justice no wrong. That was to be done by Jesus Christ dying a cursed death in the place of poor sinners, to satisfy justice and make way for mercy; to take away the stumbling blocks and set heaven’s gates open; to overcome Satan and break his chains off sinners (Luke 4:18); to set open the prison doors and let the prisoners go free (Isa 61:1-3). And this was the message that Christ was to deliver to the world by commandment from his Father. He told us so when he came on his errand, where he says, “I lay down my life for the sheep.… No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:15-18). As if he said, Even this commandment my Father has given me: that I should both do this thing and also tell it to you.

3. He was sent as a messenger not only to declare this love of his Father, but also to show how dearly he himself loved sinners, and what a heart he had to do them good. There he says, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me”; and then, Christ says, let me tell you about my heart too: “Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). As my Father is willing to give you to me, so I am just as willing to receive you. As my Father is willing to give you heaven, so I am willing to make you fit for it by washing you with my own blood. I lay down my life so that you might have life; and this I was sent to tell you from my Father.

4. His message went further. He came to tell them how, and in what way, they should come to enjoy these glorious benefits; and also to set out motives to stir them up to accept the benefits. The way is laid down in John 3:14-15, where Christ says, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up” (that is, be hanged on the cross and die the death), “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” It is as though he says: The way you may have the benefit and comfort of what my Father and I have covenanted for on your behalf, I have come down from heaven to earth on purpose to make known to you and to assure you of. Know, then, that I have been born of a woman and have taken this body on me for this very purpose: that I might offer it up on the cross as a sacrifice to God, to give him satisfaction for your sins, so that his mercy may be extended to your soul without any wrong done to justice. And you are to believe this, not merely as a notion, but from your very whole soul.

Now the motives are many.

(1) If they do not leave their sins and come to Jesus Christ, so that their sins may be washed away by his blood, they are sure to be damned in hell; for the law has condemned them already (John 3:18-19).

(2) But if they do come, they shall have the bosom of Christ to lie in, the kingdom of heaven to live in, and the angels and saints for their companions. They shall shine there like the sun, they shall be there forever, they shall sit on the thrones of judgment, and more besides. Here is grace.

I think that if I only had time to speak fully to everything I could draw from these two heavenly truths, and to apply them, then surely, with the blessing of God, it might persuade some vile and abominable wretch to lay down the weapons he has taken up in defiance against God, as he marches hellward posthaste with the devil. I say, I think it should stop such people and make them willing to look back and accept salvation for their poor condemned souls, before God’s eternal vengeance is carried out on them.

Oh, then, you who are on this march, I beg you, stop and think a little. What! Shall Christ become a drudge for you, and will you be drudges for the devil? Shall Christ covenant with God for the salvation of sinners, and shall sinners covenant with hell, death and the devil for the damnation of their souls? Shall Christ come down from heaven to earth to declare this to sinners, and shall sinners stop their ears against this good news? Will you not hear Christ’s errand, even though he brings you news of peace and salvation? What if he had come with a command from his Father to damn you and send you to the devils in hell? Sinner, hear his message. He speaks no harm; his words are eternal life. All who listen to them gain eternal advantage by them: advantage, I say, that never has an end.

Besides, just consider these two things; they may well have some sway over your soul.

1. When he came on his message, he came with tears in his eyes, and even offered them the terms of reconciliation weeping. I say, with tears in his eyes. When he came near the city (that is, with his message of peace), seeing the hardness of their hearts, he wept over it and took up a lament over it, because he saw that they rejected his mercy, which was news of peace. I ask you, then, will you slight a weeping Jesus, one who loves your soul so much that, rather than lose you, he will plead with you in tears?

2. Not only that, but when he came, he came all covered in blood to offer mercy to you, to show you still how dearly he loved you. It is as if he had said, Sinner, here is mercy for you; but look at my bloody sweat, my bloody wounds, my cursed death. Look and see what danger I have gone through to come to your soul. I have indeed come to you, and I bring you news of salvation; but it cost me my heart’s blood before I could reach you to give you the fruits of my everlasting love. But more of this later.

So I have said something about Christ’s being the messenger of the new covenant. But because I do not want to cut short what is still to come, I will pass by these things, not half covered, and come to the other matter I promised a moment ago. That was to show you that, just as there were Levitical ceremonies in, or belonging to, the first covenant, so these types, or Levitical ceremonies, represented the glorious things of the new covenant. In those ceremonies you read of a sacrifice, of a priest to offer up the sacrifice, of the place where and the manner how he was to offer it; and of these I will say something.

Third. Concerning the sacrifice, you find that it was not to be offered from every kind of beast, such as lions, bears, wolves, tigers, dragons, serpents, and the like. This was to signify that not every kind of creature that had sinned, such as the devils, the fallen angels, would be saved. But the sacrifice was to be taken from certain kinds of beasts and birds, to signify that God would be pleased to reconcile to himself again some of his creatures that had sinned. God, the God of heaven, looked with favor on poor fallen man and woman, those miserable creatures, after their fall; but not on the cursed devils, though by creation they were nobler creatures than we are. Here is grace.

Now though these sacrifices were offered, they were not offered in order to make perfect those who came to them or offered them. Rather, they were to show the world what God meant to do in later ages, which was nothing less than the salvation of his creatures by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. These sacrifices were a shadow and a type of that offering, for the accomplishing of the second covenant. For Christ was bound by covenant to offer a sacrifice, and an effective one too, if he intended the salvation of sinners: “A body hast thou prepared me; I am come to do thy will” (Heb 10). I will therefore show you, first, what God expected in the sacrifice in the type, and then how it was answered in the antitype. Second, I will show you the manner in which the type was offered, and, answering to that, the fitness of the sacrifice of the body of Christ, by way of answering some questions.

First. To take the first of these:

1. God expected the sacrifice that he himself had appointed, and no other. This was to signify that nothing would serve his purpose but the body and soul of his appointed Christ, the mediator of the new covenant (John 1:29).

2. This sacrifice must not be lame or deformed; it must have no scar, spot, or blemish. This was to signify that Jesus Christ was to be a complete sacrifice by covenant (1 Pet 1:19).

3. This sacrifice was to be taken from the flock or the herd, to signify that Jesus Christ was to come from the race of mankind, according to covenant (Heb 10:5).

Second. As to the manner of it:

1. Before the sacrifice was offered, all the sins of the children of Israel were to be confessed over it. This was to signify that Jesus Christ must bear the sins of all his children by covenant (Isa 53:4-7; 1 Pet 2:24): “As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant” (Zech 9:10-11), bearing them in his own body on the tree.

2. It must be brought to the place appointed, namely, outside the camp of Israel, to signify that Jesus Christ must be led to Mount Calvary (Luke 23:33).

3. The sacrifice was to be killed there, to signify that Jesus Christ must suffer, and did suffer, outside the city of Jerusalem for our salvation.

4. The sacrifice must not only have its life taken away; some of its flesh must also be burned on the altar. This was to signify that Jesus Christ was not only to die a natural death, but was also to undergo the pains and torments of the damned in hell.

5. Sometimes there must be a living offering and a dead offering, as with the goat that was killed and the scapegoat, or the dead bird and the living bird. This was to signify that Jesus Christ must die and come to life again (Lev 14:4-6).

6. The goat that was to die was to be the sin offering; that is, it was to be offered like the rest of the sin offerings, to make atonement as a type. The other goat was to have all the sins of the children of Israel confessed over him, and then be let go into the wilderness, never to be caught again (Lev 16:7-22). This was to signify that Christ’s death was to make satisfaction for sin, and his coming to life again was to bring in everlasting justification from the power, curse, and destroying nature of sin (Rom 4:25).

7. The scapegoat was to be carried into the wilderness by a fit man, to signify that Jesus Christ would be both fit and able to carry our sins quite away from us, so that they would never be laid to our charge again. Here is grace.

8. With the sacrifices under the law, part of them commonly had to be eaten. This was to signify that those who are saved must feed spiritually on the body and blood of Jesus Christ, or else they have no life by him (Exod 12:5-11; John 6:51-53).

9. This sacrifice must be eaten with unleavened bread, to signify that those who love their sins, that devilish leaven of wickedness, do not feed on Jesus Christ.

Now this is the sum of what has been said: there is a sacrifice under the new covenant, as there were sacrifices under the old, and this sacrifice answered that one, or those, in every way. Indeed, they only suffered for sin in show, but he in reality; they as the shadow, but he as the substance.

Oh, when Jesus Christ came to make himself a sacrifice, or to offer himself for sin, you may understand that our sins were indeed charged on him in earnest! Oh, how they terrified his soul! How they broke his body, so much that they made the blood run down his blessed face and from his precious side! Therefore you must understand the following things. First, Jesus Christ by covenant died for sin. Second, his death was not a mere natural death, but a “cursed death,” such a death as men undergo from God for their sins, though he himself had none; even such a death as to endure the very pains and torments of hell. Oh, the sad pains and inexpressible torments that this our sacrifice for sin went through!

The pains of his body were not all; no, there were also the pains of his soul. For his soul was made an offering as well as his body, and yet all was only one sacrifice (Isa 53). This was to signify that the suffering of Christ was not only a bodily suffering but a soul suffering: not only to suffer what man could inflict on him, but also to suffer soul torments that none but God can inflict, or allow to be inflicted, on him. Christ did not suffer in his body without suffering in his soul, nor in his soul without suffering in his body; and this was because the saints were to be saved forever, not in the body without the soul, but in both body and soul. Oh, the torments of his soul! They were torments indeed. His soul was what felt the wrath of God. “My soul,” he says, “is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matt 26:38). “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?” (John 12:27).

The rock was not so torn as his precious soul was. There was not such terrible darkness on the face of the earth then as there was on his precious soul. Oh, the torments of hell and the eclipse of God’s divine smiles were both on him at once: the devils assailing him and God forsaking him, and all at once! “My God, my God,” he says, “why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). That is, “Now, in my greatest extremity, now that sin is laid on me, the curse takes hold of me, and the pains of hell are clasped around me, you have forsaken me.” Oh, sad!

Sinners, this was not done in pretense but in reality, not in show but in very deed. Otherwise Christ would have been pretending, and would not have spoken the truth. But his bloody sweat declares the truth of it, his mighty cries declare it, and the things he suffered, and what he suffered for, declare it. No, I must say this much: all the damned souls in hell, with all their damnations, have never yet felt such torment and pain as this blessed Jesus felt in a little time.

Sinner, can you read that Jesus Christ was made an offering for sin, and still go on in sin? Can you hear that the load of your sins broke the very heart of Christ and spilled his precious blood, and can you find it in your heart to labor to lay more sins on his back? Can you hear that he suffered the pains, the fiery flames, of hell, and can you find it in your heart to add to his groans by slighting his sufferings? O hard-hearted wretch! How can you deal so unkindly with such a sweet Lord Jesus?

Question. But why did Christ offer himself in sacrifice?

Answer. So that you would not be thrown to the very devils.

Question. But why did he spill his precious blood?

Answer. So that you might enjoy the joys of heaven.

Question. But why did he suffer the pains of hell?

Answer. So that you would not fry with the devil and damned souls.

Question. But could we not have been saved if Christ had not died?

Answer. No. For without shedding of blood there is no remission (Heb 9:22). Besides, there was no death that could satisfy God’s justice but his. This is evident, because there was no one but he who was in a position to die, or who was able by so suffering to answer an infinite God.

Question. But why did God let him die?

Answer. Since he stood in the place of sinners, and that in their names and natures, God’s justice had to fall on him. For justice takes vengeance for sin wherever it finds it, even if it is on his dear Son. No, God favored his Son no more, finding our sins on him, than he would have favored any of us. Should we have died? So did he. Should we have been made a curse? So was he. Should we have undergone the pains of hell? So did he.

Question. But did he really suffer the torments of hell?

Answer. Yes, and in such a horrible way, too, that it is unspeakable.

Question. Could he not have suffered without suffering like that? Would not his dying only a natural death have served the purpose?

Answer. No, in no way.

1. The sins for which he suffered called for the torments of hell. The conditions on which he died called for the torments of hell, for Christ did not die the death of a saint, but the death of a sinner, of a cursed and damned sinner, because he stood in their place. The law to which he was subjected called for the torments of hell. The nature of God’s justice could not let him off with anything less. The death he was to suffer had not lost its sting. All these, put together, irresistibly declare to us that he, as a sacrifice, did suffer the torments of hell (Gal 3:13).

2. Moreover, had he not died and suffered the cursed death, the covenant would have been made void, his suretyship would have been forfeited, and, besides this, the world would have been damned in the flames of hell-fire. Therefore his being a sacrifice was one part of the covenant, for the terms of the covenant were that he should spill his blood (Zech 9:10-11). O blessed Jesus! O blessed grace!

Question. But why, then, is his death so slighted by some?

Answer. Because they are enemies to him, either through ignorance or presumption, either from lack of knowledge or out of malice. For surely, if they loved or believed him, they could not help breaking and bleeding at heart to consider him and to think of him (Zech 12:10-11).

Fourth. Passing on from this, I will now say something about Christ’s priestly office. But by the way, someone may think I am spinning my thread too long here in distinguishing his priestly office from his being a sacrifice, supposing that for Christ to be a priest and to be a sacrifice is all one and the same thing. If they think so, it may be because they have not thought about this as well as they should: namely, that as a sacrifice he was passive, that is, he was led or taken away like a lamb to his sufferings (Isa 53); but as a priest he was active, that is, he willingly and freely gave up his body to be a sacrifice. “He hath given his life a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28). This consideration lay on my spirit with some weight and clearness, and so I was, and still am, moved to set these two things down under two separate heads.

So I want to say something about it, and it is this: as there were priests under the first covenant, so there is a priest under this one, belonging to this new covenant. He is a high priest, the chief priest. This is clear where the Scripture speaks of our “having a high priest over the house of God” (Heb 3:1; Heb 5:5, 10; Heb 7:24-26; Heb 8:1, 4; Heb 10:21).

Now these are the things I will deal with. First, I will show you the qualifications required of a priest under the law. Second, I will show you his office. And third, I will show how Jesus Christ acted in line with what was signified by those priests under the law; I mean, how he answered to the types, and where he went beyond them.

First. As for his qualifications:

1. The priests had to be called to the work by God. “No man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as Aaron” (Heb 5:4). Now Aaron’s being called by God to be a priest signifies that Jesus Christ is a priest of God’s appointment, one whom God has chosen, is pleased with, and has set to work: “Called of God an high priest…” (Heb 5:10).

2. The priests under the law had to be whole men, complete and not deformed. “Speak unto Aaron,” God says to Moses, “saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach; a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, or a man that is broken-footed, or broken-handed, or crookbacked, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken; no man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire; he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God” (Lev 21:17-21). What does all this signify but the following?

(1) He must not be lame. This signifies that he must not go haltingly about the work of our salvation.

(2) He must not be blind. This signifies that he must not go about the work ignorantly, but must be quick of understanding in the things of God.

(3) He must not be scabbed. This signifies that the priest must not be corrupt or filthy in his office.

(4) In a word, he must be complete in every way. This signifies to us that Jesus Christ was to be, and is, most complete and most perfect in every way, an acceptable high priest in things pertaining to God with reference to his second covenant.

3. The priests under the law were not to be hard-hearted, but full of pity and compassionate, willing and ready, with hearts brimming with tender affection, to offer for the people and to make atonement for them (Heb 5:1-2). This signifies that Jesus Christ was to be a tender-hearted high priest, able and willing to sympathize with the weaknesses of others and be moved by them, to pray for them, and to offer up his precious blood for them. He must be one who can have compassion on a company of poor, ignorant souls, and on those who are out of the way, to recover them and set them in safety (Heb 4:15). And so that he could do this, he had to be a man who had experienced the disadvantages that weakness and sin brought on these poor creatures (Heb 2:17).

4. The high priests under the law were not to be shy or squeamish if there were any who had the plague or leprosy, scabs or blotches. They had to look at them, go to them, and offer for them (read the whole of Leviticus 13). All of this signifies that Jesus Christ would not refuse to take notice of the various weaknesses of the poorest people, but would teach them, and see to it that none of them is lost because of their weakness for lack of being looked after or tended. This privilege also we have under this second covenant. This is the way to make grace shine.

5. The high priests under the law were to be anointed with very excellent oil, skillfully compounded (Exod 29:7; Exod 30:30). This signifies that Jesus, the great high priest of this new covenant, was to be anointed to his priestly office in a most eminent way by the Holy Spirit of the Lord.

6. The priest’s food and livelihood during the time of his ministry was to be the consecrated and holy things (Exod 29:33). This signifies that it is the very meat and drink of Jesus Christ to carry out his priestly office, and to save and preserve his poor, tempted, and afflicted saints. Oh, what a new-covenant High Priest we have!

7. The priests under the law were to be washed with water (Exod 29:4). This signifies that Jesus Christ was not to go about the work of his priestly office with the filth of sin on him. Rather, he was to appear without sin as our high priest in the presence of his Father, to carry out his priestly office there for our benefit. “For such a high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens” (Heb 7:26).

8. Before the high priests under the law went into the holy place, they were to be clothed with a finely worked garment, a breastplate, an ephod, a robe, an embroidered coat, a miter, and a sash. These were to be made of gold, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen. In his garment and glorious ornaments there had to be precious stones, and on those stones the names of the children of Israel had to be written (read Exodus 28). All this was to signify what a glorious high priest Jesus Christ would be, and how he would appear before God in the righteousness of God as our high priest, to offer up to God his Father the sacrifice that was to be offered for our salvation. But I pass over that.

Second. Now I will speak to his office. The office of the high priest in general was twofold: first, to offer the sacrifice outside the camp; and second, to bring it within the veil, that is, into the holiest of all, which was a type of heaven.

1. As to the first part of the high priest’s office:

(1) It was the priest’s office to offer the sacrifice, and so did Jesus Christ. He offered his own body and soul in sacrifice. I say, he did offer it, and not another, as it is written, “No man taketh away my life, but I lay it down of myself; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:17-18). And again it is said, “When he,” that is, Jesus, “had offered up one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God” (Heb 10:12).

(2) The priests under the law had to offer up the sacrifice that God had appointed and no other, a complete one without any blemish. And so did our High Priest, where he says, “Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me” (Heb 10:5), and that body I will offer.

(3) The priest was to take the ashes of the sacrifice and lay them in a clean place. This signifies that the body of Jesus, after it had been offered, was to be laid in Joseph’s tomb as in a clean place, where no one had ever been laid before (Lev 6:11, compared with John 19:41-42).

2. As to the second part of the high priest’s office: the first was one part of his office, and when it was done, then next he was:

(1) To put on the glorious garment. When he was to go into the holiest, and take of the blood and carry it there, and so on, he was to put on the holy garment, which signifies the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

(2) He was to appear in the holy places in this holy garment, which had the stones in it, and on the stones the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. “And thou shalt take two onyx stones, and grave on them the names of the children of Israel: six of their names on one stone, and the other six names of the rest on the other stone, according to their birth” (Exod 28:9-10). This was to signify that when Jesus Christ was to enter into the holiest, he was there to bear the names of his elect on the tablets of his heart before the throne of God and the mercy seat (Heb 12:23).

(3) Along with this, he was to take the blood of the sacrifices and carry it into the holiest of all, which was a type of heaven, and there he was to sprinkle the mercy seat. This was to be done by the high priest only. That signifies that no one but Jesus Christ must have this office and privilege, to be the people’s high priest to offer for them. “But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people” (Heb 9:7).

(4) He was there to make atonement for the people with the blood, sprinkling it on the mercy seat; but this had to be done with much incense. “And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin-offering which is for himself, and for his house, and shall kill the bullock of the sin-offering which is for himself: and he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the veil: and he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy-seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not: and he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy-seat eastward, and before the mercy-seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times. Then shall he kill the goat of the sin-offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the veil, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy-seat, and before the mercy-seat” (Lev 16:11-15).

Now this was for the priest and the people. All of it signifies that Jesus Christ was, after his death, to go into heaven itself, of which this holy place was a figure. There he was to carry the sacrifice that he offered on the cross into the presence of God, to obtain mercy for the people by way of justice (Heb 9). And where the high priest is said to take his hands full of sweet incense, it signifies that Jesus Christ was to offer up his sacrifice in the presence of his Father by way of intercession and prayers.

I might have branched these things out into several particulars, but I want to be brief. I say, therefore, that the office of the priest was to carry the blood into the holy place, and there to present it before the mercy seat with his heart full of intercessions for the people for whom he was a priest (Luke 1:8-11). This is Jesus Christ’s work now in the kingdom of glory: to plead his own blood, its nature and power, with a perpetual intercession to the God of mercy on behalf of us poor, miserable sinners (Heb 7:25).

Now, in the intercession of this Jesus, which is part of his priestly office, there are these things to consider for our comfort:

1. There is a pleading of the power of his blood for those who have already come in, that they may be kept from the evils of heresies, delusions, temptations, pleasures, profits, or anything of this world that may be too hard for them. “Father, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world,” says Christ, “but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil” (John 17:15).

2. If the devil should climb up into the presence of God to accuse any of the poor saints, and to plead their backslidings against them, as he will if he can, then there is Jesus, our Lord Jesus, ready in the court of heaven at the right hand of God, to plead the power of his blood. He pleads it not only for the great and general satisfaction he gave when he was on the cross, but also for the power that is in it now for the cleansing and fresh purging of his poor saints under their various temptations and weaknesses. As the apostle says, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life” (Rom 5:10), that is, by his intercession.

3. The maintaining of grace is also by Jesus Christ’s intercession, which is the second part of his priestly office. Oh, if we did not have a Jesus at the right hand of God making intercession for us, conveying fresh supplies of grace to us through the power of his blood pleaded at God’s right hand, how soon would it go with us as it goes with those for whom he does not pray at all (John 17:9)? The reason you stand while others fall, the reason you go through the many temptations of the world and shake them off, while others are ensnared and entangled in them, is that you have an interceding Jesus. “I have prayed,” he says, “that thy faith fail not” (Luke 22:32).

4. It is partly by the power of Christ’s intercession that the elect are brought in. There are many who are yet to come to Christ but have not yet been brought in to him, and it is one part of his work to pray for their salvation too. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe,” though as yet they do not believe, “on me,” but that they may believe “through their word” (John 17:20). And let me tell you, soul, for your comfort, you who are coming in to Christ panting and sighing as if your heart would break: I tell you, soul, you would never have come to Christ if he had not first, by the power of his blood and intercession, sent into your heart an earnest desire for Christ. And let me tell you also that it is his business to make intercession for you, not only that you might come in, but that you might be preserved once you have come in. Compare Hebrews 7:25 and Romans 8:33-39.

5. It is by the intercession of Christ that the weaknesses of the saints in their holy duties are forgiven. Alas, if it were not for the priestly office of Christ Jesus, the prayers, alms, and other duties of the saints might be rejected because of the sin that is in them. But Jesus, being our high priest, is ready to take away the iniquities of our holy things, perfuming our prayers with the glory of his own perfections. That is why an answer is given to the saints’ prayers, and why their holy duties are accepted (Rev 8:3-4). “But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your consciences from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament,” or covenant, “that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called,” notwithstanding all their sins, “might receive the promise of eternal inheritance” (Heb 9:11-15).

Third. The third thing to speak to now is to show where and how Jesus Christ outdid and goes beyond these priests in all their qualifications and offices, for the comfort of poor saints.

1. Those who were called to the priesthood under the law were only men; but he is both God and man (Heb 7:3, 28).

2. Their qualifications were in them in a very scanty way; but Jesus was qualified in every way, in an infinite and full way.

3. They were consecrated only for a time, but he forever (Heb 7:23-24).

4. They were made priests without an oath, but he with an oath (Heb 7:20-21).

5. They served as servants, but he as a son (Heb 3:6).

6. Their garments were only such as could be made with hands, but his is the very righteousness of God (Exod 28; Rom 3:22; Phil 3:8-9).

7. Their offerings were only the bodies and blood of beasts and the like, but his offering was his own body and soul (Heb 9:12-13; Heb 10:4-5; Isa 53:10).

8. Those priests were at best only a shadow or type, but he is the very substance and end of all those ceremonies (Heb 9:1, 10-11).

9. Their holy place was made only by men, but his, the one Jesus has entered, is heaven itself (Heb 9:2-3, 24).

10. When they went to offer their sacrifice, they were forced to offer for themselves, as men beset with weakness; but he is holy and harmless, and never committed the least transgression (Heb 7:26; Heb 10:11).

11. When they went in to offer, they had to do it standing, to signify that God had no satisfaction in it. But he, “when he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God,” to signify that God was very well pleased with his offering (Heb 10:11-12).

12. They had to “offer oftentimes the same sacrifices which could never take away sins”; but he “by one offering hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Heb 10:11, 14).

13. Their sacrifices at best could only serve for the cleansing of the flesh, but his serves for cleansing both body and soul. The blood of Jesus Christ purges the conscience from dead works, so that we may live a holy life (Heb 9:13-14).

14. Those high priests could offer in the holiest of all only once a year, but our high priest ever lives to make intercession for us (Heb 9:7; Heb 7:24-25).

15. Those high priests, though they were priests, were not to wear their holy garments all the time; but Jesus never takes them off, but wears them always.

16. Death was too hard for those high priests, but our high priest has vanquished and overcome that cruel enemy of ours, and brought life and immortality to light through the glorious gospel (Heb 7:21, 23; Heb 2:15; 2 Tim 1:10).

17. Those high priests were not able to save themselves; but this one is able to save himself and all who come to God by him (Heb 7:25).

18. The blood of those high priests could not do away with sin; but the blood of Jesus Christ, who is our high priest, “cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

19. Those high priests sometimes caused God to reject their sacrifices because of their sin; but this high priest always does the things that please him.

20. Those high priests could never convey the Spirit by virtue of their sacrifices or office; but this high priest, our Lord Jesus, can and does give all the gifts and graces that are given to the sons of men.

21. Those high priests could never bring the soul of any sinner to glory by their sacrifices, by any virtue in the sacrifice itself; but Jesus has by one offering, as I said before, perfected forever those he died for.

So in brief I have shown, in some particulars, how and in what ways Jesus our high priest goes beyond those high priests. Many more could no doubt be mentioned, but I forbear.

Christ the Forerunner of the Saints

Fifth. A fifth office of Christ with reference to the second covenant was that he should be the forerunner to heaven ahead of his saints, who were to follow after. First he shakes hands on the covenant; then he stands bound as a surety to see that everything in the covenant that was to be done on his part is accomplished; next he brings the message from heaven to the world; and before he goes back, he offers himself for the very sins he agreed to suffer for. As soon as this was done, he goes posthaste to heaven again. He goes not only to exercise the second part of his priestly office, but as our forerunner, to take possession for us, even of heaven itself. You may see this where it is said, “Whither the forerunner is for us entered” (Heb 6:20).

First. He has run on ahead to open heaven’s gates: Be open, you everlasting doors, so that the King of glory may enter in.

Second. He has run on ahead to take possession of glory in our nature for us.

Third. He has run on ahead to prepare our places for us before we come after him. “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:1-3).

Fourth. He has run there to make the way easy, in that he has first trodden the path himself.

Fifth. He has run there to receive gifts for us. All spiritual and heavenly gifts would have been kept from us if Christ had not run back to the kingdom of glory, as soon as the appointed time had come, to receive them for us.

I have spoken of these things to show you that the saints are under grace. But I cannot stop to enlarge on these glorious things. May the Lord enlarge them on your hearts as you meditate on them.

Here I might now begin to speak of his prophetic and kingly office, and of the privileges that do and shall come by it. But I fear I would be too tedious, so at this time I will pass them by. Thus you may see how the covenant of grace runs, with whom it was made, and also what its conditions were.

Now, then, this grace, this everlasting grace of God, comes to be free to us through the satisfaction given for us by another, according to the conditions. For though it is free, and freely given to us, yet obtaining it cost our head, our public man, a very dear price. “For ye are bought with a price” (1 Cor 6:20), even with the precious blood of Christ (1 Pet 1:19). So it is by another, I say, not by us. Yet it is as surely made over to us, even to as many of us as do or shall believe, as if we had done it and obtained the grace of God ourselves.

No, it is more sure than that. For consider, I say: this grace is free to us, and comes to us with the account cleared, by virtue of the labor and purchase of another for us. Mark this: what is obtained for us by another is not obtained for us by ourselves. Rather, Christ has, not by the blood of goats and calves (which were things offered by men under the law), “obtained eternal redemption for us”; “but by his own blood” (meaning Christ’s) “he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Heb 9:12).

It comes to be unchangeable through the perfection of the satisfaction that was given to God for us through the Son of Mary. For whatever the divine, infinite, and eternal justice of God called for at the hands of man, if man ever intended to be a partaker of the grace of God, this Jesus, this one man, this public person, gave a complete satisfaction to it. He did it so effectually that it caused God to say not only “I am pleased,” but “I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17); that is, completely and sufficiently satisfied with you on their behalf, for that is how you must understand it.

Mark, therefore, these following words: “And, having made peace” (or, completely made up the difference) “through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.” How? “In the body of his flesh, through death, to present you holy” (mark it), “holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight” (Col 1:20-23). And so it is grace, unchangeable grace, to us, because it was obtained, yes, completely obtained, for us by Jesus Christ, the God-man.

Objection. But some may say, “How was it possible that one man, Jesus, by one offering, should so completely obtain and bring in unchangeable grace for such an innumerable company of sinners as are to be saved?”

Answer. First, in that he was every way fitted for such a work. And second, in that, as I said before, he every way completely satisfied what was offended by our disobedience to the former covenant.

Christ Was Every Way Fitted for the Work

To make this clear, consider the following.

1. Was it man who had offended? It was a man who gave the satisfaction. “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor 15:21).

2. Was it God who was offended? It was God who gave a satisfaction. “To us a child is born, and to us a son is given … And his name shall be called The mighty God” (Isa 9:6). “He thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” but for our sakes (2 Cor 8:9) he “made himself of no reputation” (Phil 2:5-7).

3. To clear this further, and to show you that he was rightly qualified in everything for this great work, see what God himself says of him. In the first place he calls him a man; and secondly, he owns him to be his fellow, saying, “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man” (mark it) “the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech 13:7).

So now, let divine and infinite justice turn whichever way it will, it finds one who knows how to match it. For if it says, “I will require satisfaction from man,” here is a man to satisfy its demand. And if it says, “But I am an infinite God, and I must and will have an infinite satisfaction,” here also is one who is infinite, even the fellow of God: his fellow in essence and being, his fellow in power and strength, his fellow in wisdom, his fellow in mercy and grace, together with the rest of the attributes of God. So, I say, let justice turn whichever way it will, here is a complete person to give a complete satisfaction (Prov 8:23; 1 Cor 1:24; Titus 2:10, compared with verse 11). So much for the fitness of the person.

Christ’s Satisfaction Was Complete

Now for the completeness of the satisfaction he gave for us. This is shown in these particulars.

1. Does justice call for the blood of the nature that sinned? Here is the heart’s blood of Jesus Christ: “We have redemption through his blood” (Eph 1:7, 14; 1 Pet 1:18-19; Zech 9:10-11).

2. Does justice say that if this blood is not the blood of one who is really and naturally God, it will not give satisfaction to infinite justice? Then here is God, purchasing his church “with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).

3. Does justice say that it must not only have satisfaction for sinners, but that those who are saved must also be washed and sanctified with this blood? Then here is he who so loved us that he “washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Rev 1:5).

4. Is there to be a righteousness to clothe those who are to be presented before divine justice? Then here is the righteousness of Christ, which is “even the righteousness of God by faith” (Rom 3:22; Phil 3:8-10).

5. Are there any sins now that will fly upon this Savior like so many lions or raging devils if he undertakes to redeem man? He will be content to bear them all himself alone, even in his own body on the tree (1 Pet 2:24).

6. Is there any law now that will curse and condemn this Savior for standing in our place to give satisfaction to God for the transgression of man? He will be willing to be cursed, yes, to be made a curse for sinners, rather than have them cursed and damned themselves (Gal 3:13).

7. Must the great and glorious God, whose eyes are so pure that he cannot behold iniquity, must he, I say, have not only the blood but the very life of the one who will undertake to be the deliverer and Savior of us poor miserable sinners? He is willing to lay down his life for his sheep (John 10:11).

8. Must he not only die a natural death, but must his soul also descend into hell, though it is not to be left there? He will suffer that also (Ps 16:10; Acts 2:27).

9. Must he not only be buried, but also rise again from the dead and overcome death, so that he might be the firstfruits to God of those who sleep who shall be saved? He will be buried; and also, through the strength of his Godhead, he will raise himself out of the grave, however fast death holds him, however great a stone the Jews lay on the mouth of the tomb, and however fast they seal it (1 Cor 15:4; Luke 24:34).

10. Must he carry that body into the presence of his Father to take possession of heaven? And must he appear there as a priest, as forerunner, as an advocate, as prophet, as a treasure-house, as an interceder and pleader of the causes of his people (Heb 6:20; Heb 9:24; John 14:2-3; 1 John 2:1)? He will be all these, and much more, so that the grace of God by faith in Jesus Christ might be made sure to all the seed. “Who then can condemn? It is God that justifieth; because Christ hath died, yea rather, that is risen again” (Rom 8:33-34). Now, seeing all this is so effectually done, who shall lay anything, even the least thing, to their charge? Who can find the least flaw, the least wrinkle, the least defect or imperfection in this glorious satisfaction?

Objection. “But is it possible that he should give infinite justice a satisfaction, a complete satisfaction, so soon? For the eternal God requires an eternal lying under the curse, so that he may be eternally satisfied.”

Answer. Indeed, that which is infinite must have an eternity in which to satisfy God. That is, those who fall into the prison and pit of utter darkness must be there to all eternity, so that the justice of God may have its full blow at them. But he of whom I am speaking is God, and so is infinite (Isa 9:6; Titus 2:13; Heb 1:8-9; Phil 2:4-6). Now, he who is true God is able to give an infinite satisfaction in as little time as Adam took in giving the dissatisfaction. Adam himself might have given satisfaction for himself as soon as Christ did, had he been truly God, as Jesus Christ was. For this is the reason why the posterity of Adam, as many of them as fall short of life, must lie broiling in hell to all eternity: they are not able to give the justice of God satisfaction, since they are not infinite, as I said before.

“But Christ” (that is, the God-man) “being come an high priest” (that is, to offer and give satisfaction) “of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own” (mark that) “but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having already obtained eternal redemption for us.” But how? “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit” (that is, through the power and virtue of his infinite Godhead) “offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause” (that is, because he is God as well as man, and so able to give justice an infinite satisfaction), therefore “he is the mediator of the new covenant, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance” (Heb 9:11-15), as I said before.

Objection. “This is a great deal. But is God content with this? Is he now satisfied on behalf of sinners by this man’s suffering in this way? If he is, how does that appear?”

Answer. It is evident, yes, wonderfully evident, that this has pleased him to the full, as these following demonstrations show.

First. God admitted him into his presence; yes, he received him with joy and music, even with the sound of the trumpet, at his ascension into heaven (Ps 47:5). And Christ makes it an argument to his children that his righteousness was sufficient, in that he went to his Father and they saw him no more. “Of righteousness,” he says, “because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more” (John 16:10). It is as if he had said, “My Spirit will show the world that I have brought in a sufficient righteousness to justify sinners with, in that when I go to appear in the presence of my Father on their behalf, he will welcome me, and will not throw me down from heaven for having failed to do it sufficiently.”

Again, if you consider the high value God the Father sets on the death of his Son, you will find that he has received full contentment by it. When the Lord Jesus complained to his Father that he and his merits were not valued at their worth, his Father answered, It is a light thing that I should give you, O my servant, to bring Jacob back again; “I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation to the end of the earth” (Isa 49:6). It is as if the Lord had said, “My Son, I value your death at a higher rate than that you should save the tribes of Israel only. Look, the Gentiles, the barbarous heathen, they also shall be brought in as the price of your blood. It is a light thing that you should be my servant only to bring back, or redeem, the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel; ‘I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation to the end of the earth.’”

Again, you may see it also by the way God the Father has dealt with all the great sinners to whom mercy was offered. We do not find that God makes any objection against those who come to him for the pardon of their sins on the ground that he lacked a satisfaction suitable to the greatness of their sins. There was Manasseh, who burned his children in the fire to the devil, who practiced witchcraft, who used to worship the host of heaven, and who turned his back on the word that God sent him; yes, who did worse than the very heathen whom God cast out before the children of Israel (2 Chr 33:1-13). There were also those spoken of in the nineteenth chapter of Acts, who spent so much time in conjuring and the like (for such I judge they were) that when they came to burn their books, they counted the price of them at fifty thousand pieces of silver (Acts 19:19). There was also Simon Magus, a sorcerer who bewitched the whole city, and yet he had mercy offered to him once and again (Acts 8). I say, it was not the greatness of the sins of these sinners, no, nor of an innumerable company of others, that made God object at all against the salvation of their souls, as justice would have compelled him to do had he not had sufficient satisfaction by the blood of the Lord Jesus.

What is more, I find that because God the Father would not have the merits of his Son undervalued, he therefore, I say, freely and with his consent lets mercy be offered to the greatest sinners. In the first place it was offered to the Jews, who were the worst of men in that day for blasphemy against the gospel; yet the apostle offered mercy to them first. “It was necessary,” he says, “that the word of God should first have been spoken to you” (Acts 3:26; Acts 13:46). And Christ gave them a commission to do so, for he says: Let repentance and remission of sins be preached in my name among all nations, and begin (mark that) “beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47). Let those who only the other day had their hands up to the elbows in my heart’s blood have the first offer of my mercy.

And Paul says, “For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them that should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting” (1 Tim 1:16). As the apostle says, those sinners who were dead, possessed with the devil, and children of wrath, he has quickened, delivered, and saved, so that he might, even in the very “ages to come, show the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards us,” and that “through Jesus Christ” (Eph 2:7).

Second. It is evident that what this man did as a public person he did completely and satisfactorily, as appears by the openness (as I may call it) that was in the heart of God toward him at his resurrection and ascension. “Ask of me,” he says, “and I shall give thee the” very “heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (Ps 2:8). And this was at his resurrection (Acts 13:33). Yet even if he had asked, if he had not given a full and complete satisfaction, justice would not have given him anything. For justice, the justice of God, is so pure that if it is not completely satisfied in every particular, it gives nothing but curses (Gal 3:10).

Third. It is yet far more evident that he has indeed pleased God on behalf of sinners, in that God has given him gifts to distribute to sinners, yes, to the worst of sinners, as a fruit of his satisfaction, and that at his ascension (Ps 68:18). Christ has so satisfied God that God has given him all the treasures of both heaven and earth to dispose of as he sees good. He has so pleased God that God has given him a name above every name, a scepter above every scepter, a crown above every crown, a kingdom above every kingdom. God has given him the highest place in heaven, even his own right hand. He has given him all the power of heaven and earth, and under the earth, into his own hand, to bind whom he pleases and to set free whom he thinks fit. In a word, he has such high esteem in the eyes of his Father that the Father has put into his hands all things that are for the profit of his people, both in this world and in the world to come. And all this is the fruit of his faithfulness in doing his work as the Mediator of the new covenant (Phil 2:9; Rev 19:6).

“Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts” (mark it, thou hast received them) “for men,” even for the worst of men, “for the rebellious also.” And he has sent out some who are furnished with these gifts; some, I say, for the work of the ministry, to build up those who are already called, and also to call in all those for whom he covenanted with his Father, until all come into the unity of faith (Eph 4:8-13).

Fourth. It appears yet far more evident still. For will you hear what the Father himself says to show his well-pleasedness in these two particulars? First, he bids poor souls to hear, and to do as Christ would have them (Matt 3:17; Luke 9:35). Second, he resolves to make his footstool those who turn their backs on Christ and dishonor him, which is done in a very great measure by those who lay aside the merits Christ wrought by himself for justification. I say, he has resolved to make them his footstool, where he says, “Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (Ps 110:1). “Are they enemies to you?” says God. “I will be even with them. Do they slight your merits? Do they slight your groans, your tears, your blood, your death, your resurrection and intercession, your second coming in heavenly glory? I will tear them and rend them; I will make them like mire in the streets; I will make your enemies your footstool” (Matt 22:44; Heb 1:13; Heb 10:13). Yes, he says, and “Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps 2:9). Look to it, you who slight the merits of the blood of Christ.

Fifth. Further still, God will make all the world know that he has been and is well pleased in his Son, in that God has given the world to come into his hand, and will make it appear that he has given it. He shall raise the dead, bring them before his judgment seat, and execute judgment on those on whom he pleases to execute it, to their damnation; and he shall receive to eternal life those whom he favors, even as many as shall be found to believe in his name and merits (Heb 2). “For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. For the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:26-29). Yes, and the worst enemy Christ has now shall come on that day with a pale face, a quaking heart, and bent knees, trembling before him, confessing the glory of his merits and the power there was in them to save, “to the glory of God the Father” (Rom 14:11; Phil 2:11).

Much more might be added to show the glorious perfection of this man’s satisfaction. But you who desire to be further satisfied about it, search the Scriptures, and beg God to give you faith and understanding in them. And as for you who slight these things and continue to do so, God has another way to take with you, even to dash you in pieces like a potter’s vessel; for Christ has received this from his Father to do to you (Rev 2:27).

Thus I have shown you in particular that the covenant of the grace of God is free and unchangeable to men; that is, in that it has been obtained for men, and that perfectly, to the satisfying of justice and the taking out of the way of everything that was in any way a hindrance to our salvation (Col 2:14).

The second thing that shows how free and how constant this covenant of the grace of God is appears in the following ways.

1. Whatever grace of God any person has, he has it as God’s free gift through Christ Jesus, the mediator of this covenant. And it is given to people even when they are in a state of enmity to him, whether it is Christ as the foundation stone or faith to lay hold of him. Mark that (Rom 5:8-9; Col 1:21-22). “For by grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves”: not for anything in you, or done by you to purchase it, but “it is the free gift of God” (Eph 2:8). And it is bestowed on you even when you “were dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1, 5). Yes, if you have so much as one desire that is right, it is the gift of God. For of ourselves, says the apostle, we are not able to speak a good word or think a good thought (2 Cor 3:5).

Was it not grace, absolute grace, that God made a promise to Adam after his transgression (Gen 3:15)? Was it not free grace in God to save such a wretch as Manasseh, who used enchantments and witchcraft, burned his children in the fire, and did much evil (2 Chr 33)? Was it not free grace to save people like those spoken of in Ezekiel 16, whom no eye pitied? Was it not free grace for Christ to give Peter a loving look after he had cursed, and sworn, and denied him? Was it not free grace that met Paul when he was going to Damascus to persecute, which converted him and made him a vessel of mercy?

And what shall I say of those spoken of in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10? The apostle speaks there of fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, the effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves, the covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners, the basest sinners in the world; and yet they were washed, and yet they were justified. Was it not freely by grace? O saints, you who are in heaven cry out, “We came here by grace!” And you who are on earth, I am sure you cry, “If ever we do go there, it must be freely by grace!”

2. Next, it appears to be unchangeable in these ways.

(1) Because justice, once it has been satisfied, does not call for the debt again. No; let a sinner be as great a sinner as ever was, if he comes to Jesus Christ, and so to God by him, then justice, instead of speaking against that sinner’s salvation, will say, “I am just, as well as faithful, to forgive him his sins” (1 John 1:9). When justice itself is pleased with a person, and speaks on his side instead of speaking against him, we may well cry out, “Who shall condemn?”

(2) Because there is no law to come in against the sinner who believes in Jesus Christ. He is not under that law, and by right it comes in against none but those who are under it. But believers are not under it; that is, it is not their lord, and therefore it has nothing to do with them. Besides, Christ’s blood has not only taken away its curse, but Christ has also completely fulfilled it in his own person, as a public person in our stead (Rom 8:1-4).

(3) The devil who accused them is destroyed (Heb 2:14-15).

(4) Death, and the grave, and hell are overcome (1 Cor 15:55; Hos 13:14).

(5) Sin, that great enemy of man’s salvation, is washed away (Rev 1:5).

(6) The righteousness of God is put upon those who believe and given to them, and they are found in it (Phil 3:8-10; Rom 3:22).

(7) Christ is always in heaven to plead for them and to prepare a place for them (Heb 7:24; John 14:1-4).

(8) He has not only promised that he will not leave us or forsake us, but he has also sworn to fulfill his promises. O rich grace! Free grace! Lord, who asked you to promise? Who compelled you to swear? We usually take honest men at their bare word. But God, “willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel,” has “confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things,” his promise and his oath, “in which it was impossible for God to lie,” or to break either of them, “we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Heb 6:13-18). I will warrant you, God will never break his oath. Therefore, from such a good foundation as this, we may well have good ground to hope that God will never leave us indeed.

3. Again, not only this, but:

(1) God has begotten believers again to himself, to be his adopted and accepted children, in and through the Lord Jesus (1 Pet 1:3).

(2) God has prepared a kingdom for them before the foundation of the world, through Jesus Christ (Matt 25).

(3) He has given them an earnest of their happiness while they live here in this world. “After that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:13-14); and that comes through this Jesus. These things are laid down more fully in the part of this book that contains the discussion of the privileges of the new covenant.

(4) If his children sin through weakness, or by sudden temptation, and confess it, he willingly forgives them and heals all their wounds. He renews his love toward them, waits to do them good, and casts their sins into the depths of the sea. And he does all this freely, without any work done by men as men. “Not for your own sakes do I do this, O house of Israel, be it known unto you,” says the Lord; but he does it wholly and alone by the blood of Jesus (Ezek 36:22; Ezek 36:32).

(5) In a word, if you would see it all together: God’s love was the reason Jesus Christ was sent to bleed for sinners. Jesus Christ’s bleeding stops the cries of divine justice. God looks upon them as complete in him, and gives them to him as his own by right of purchase. Jesus ever lives to pray for those who are thus given to him. God sends his Holy Spirit into them to reveal this to them, and sends his angels to minister for them. And all this is by virtue of an everlasting covenant between the Father and the Son. Thrice happy are the people who are in such a case!

Yes, further, he has made them brothers of Jesus Christ, members of his flesh and of his bones, the spouse of this Lord Jesus. And all this is to show you how dearly, how really, how constantly he loves us who have laid hold of him by the faith of his operation. These things I might have treated more at length.

Further Arguments and Objections Answered

I shall now lay down a few arguments to make this abundantly clear, and afterward answer two or three objections that may be made against it, and so I shall move on to the next thing.

1. God loves the saints as he loves Jesus Christ; and God loves Jesus Christ with an eternal love; therefore he loves the saints with the same love. “Thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me” (John 17:23).

2. The love that is God himself must necessarily be everlasting love; and that is the love with which God has loved his saints in Christ Jesus. Therefore his love toward his children in Christ must necessarily be an everlasting love. No one dares say that the love of God is mixed with a created mixture; and if it is not, then it must be God himself (1 John 4:16). You must not understand love in God to be a passion, as it is in us; the love of God is the very essence or nature of God.

3. The love that is always set upon us in an object as holy as God must necessarily be an everlasting love. Now the love of God was and is set upon us through an object as holy as God himself, namely our Lord Jesus. Therefore it must necessarily be unchangeable.

4. Suppose the one with whom the covenant of grace was made did, in every thing and condition, just what the Lord could desire or require of him, so that his love might be extended to us, and that forever. Then his love must necessarily be an everlasting love, since everything required of us was completely accomplished for us by him. And our Lord Jesus has done all this, and done it most gloriously, on our behalf. Therefore it must necessarily be a love that lasts forever and ever.

5. If God has declared himself to be the God who does not change, and has sworn to be immutable in his promise, then surely he will be unchangeable. And he has done so. Therefore it is impossible for God to lie, and so it is impossible for his eternal love to be changeable (Heb 6:13-18). Here is an argument of the Spirit’s own making! Who can contradict it? If anyone objects and says, “But still it is upon the condition of believing,” I answer: the condition also is his own free gift, and not a qualification arising from the stock of nature (Eph 2:8; Phil 1:28-29). So here is the love unchangeable; and here also is the condition, given by him whose love is unchangeable. This may serve yet further as a strong argument that God will have his love remain unchangeable. Sinner, this is better felt and enjoyed than talked about.

Objection 1. “But even if this love of God is unchangeable in itself, it is not unchangeably set upon the saints unless they behave themselves better.”

Answer. As God’s love was at first bestowed upon the saints without anything foreseen by the Lord in them as done by them (Deut 9:4-6), so he goes on with the same love, saying, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee” (Heb 13:5).

Objection 2. “But then how does it come about that many fall away again from the grace of the gospel after professing it for some time, some to delusions and some to their open sins again?”

Answer. They have all fallen away, not from the everlasting love of God to them, but from the profession of the love of God to them. People may profess that God loves them when there is no such thing, and that they are the children of God when the devil is their father, as in John 8:40-44. Therefore, as for those who finally fall away from a profession of the grace of the gospel, it is, first, because they are bastards and not sons. Second, it is because, as they are not sons, God allows them to fall, to make it appear that they are not sons, not of the household of God. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would, no doubt,” mark that, “no doubt,” he says, “they would have continued with us: but they went out” from us, “that it might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (1 John 2:19). And though Hymenaeus and Philetus throw themselves headlong into hell, “nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his” (2 Tim 2:17-19).

Objection 3. “But the Scripture says that there are some who had faith, yet lost it and have made shipwreck of it. Now God loves no longer than they believe, as is evident; for ‘he that believeth not shall be damned’ (Mark 16:16). So then, if some may have faith and yet lose it, and so lose the love of God because they have lost their faith, it is evident that God’s love is not so immutable toward everyone who believes as you say it is.”

Answer. There is more than one sort of faith spoken of in Scripture.

1. There is a faith that people may have and yet be nothing, none of the saints of God, and yet they may do great things with it (1 Cor 13:1-4).

2. There is a faith that was produced merely by the working of the miracles that were done in those days by Christ and his followers. “And many of the people believed on him.” How did they come by their faith? Why, by the working of the miracles that he did among them; for they said, “When Christ cometh will he do more miracles than this man hath done?” (John 7:31). The great thing that produced their faith was only their seeing the miracles that he did (John 2:23). That is not the saving faith that is called the faith of God’s elect, as is evident. For more than miracles worked upon outward objects is needed to beget that, since that is too weak a thing. It must be by the same power that was stretched out in raising Christ from the dead; yes, by the exceeding greatness of that power (Eph 1:18-19). So there is a believing that comes from being taken with some marvelous work, visibly appearing to the outward sense of sight. And there is a believing that is worked in the heart by an invisible operation of the Spirit, revealing to the soul the certainty of the satisfaction of the merits of Christ in a more glorious way, both for certainty and for durability, both as to the promise and as to its constancy (Matt 16:17-18).

3. There is also a faith of a man’s own, of a man’s self; but in Scripture the faith of the operation of God is set in opposition to that. For, he says, you are saved by grace, “through faith, and that not of yourselves,” not of your own making, but that which is the free gift of God (Eph 2:8).

4. We say there is a historical faith, that is, a faith begotten merely by the history of the Word, not by the Spirit working together with the Word.

5. We say there is a traditional faith, that is, believing things by tradition, because others say they believe them. This is received by tradition, not by revelation, and it will never be able to stand, neither at the day of death nor at the day of judgment. Yet possibly people, while they live here, may think themselves and their states to be very good, because their heads are filled full of it.

6. There is a faith that Scripture calls a dead faith, the faith of devils, or of the devil. Those who have only this are like the devil, and as sure to be damned as he is, notwithstanding their faith, if they get nothing better into their hearts. For it is far from enabling them to lay hold of Jesus Christ, and so to put him on for eternal life and sanctification, which they must do if ever they are saved (Jas 2:19, 26).

But all these fall short of the saving faith of God’s elect, as is plain. I say this, first, because these may be produced without that power so exceedingly stretched forth. Second, because these are produced partly (1) by the sense of sight, namely the miracles, not by hearing; and (2) the rest is produced by a traditional or historical influence of the words in their heads, not by a heavenly, invisible, almighty and saving operation of the Spirit of God in their hearts.

7. I also suppose that there is a faith produced in people through the influence of the gifts and abilities that God sometimes gives to those who are not his own by election, though they are his by creation. My meaning is this: some people find that God has given them very great gifts and abilities, such as the gifts of preaching, praying, working miracles, or the like. Therefore, I say, they conclude that God is their Father and that they are his children. The ground of this confidence is still begotten, not by the glorious operation of the Spirit, but by considering the great gifts that God has bestowed upon them in the things just mentioned. It goes like this: (1) the poor soul considers how ignorant it was, and how knowing it is now; (2) it considers how vain it formerly was, and how respectable it is now; and at once it draws this conclusion: “Surely God loves me; surely he has made me one of his, and will save me.” Now this is a wrong faith, as is evident, because it is placed upon a wrong object. For mark, this faith is not placed with assurance on God’s grace alone, through the blood and merits of Christ effectually revealed to the soul. It is placed upon God through the things that God has given it, such as gifts to preach, or pray, or do great works, or the like. And these will surely come to nothing, as sure as God is in heaven, if no better faith and ground of faith is found for your soul to rest upon savingly.

As to the second clause of the objection, which runs to this effect, that God loves people on account of their believing, I answer that God loves people before they believe. He loves them, he calls them, and he gives them faith to believe. “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us”: when? When we believed, or before? “Even when we were dead in sins,” and so far from being believers, “hath quickened us together with” Christ, “by grace ye are saved” (Eph 2:4-5).

Now also I suppose you will say in your heart, “I wish you would show us, then, what saving faith is.” I may perhaps touch on that a little later, in the next thing I am to speak to. Oh, those who have that faith are safe indeed!

The second thing I have to speak to is this: who they are that are actually brought into this free and unchangeable grace, and also how they are brought in.

Answer. Now indeed we have come to the pinch of the whole discourse. If God will only help me to run rightly through this, as I truly believe he will, I may do you good, reader, and bring glory to my God.

The question contains these two branches: first, who are brought in; second, how they are brought in.

Who Are Brought In

The first is quickly answered: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim 1:15). Jewish sinners, Gentile sinners, old sinners, young sinners, great sinners, the chief of sinners (Rom 5:7-11). Publicans and harlots (that is, whores, cheats, and extortioners) shall enter into the kingdom of heaven (1 Cor 6:9-10; Matt 21:31). “For I came not,” says Christ, “to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mark 2:17).

Scripture describes a sinner in general as a transgressor of the law: “Whosoever committeth sin, transgresseth the law; for sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4). But more particularly, sinners are described as (1) those in whom the devil dwells (Eph 2:2-3); (2) those who will do his service (John 8:44); (3) those who are enemies to God (Col 1:21); (4) those who are drunkards, whoremongers, liars, perjurers, the covetous, revilers, extortioners, fornicators, swearers, those possessed with devils, thieves, idolaters, witches, sorcerers, conjurers, murderers, and the like (1 Cor 6:9-10; 2 Chr 33:1-13; Acts 2:36-37; Acts 9:1-6; Acts 19:19; 1 Tim 1:14-16).

These are sinners, and they are the kind of sinners for whom God has prepared heaven, happiness, pardon of sin, and an inheritance of God, with Christ, with saints, with angels, if they will come in and accept grace, as I could prove at length. For God’s grace is so great that if they come to him by Christ, everything is forgiven them at once. Therefore never object that your sins are too great to be pardoned. Come, taste and see how good the Lord is to anyone at all who comes to him.

How They Are Brought In

The second thing is this: how are these brought into this everlasting covenant of grace?

Answer. Come to the touchstone, sinner. When God brings a sinner, in deed and in truth, into this most blessed covenant (for that is what it is), he usually goes this way.

First. He slays or kills the person to all things besides himself, his Son Jesus Christ, and the comforts of the Spirit. To make this clear, I will show you 1. with what God kills; 2. how God kills; 3. to what God kills those whom he makes alive in Jesus Christ.

1. With what God kills. When God brings sinners into the covenant of grace, he first kills them with the covenant of works, which is the moral law, or Ten Commandments. This is Paul’s doctrine, and also Paul’s experience.

It is his doctrine where he says, “The ministration of death engraven in stones … the ministration of condemnation” (which is the law, called in that place the letter) “killeth” (2 Cor 3:6-9). The letter, he says, kills. That is, the law, or the ministration of death, which in another place is called “the voice of words” (Heb 12:19), kills, because those words have no life in them, but rather death and damnation, through our inability to fulfill them (Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 3:6).

It is his experience where he says, “I was alive,” that is, to my own things (Phil 3:7-10), “without the law once,” that is, before God struck him dead by it, “but when the commandment came,” that is, to do and exercise its proper office on me, which was to kill me, then “sin revived, and I died”: I was killed. “And the commandment,” or the law, “which was ordained to” lead to “life, I found to be unto death. For sin taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me” (Rom 7:9-11). And indeed, to speak of my own experience together with the experience of all the saints: they can all set their seal to this with me, more or less.

2. But how does God kill with this law, or covenant?

(1) By opening up its spirituality to the soul. “The law is spiritual,” he says, “but I am carnal, sold under sin” (Rom 7:14). Now the spirituality of the law is revealed in this way:

[1] By showing the soul that every sinful thought is a sin against it (Matt 5:28). Yes, sinner, when the law really comes home to your soul in its spirituality, it will show you that things you now overlook and disregard are sins. That is a remarkable saying of Paul’s: “Sin revived, and I died.” Sin revived, he says, as if he had said, “Those things that I did not value or regard before, but looked on as trifles, as dead and forgotten: when the law was fastened on my soul, it raised them from the dead, called them to mind, mustered them before my face, and put such strength into them that I was overmastered by them, by their guilt.” Sin revived by the commandment; that is, my sins had mighty strength, life, and abundant force on me because of it, so much so that they killed me.

[2] It shows that every such sin deserves eternal damnation. Friends, I fear there are only a few of you who have seen the spirituality of the law of works. But this is one thing in which it reveals its spirituality, and this is the proper work of the law.

[3] Along with revealing this, God also reveals his own divine and infinite justice, of which the law is a description. This justice backs up what the law reveals. It does so by showing its purity and holiness to be so divine, so pure, so upright, and so far from winking at the least sin, that by that law, without any favor, he condemns the sinner for that sin (Gal 3:10). Now, when he has brought the soul into this predicament, into this puzzle, then:

(2) He shows the soul the nature and condition of the law as to its dealing with, or sparing, the sinner who has sinned against it. That is, it passes an eternal curse on both soul and body of the one who has so offended, saying to him, “Cursed be the man that continueth not in everything that is written in the book of the law to do it.” “For,” says the law, “this is my proper work: first, to show you your sins; and when I have done that, then next to condemn you for them, and that without any remedy from me, or from anything within my bounds. For I am not to save anyone or pardon anyone. No, I am not to favor in the least thing anyone who has sinned against me. For God did not send me to make alive, but to reveal sin and to condemn for it.”

Now, as soon as this is presented to the conscience, the Lord next shows by this law that there is now no righteous act, according to the terms of that covenant, that can reprieve the sinner or take him off from all this horror and curse that lies on him. For that covenant is not an administration of pardon to forgive the sin, as I said before, but an administration of damnation because of transgression. Oh, the very discovery of this strikes the soul into a deadly swoon, more than half dead!

But when God does the work indeed, he next shows the soul that he is the man who is eternally under this covenant by nature. It is he who has sinned against this law, and who by right deserves its curse and displeasure. And all that he can ever do will not give satisfaction to that glorious justice that gave this law. Holy actions, tears of blood, selling everything and giving it to the poor, or whatever else you can do: it all comes short, and it is all to no purpose (Phil 3). I warrant that whoever sees this will be killed by it to whatever he was alive to before, even if he had a thousand lives.

Ah, sinners, sinners, if you were only truly aware of how severe and how true this is, it would make you look about you in earnest! Oh, how it would make you strive to stop short at what you now drink down with delight! How many oaths it would make you bite in two! Indeed, it would make you bite your tongues to think that they should be used as the devil’s instruments to bring your souls into such unspeakable misery. Then, too, we would not see you hang the salvation of your souls on such slender pegs as you do now. No, no; you would be of another mind then. Oh, then we would hear you cry out, “I must have Christ! What shall I do for Christ? How shall I come at Christ? I wish I were sure, truly sure, of Christ. My soul is gone, damned, cast away, and must burn forever with the devils, if I do not get precious Jesus Christ!”

(3) Next, when God has done this, he further shows the soul that the covenant it is under by nature is distinct from the covenant of grace. He shows it also that those who are under it are by nature without any of the graces that those under the covenant of grace have. For example: [1] that it has no faith (John 16:9); [2] no hope (Eph 2:12); [3] nor any of the Spirit to work these things in it by nature; [4] neither will that covenant give them any peace with God; [5] there is no promise of safeguard from his avenging law by that covenant; [6] but it lies by nature liable to all the curses, and condemnations, and thunderclaps of this most fiery covenant; [7] that this covenant will accept no sorrow, no repentance, no satisfaction from you; [8] that it calls for nothing less than the shedding of your blood; [9] and the damnation of your soul and body; [10] and if you offer it anything to make amends to it, it throws it back in your face like dirt, slighting all that you can bring.

Now, when the soul is brought into this condition, then it is indeed dead, killed to what it was once alive to. And therefore:

3. Next, I will show you to what it is killed. And that is:

(1) To sin. (Here I am speaking of one who is effectually brought in.) Oh, it dares not sin! It sees that hellfire is prepared for those who sin. God’s justice will not spare it if it lives in sin; the law will damn it if it lives in sin; the devil will have it if it follows its sins. Oh, I say, it trembles at the very thought of sin! Yes, if sin so much as offers to tempt the soul, to draw the soul away from God, it cries, it sighs, it shuns the very appearance of sin; sin is hateful to it. If God would only deal this way with you who love your pleasures, you would not make such a trifle of sin as you do.

(2) It is killed to the law of God as it is the covenant of works. “Oh,” says the soul, “the law has killed me to itself: ‘I through the law am dead to the law’ (Gal 2:19). The law is a different thing from what I thought it was. I did not think it would be so soul-destroying, so damning a law! I did not think it would be so severe against me for my little sins, for my playing, for my jesting, for my dissembling, quarreling, and the like. I did have some thoughts that it would hew down great sinners, but let me pass; and that though it condemned great sinners, it would pass me by! But now, oh that I were free from this covenant! Oh that I were free from this law!”

I tell you, a soul worked on in this way is more afraid of the covenant of works than he is of the devil. For he sees that it is the law that gives him up into the devil’s hands for sin; and if he were only clear of that, he would not greatly need to fear the devil. Oh, now every particular commandment tears the membrane around his heart! Now every commandment is a great gun, well loaded, aimed at his soul! Now he sees he might as well run into a fire to keep himself from burning as run to the law to keep himself from damnation. And he sees this really, yes, and feels it too, to his own sorrow and perplexity.

(3) The soul is also now killed to its own righteousness, and counts that only dung, only dross, not worth the dirt hanging on its shoes. “Oh,” he says then, “you filthy righteousness (Isa 64:6)! How you have deceived me! How you have beguiled my poor soul! How I deceived myself by giving a little alms, by abstaining from some gross pollutions, by walking in some ordinances, as to the outside of them! How my good words, good thoughts, good meanings, as the world calls them, have deceived my ignorant soul! I lack the righteousness of faith, the righteousness of God; for I see now that nothing less will do me any good.”

(4) It is also killed to its own faith, its notion of the gospel, its own hope, its own repentings, its own promises and resolutions, its own strength, its own virtue, or whatever it had before. These things would be too tedious to enlarge on. “Now,” says the soul, “that faith I thought I had is only fancy; that hope I thought I had, I see is only a hypocritical, vain, and groundless hope.” Now the soul sees that by nature, by the first covenant, it has no saving faith, no saving hope, no grace at all. Now it cries out, “How many promises I have broken! And how many times I have resolved in vain, when I was sick at such a time, and in such a strait at such a place! Indeed, I once thought myself a wise man, but now I see myself a very fool. Oh, how ignorant I am now of the gospel, and of the blessed experience of the work of God on a Christian’s heart!” In a word, it sees itself beset by nature with all evil and destitute of all good, which is enough to kill the stoutest, hardest-hearted sinner who ever lived on the earth.

Oh, friends, if you were plainly dealt with by this account of how God deals with a sinner when he makes him a saint, and would seriously try yourselves by it, as God will try you one day, how few of you would be found to be acquainted with the work of God even as a notion, much less by experience! And indeed, God has to take this way with sinners: to kill them in this way, with the old covenant, to all things below a crucified Christ.

Six reasons why God deals this way.

1. Because otherwise there would be no one in the world who would look after this sweet Jesus Christ. Only a few go to heaven in all, comparatively; and God has to deal with those few in this manner, or else his heaven, his Christ, his glory, and everlasting happiness would have to stand by themselves, for all that sinners would care. Do you think that Manasseh would have regarded the Lord if the Lord had not allowed his enemies to prevail against him (2 Chr 33:1-16)? Do you think that Ephraim would have looked after salvation if God had not first confounded him with the guilt of the sins of his youth (Jer 31:18)? What do you think of Paul (Acts 9:1-6)? What do you think of the jailer (Acts 16:30-32)? What do you think of the three thousand (Acts 2:36-37)? Was this not the way the Lord had to take to make them embrace Jesus Christ? Did he not have to kill them to everything below a Christ, so that they were driven to their wits’ end, so much so that they were forced to cry out, “What shall we do to be saved?” I say, God might keep heaven and happiness to himself if he did not go to work with sinners this way. Oh, stout-hearted rebels! Oh, tender-hearted God!

2. Because then, and not until then, will sinners accept Jesus Christ on God’s terms. As long as sinners can make a life out of anything below Christ, they will not embrace Christ without bargaining over terms. But when the God of heaven has killed them to everything below himself and his Son, then Christ will go down with them on any terms in the world. And indeed, this is the very reason why sinners, when they hear of Christ, still will not embrace him: there is something besides him that they can take contentment in. As long as the prodigal could content himself with the husks that the swine ate, he kept himself away from his father’s house. But when he could get no nourishment anywhere on this side of his father’s house, then, and not until then, he says, “I will arise, and go to my father” (Luke 15:18).

I say, then, this is the reason why men come no faster to the Son of God and embrace him no more readily, but stand hesitating and haggling over the terms on which they must have Christ. For the drunkard says, “I look on Christ as worth having, but I am not willing to lose all for him. All but my pot,” says the drunkard. “All but the world,” says the covetous man. “I will part with anything but lust and pride,” says the wanton. “But if Christ cannot be had unless I forsake all and cast away all, then it must be with me as it was with the young man in the gospel: such news will make me sorry to the very heart.”

But now, when a man is soundly killed to all his sins, to all his righteousness, to all his comforts whatsoever, and sees that there is no way out, but the devil must have him and he must be damned in hell if he is not clothed with Jesus Christ, oh, then he says, “Give me Christ on any terms, whatever he costs! Though he cost me friends, though he cost me comforts, though he cost me all that I have!” Yet, like the wise merchant in the gospel, they will sell all to get that pearl. I tell you, when a soul is brought to see its need of Christ aright, it will not be kept back. Father, mother, husband, wife, lands, livelihoods, yes, life and all, shall go rather than the soul will miss Christ. Yes, and the soul counts Christ a cheap Savior if it can get him on any terms. Now the soul bargains no longer. “Now, Lord, give me Christ on any terms, whatever he costs; for I am a dead man, a damned man, a castaway, if I do not have Christ.” What do you say, you wounded sinners? Is this not true, as I have said? Would you not give ten thousand worlds, if you had so many, if only you might be well assured that your sins shall be pardoned, and your souls and bodies justified and glorified at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ?

3. The Lord also goes this way for this reason: that it might make the soul aware of what it cost Christ to redeem it from death and hell. When a man comes to feel the sting and guilt of sin, death, and hell on his conscience, then, and not until then, can he tell what it cost Christ to redeem sinners. “Oh!” says the soul, “if a few sins are so terrible, and lay the soul under such wrath and torment, what did Christ undergo, who bore the sins of thousands and thousands, and all at once?”

This also is one means to make souls tender about sin (it is the burned child that fears the fire); to make them humble in a sense of their own vileness; to make them count everything that God gives them a mercy; to make much of the least glimpse of the love of God, and to prize it above the whole world. O sinners, if you were truly killed in this way, then heaven would be heaven, and hell would be hell indeed. But because you are not worked on in this manner, you count the ways of God as bad as a good man counts the ways of the devil, and the ways of the devil and hell as good as a saint counts the ways of God.

4. Again, God has to go this way, and all to make sinners make sure of heaven. As long as souls are senseless of sin, and of what a damnable state they are in by nature, they will merely dally with the kingdom of heaven and the salvation of their own poor souls. But when God comes and shows them where they are, and what is likely to become of them if they miss the crucified Savior, oh, then the soul says, “I wish I were sure of Jesus! What shall I do to get assurance of Jesus?” And so God is forced, as I may say, to whip souls to Jesus Christ, they being so complacent, so senseless, and so much their own enemies, that they do not look out for their own eternal advantage.

5. A fifth reason why God deals this way with sinners is that he would bring Christ and the soul together in a right way. Christ and sinners would never come together in a loving posture, and they would not suit each other so well, if they were not brought together this way, with the sinner killed. Oh, when the sinner is killed, and indeed struck dead to everything below a naked Jesus, how well the soul and Christ then suit one another! Then here is a naked sinner for a righteous Jesus, a poor sinner to a rich Jesus, a weak sinner to a strong Jesus, a blind sinner to a seeing Jesus, an ignorant, careless sinner to a wise and careful Jesus. Oh, how wise God is in dealing this way with the sinner! He strips him of his own knowledge, that he may fill him with Christ’s; he kills him for taking pleasure in sin, that he may take pleasure in Jesus Christ; and so on.

6. God goes this way with sinners because he would have the glory of their salvation. If men and women were not killed to their own things, they would sacrifice to them; and instead of saying to the Lamb, “Thou art worthy” (Rev 5:9), they would say that their own arm, their own right hand, had saved them (Job 40:14). But God will shut boasting out from ever entering within the borders of eternal glory. For he is resolved to have the glory of the beginning, the middle, and the end: of the contriving, and the saving, and the giving of salvation to those who enter into the joys of everlasting glory (Rom 3:27; Eph 2:8-9; Titus 3:5). “That they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified” (Isa 61:3). I might have run through many things on this point, but I will pass them by and proceed.

Second. The soul that has the right work of God on its heart is not only killed to itself, but also made alive to Christ. Now, the soul having been killed in this way to itself, its sins, its righteousness, faith, hope, wisdom, promises, resolutions, and the rest of the things it trusted in by nature, it next has given to it a most glorious, perfect, and never-fading life, which is:

1. A life imputed to it, yet so really that the very thought of it in the soul has so much power and authority, especially when the meditation of it is mixed with faith, as to make it, though condemned by the law, triumph and look its enemies in the face with comfort, despite the greatness of their multitude, the fierceness of their anger, and the persistence of their malice, however hot it burns against it.

This imputed life (for that is what it is) is the obedience of the Son of God as his righteousness: in his suffering, rising, ascending, interceding, and so, as a result, triumphing over all the enemies of the soul. And it is given to me, as having been worked out on purpose for me. So then, is there righteousness in Christ? That is mine. Is there perfection in that righteousness? That is mine. Did he bleed for sin? It was for mine. Has he overcome the law, the devil, and hell? The victory is mine, and I am counted the conqueror, no, more than a conqueror, through him who has loved me. And I count this a most glorious life. For by this means, in the first place, I am proclaimed guiltless both in heaven and on earth. I am one who, as I am in Christ, am not a sinner, and so am not under the law to be condemned, but am as holy and righteous as the Son of God himself, because he himself is my holiness and righteousness. And so, likewise, by this I have everything that would condemn me taken out of the way.

Sometimes, I bless the Lord, my soul has had the life I am now speaking of not only imputed to me, but the very glory of it upon my soul. Once, when I was under many condemnings of heart and was afraid that because of my sins my soul would miss eternal glory, I thought I felt in my soul a secret motion like this: “Your righteousness is in heaven.” Together with it came the splendor and shining of the Spirit of grace in my soul. This let me see clearly that my righteousness, by which I should be justified from all that could condemn me, was the Son of God himself in his own person, now at the right hand of his Father, representing me complete before the mercy seat in his own self. So I saw clearly that night and day, wherever I was and whatever I was doing, my righteousness was still there, right before the eyes of divine glory. The Father could never find fault with me for any insufficiency in my righteousness, seeing it was complete. Nor could he say, “Where is it?” because it was continually at his right hand.

At another time, too, I had contracted guilt upon my soul, and I had some sickness of body upon me, and I supposed that death might now seize on me so as to take me away from among men. Then I thought, What shall I do now? Is all right with my soul? Do I have the right work of God on my soul? I answered myself, “No, surely.” And I said so because there were so many weaknesses in me, yes, so many weaknesses in my best duties. For, I thought, how can someone like me find mercy, whose heart is so ready to evil and so backward to what is good, as far as it is left to its natural self? While I was musing like this, filled with fear of dying, these words came in upon my soul: “Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24). It was as if God had said, “Sinner, you think that because you have had so many infirmities and weaknesses in your soul while you have been professing me, there can now be no hope of mercy. But understand this: it was not anything you did at the first that moved me to have mercy on you, and it is not anything you do now that will make me either accept or reject you. Look at my Son, who stands by me. He is righteous; he has fulfilled my law and given me good satisfaction. On him, therefore, I look, and on you only as you are in him; and I will deal with you according to what he has done.”

This calmed my heart, and the strength with which it came on my soul took away the guilt. Soon after, that word came in as a second testimony: “Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling; not according to our works” of righteousness which we have done, “but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Tim 1:9). And so the sinner is made alive from the dead, being justified by grace through the righteousness of Christ, which is unto all and upon all who believe. So say the Scriptures: “And the life which I now live, … it is by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). “I lay down my life for the sheep.” “I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10, 15). “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. That as sin reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 5:10, 21).

2. This life is not only imputed to the one who is worked on by the Spirit of grace, that is, not only counted his. There is also put into the soul an understanding, enlightened on purpose to know the things of God, which are Christ and his imputed righteousness (1 John 5:20), things it never thought of or understood before (1 Cor 2:9-11). This understanding is so enlightened, and made to see such things, that the soul cannot be content unless it lays hold of Christ and applies him to itself, and does it effectually. So effectually, I say, that the soul is exceedingly revived, in a very heavenly measure, by the application of this imputed righteousness. For by it the soul knows it will find God speaking peace to it with a fatherly affection, saying, “Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee” (Matt 9:2); the righteousness of my Son I bestow upon you. “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the” (your) “flesh,” I have sent forth my only Son and have condemned your sins in his flesh (Rom 8:3-4). And though you have gone astray like a lost sheep, yet on him I have laid your iniquities. And though by that you undid and broke yourself forever, yet by his stripes I have healed you.

In this way, I say, the Lord causes the soul by faith to apply what he by grace imputes to it, for every soul is dealt with like this, more or less. And the soul, being enlightened like this, quickened like this, made alive like this from the dead state it was in before, or at least having the beginnings of this life, has these several excellent advantages, which those who are dead in their sins and trespasses, and under the law, do not have.

Advantages of the Quickened Soul

1. It sees what a sad condition all people are in by nature. They are in the state the soul itself was in only a little while ago; but now, by grace, it is beginning to scramble out of it. Now it sees that “the whole world lieth in wickedness,” and so is liable to eternal vengeance because of its wickedness (1 John 5:19).

Ah, friends, let me tell you, though you may be ignorant of your state and condition, yet the poor, groaning, hungering saints of God see what a sad, woeful, miserable state you are in. This sometimes makes them tremble to think of your most lamentable latter end, if you die like this. It also makes them fly the faster to their Lord Jesus, for very fear that they too should share in that most doleful doom, just as the children of Israel fled for fear when the ground opened its mouth to swallow up Korah and his company. And the soul has this by virtue of its own experience, knowing that only a while ago it was itself in the same condition, under the same condemnation.

Oh, there is now a hearty blessing of God that he should ever show it its sad condition, and that he should incline its heart to seek after a better one! “Oh, blessed be the Lord,” says the soul, “that he should ever awaken me, stir me up, and bring me out of that sad condition that I was once in along with them!” (Ps 103:1-3). It also makes the soul wonder to see how foolishly and vainly the rest of its neighbors spend their precious time: that they should be so void of understanding, so forgetful of their latter end, so senseless of the damning nature of their sins. Oh, if only their eyes were enlightened to see where they stand! Surely they would be of another mind than they are now.

Now the soul wonders to see what slender pegs those poor creatures hang the whole weight of their souls’ eternal salvation on. “Oh,” says the soul, “I think it makes me mourn to see that some should think they were born Christians, and others that their baptism makes them so, while others depend merely on a traditional, historical faith, which will leave their souls in the midst of perplexity. Oh, that they should trust to such fables, fancies, and wicked tricks of the devil as their good doings, their good thinkings, their decent walking and living with the world! Oh, miserable profession, and the end of it will be a miserable end!”

But now, when the soul is worked on like this, it must be sure to expect the very gates of hell to be set open against it with all their force and might to destroy it. Now hell rages, the devil roars, and all the world resolves to do the best it can to bring the soul back into bondage and ruin. The soul will not lack enemies in its own heart, either (though this is only for the exercise of its faith): its own heart’s lusts, such as covetousness, adultery, blasphemy, unbelief, hardness of heart, coldness, half-heartedness, and ignorance, with an innumerable company of attendants. These hang like so many blocks at its heels, ready to sink it into the fire of hell every moment. Along with them come strange notions about God and Christ, as if they had now absolutely turned to be its enemies, which makes it doubt the certainty of its salvation.

For you must understand that though a soul may in reality have the righteousness of the Son of God imputed to it, and also have some faith laying hold on it in a very strong manner, yet at another time, through temptation, such people may fear and doubt again. They may doubt so much that the soul is put into a very great fear that it will go back again into the condition it was once in (Jer 32:40). “Oh,” says the soul, “when I think of my former state, how miserable it was, it makes me tremble. And when I think that I may fall into that condition again, how sad the thought of it is to me! I would not be in that condition again for all the world.”

And this fear rises still higher and higher as the soul is aware of Satan’s temptations or of the working of its own corruptions. “Ah, these filthy lusts, these filthy corruptions! Oh, that I were rid of them, that they were consumed in a moment, that I could be quite rid of them! They so disturb my soul, so dishonor my God, so defile my conscience, and sometimes so weaken my hands in the way of God, and my comforts in the Lord. Oh, how glad I would be if I might be stripped of them!” (Rom 7:24). This fear sets the soul flying to the Lord in prayer for the covering of his imputed righteousness, and for strength against the devil’s temptations and its own corruptions. It prays that God would send down his Holy Spirit to strengthen it against the things that so trouble its soul and so discourage it in its way. And it resolves, through grace, never to be content until it finds in itself a triumph over them, by faith in the blood of a crucified Jesus.

2. The soul that has been killed like this by the law to the things it once delighted in now, oh, now, cannot be content with that slender, groundless faith and hope it once contented itself with. No, no; now it must be brought into the right, saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Now it must have him revealed to the soul by the Spirit. Now it cannot be satisfied just because this person or that tells it so. No; now it will cry out, “Lord, show me continually, in the light of your Spirit, through your word, that the Jesus who was born in the days of Caesar Augustus, when Mary, a daughter of Judah, went with Joseph to be taxed at Bethlehem, is the very Christ. Lord, let me see it in the light of your Spirit and in his working. And do not let me be content without a faith that is worked in me by the revelation of his birth, crucifixion, death, blood, resurrection, ascension, intercession, and second coming (which is his personal coming again), so that the very faith of it may fill my soul with comfort and holiness.”

And oh, how afraid the soul is that it will fall short of this faith, and of the hope that is born of such revelations as these! For the soul knows that if it does not have this, it will not be able to stand either in death or in judgment. And therefore, says the soul, “Lord, whatever other poor souls content themselves with, let me have what will stand me in good stead and carry me through a dangerous world; what may help me to resist a cunning devil; what may help me to suck true, soul-satisfying consolation from Jesus Christ through your promises, by the might and power of your Spirit.”

And now, when the poor soul at any time has any revelation of the love of God through a bleeding, dying, risen, interceding Jesus, oh, how wary it is of closing with it, because it is not willing to be deceived! It fears it may not be right; it fears it may not come from God. (This wariness may be its temptation, which takes hold through the soul’s timidity.) “Can’t the devil give someone comfort like this, I wonder?” says the soul. “Can’t he transform himself into an angel of light like this?” So the soul, because it wants to be on sure ground, cries out, “Lord, show me your salvation, and not just once or twice, but, Lord, let me have your presence continually upon my heart, today, and tomorrow, and every day.”

For when the soul is rightly brought out from under the covenant of works and planted into the covenant of grace, it cannot be content (unless it is under some desperate temptation) without the presence of God teaching, comforting, establishing, and helping the soul to grow in the things of the Lord Jesus Christ. For it knows that if God has so much as withdrawn his presence from it in any way, as he sometimes does for a while, the devil will be sure to be close at hand, working with his temptations and trying every way to get the soul back into slavery and sin. Also the corrupt principle within will be joining and combining with the wicked one, willing to be his co-partner in bringing the soul into mischief. This sets the soul earnestly and continually panting after more of the strengthening, preserving, comforting, and teaching presence of God, and after strong supplies of faith, so that it may lay hold on him effectually.

3. The soul is so quickened that it is not satisfied now unless it partakes, in deed and in truth, of the peace of God’s elect. Now it is examining the reality of its joy and peace. There was a time, indeed, when anything would do for it, any false notion that its state was good. But now no sort of peace will do for it, and no sort of joy will be accepted by it. Now it must rejoice in God through Jesus Christ. Now its peace must come through the virtues of the blood of Christ, speaking peace to the conscience by taking away both the guilt and the filth of sin by that blood. It must come also by showing the soul its free acceptance with God through Christ: that he has completely fulfilled all the conditions of the first covenant, has freely placed the soul into the safety of what he has done, and so presents it complete and spotless in the sight of God through his obedience.

Now, I say, such a person has “peace through the blood of his cross,” and sees himself reconciled to God by the death of his Son, or else he will call his comfort into question (Col 1:20-21). It is not every promise that now comes upon his heart that will do for him. No, he must see whether the babe Jesus is presented to the soul in and through that promise. Now if the babe leaps in his womb, so to speak, it is because the Lord’s promise sounds aloud in his heart, coming to him big with the love and pardoning grace of God in Jesus Christ. This, I say, is the first and principal joy of the soul that is quickened and brought into the covenant of grace.

4. Now the man finds heavenly sanctification worked in his soul through the most precious blood of the man whose name is Jesus Christ: “Jesus, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate” (Heb 13:12). Now the soul finds a change in the understanding, in the will, in the mind, in the affections, in the judgment, and also in the conscience. There is a change in the inner man and a change in the outer man, from head to foot, as we say. “For he that is in Christ,” and so in this covenant of grace, “is a new creature” (2 Cor 5:17), or has been twice made: made, and made again. Oh, now the soul is resolved for heaven and glory! Now it cries out, “Lord, if there is a right eye that offends you, pluck it out; or a right foot, cut it off; or a right hand, take it from me.” Now the soul begins to study how it may honor God and bring praise to him. Now the soul is set on preparing for the second coming of Christ, striving to lay aside everything that may hinder it, and to take up those things that may put it in a beloved posture for that day.

5. And all this comes from a gospel spirit, and not from a legal, natural principle. For the soul has these things as the fruits and effects of its being set apart for the covenant of grace, and so of being now possessed by that spirit which attends, yes, and dwells in, those who are brought into the covenant of grace from under the old covenant. These things, I say, spring up in the soul from another root and stock than any of the actions of other men do. For the soul that is worked on like this is dead to the law and its righteousness, as the first covenant, as well as to its sins.

6. Now the soul begins to have some blessed experience of the things of God, even of the glorious mysteries of the gospel.

(1) Now it knows the meaning of those words, “My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” (John 6:55), and knows it by experience. For the soul has received peace of conscience through that blood, by its effectual application to the soul: first, by feeling the guilt of sin die off from the conscience through its working; second, by feeling its power to take away the curse of the law; third, by finding the very strength of hell fail once the blood of the man Jesus Christ is received in reality upon the soul.

(2) Now the soul also knows by experience the meaning of that scripture which says, “Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed” (Rom 6:6). Now it sees that when the man Jesus hung on the tree on Mount Calvary, the body of its sins was hanged up there, dead and buried with him, though the soul was then unborn. It was done so that its sins would never be laid to its charge, either here or hereafter, and also so that they would never carry it captive into perpetual bondage, since they themselves were overcome by him, even Christ, the head of that poor creature. And indeed this is the way for a soul to live comfortably both as to the guilt of sin and as to the power of the filth of sin. For the soul that has received this in deed and in truth finds strength against them both by and through that man who so gloriously overcame sin for him and the rest of his fellow sinners, and has given the victory to them. So now they are said to be overcomers, no, “more than conquerors through him,” the one man Jesus Christ (Rom 8:33-37).

(3) Now the soul has received a faith indeed, and a living hope indeed, such that it can now draw strength from the fullness of Christ and from the merits of Christ.

(4) Yes, now the soul can look on itself with one eye and on Christ with the other, and say, “Indeed, it is true: I am an empty soul, but Christ is a full Christ. I am a poor sinner, but Christ is a rich Christ. I am a foolish sinner, but Christ is a wise Christ. I am an unholy, ungodly, unsanctified creature in myself, but Christ is made of God ‘unto me, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption’” (1 Cor 1:30).

(5) Now also that fiery law, which it once could neither endure nor delight in, I say, now it can delight in according to the inner man. Now this law is its delight. It would always be walking in it and always delighting in it, being offended by any sin or any corruption that would in any way hinder it (Rom 7:24-25). And yet it will not put up with it, it will not endure it, if that very law should offer to take the work of its salvation out of Christ’s hand. No; if the law once comes to do that, then out the door it goes, even if it were twice as good. For the soul that indeed has the right work of God upon it cries, “Not my prayers, not my tears, not my works, not my things! Though they come from the work of the Spirit of Christ himself within me, yet these will not have the glory of my salvation. No, it is none but the blood of Christ, the death of Christ, of the man Christ Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s son, as they called him, that must have the crown and glory of my salvation. None but Christ, none but Christ!” And so the soul labors to give Christ the preeminence (Col 1:18).

Now, before I go any further, I must speak a word from my own experience of the things of Christ. I do it all the more because in this day of ignorance we have a company of foolish people who either comfort themselves with a notion without the power, or else reject both the notion and the power of this most glorious gospel. So, to convince the reader further, I will tell him, with David, something of what the Lord has done for my soul. And indeed, a little experience of the things of Christ is worth far more than all the world. It would take too long to tell you everything here, from the first to the last. But I will tell you something, so that you may not think these things are fables.

Reader, when it pleased the Lord to begin to instruct my soul, he found me one of the black sinners of the world. He found me making a sport of oaths, and of lies too. And many a soul-poisoning meal I made out of various lusts, such as drinking, dancing, playing, and pleasure with the wicked ones of the world. Finding me in this condition, the Lord opened the glass of his law to me. In it he showed me my sins so clearly, both how great they were and how abominable they were in his sight, that I thought the very clouds were charged with the wrath of God and ready to let the very fire of his jealousy fall on me. This conviction seized my soul one Sabbath day when I was at play, and it was one of the first I ever had. When it came, it scared me with its terror. Yet through the temptation of the devil, which immediately struck in with it, I rubbed it off again and became as vile for some time as I was before, like the wretch I was.

For all this, I was so wedded to my sins that I thought to myself, “I will have them, though I lose my soul.” (O wicked wretch that I was!) But God, the great, the rich, the infinitely merciful God, did not take this advantage of my soul to cast me away and say, “Then take him, devil, seeing he cares for me no more.” No, he still followed me and won upon my heart. He gave me some understanding, not only of my miserable state, which I felt very keenly, but also that there might be hope of mercy. He also took away my love for lust and put a love for religion in its place. And so the Lord won my heart over to some desire for the means of grace: to hear the word, to become a stranger to my old companions, and to keep company with the people of God. Along with this he gave me many sweet encouragements from various promises in the Scriptures.

But after this the Lord set my sins on my conscience in an astonishing way, especially the sins I had committed since my first convictions. Temptations also followed me very hard, especially temptations that tended to make me question the very way of salvation: that is, whether Jesus Christ was the Savior or not, and whether I had better venture my soul on his blood for salvation or take some other course. Through grace I was kept close to God in some measure, in prayer and the rest of the ordinances. Yet I went about a year or more without any sound evidence from God to my soul concerning the salvation that comes by Jesus Christ.

But at last, as I may put it, when the appointed time had come, the Lord, just before the men called Quakers came into the country, set me down so blessedly in the truth of the doctrine of Jesus Christ that it made me marvel. I marveled to see, first, how Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, walked in the world for a while with his disciples, and afterward hung on the cross and spilled his blood; how he was buried, rose again, and ascended above the clouds and the heavens, where he lives to make intercession; and how he will also come again at the last day to judge the world and take his saints to himself.

These things, I say, I saw as plainly as if I had stood by when he was in the world, and also when he was caught up. Such a change in my soul made me wonder. I mused with myself at the great alteration in my spirit, for the Lord also very gloriously gave me his precious word to back up this revelation of the Son of God to me, so that I can say, through grace, that it was according to the Scriptures (1 Cor 15:1-4). And as I was musing with myself about what these things could mean, I thought I heard a word like this in my heart: “I have set you down on purpose, for I have something more than ordinary for you to do.” This made me marvel all the more, and I said, “What, my Lord? Such a poor wretch as me?” Yet still this word continued, “I have set you down on purpose,” and so on. With it came more fresh inflowings of the Lord Jesus and of the power of the blood of his cross on my soul. It came so plainly that I saw, through grace, that it was the blood shed on Mount Calvary that saved and redeemed sinners. I saw it as clearly and as really with the eyes of my soul as ever, I thought, I had seen a penny loaf bought with a penny. The things revealed to me then worked so on my soul that I do hope they sweetly seasoned every faculty of it.

Reader, I speak in the presence of God, and he knows I do not lie. I could tell you much of this, and of similar dealings of his. But my business at this time is not to do that. It is only to tell what working the blood of Christ has had over and on my conscience, and that at various times, and also when I have been in various frames of spirit.

First, sometimes I have been so loaded down with my sins that I could not tell where to rest or what to do. Yes, at such times I thought it would have taken away my senses. Yet at that very time God, through grace, has suddenly applied the blood that was spilled at Mount Calvary out of the side of Jesus to my poor, wounded, guilty conscience. He has applied it so effectually that at once I have found such a sweet, solid, sober, heart-comforting peace that it has made me feel as if my terror had never been. And at the same time, I may say, and I ought to say, its power has worked so powerfully on my soul that for a while I have been distressed and troubled to think that I should love and honor him no more than I do, so strongly has the virtue of his blood constrained me.

Again, sometimes my sins have seemed so big to me that I thought one of my sins was as big as all the sins of all the men in the nation, yes, and of other nations too, reader. These things are not fancies, for I have smarted for this experience. Yet the least stream of the heart’s blood of this man Jesus has made it all vanish away and fly, to the astonishment of such a poor sinner as me. And as I said before, it has delivered me into sweet and heavenly peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Again, sometimes my heart has been hard, dead, slothful, blind, and senseless, which are indeed sad frames for a poor Christian to be in. Yet at such a time, when I have been in such a state, the blood of Christ, the precious blood of Christ, the wonderful blood of the God of heaven that ran out of his body when it hung on the cross, has so softened, enlivened, quickened, and enlightened my soul that truly, reader, I can say, O, it makes me wonder!

Again, there have been times when I have been loaded down with sin and plagued with various temptations, and that in a very sad way. (I cannot stop here to give examples of particular temptations.) At those times I have tested the virtue of Christ’s blood against the virtue of other things. And I have found that when tears would not do, prayers would not do, and repentings and all other things could not reach my heart, O then, one touch, one drop, one shining of the virtue of the blood, of that blood that was let out with the spear, has delivered me in so blessed a way that it has made me marvel. O, I think it has come with such life, such power, with such irresistible and marvelous glory, that it wipes off all the slurs, silences all the outcries, and quenches all the fiery darts and all the flames of hellfire that are bred by the charges of the law, by Satan, and by doubtful memories of my sinful life.

Friends, as Peter says to the church, so I say to you: I have not preached to you “cunningly devised fables” (2 Pet 1:16) in telling you of the blood of Christ and the authority it has had on my conscience. O no! But what Peter says about the coming of the Lord Jesus into the world, I can in some measure say about the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that was shed when he came into the world.

And it is not my single testimony alone that witnesses to this. No, all the prophets agree in setting it forth in writing, and all the saints now declare the same, as they speak out the loveliness and the many powerful virtues of that blood. “As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant,” says God to Christ, “I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water” (Zech 9:11). “We have redemption through his blood” (Eph 1:7). And again, “We have redemption through his blood” (Col 1:14). Our robes are washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb (Rev 7:14). The devil is overcome through “the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 12:11). Yes, and conscience is purged too, and that through the blood of the Lamb (Heb 9:14). We have free access to the throne of grace through the blood of Jesus (Heb 10:19). I could bring you a cloud of witnesses out of all the types and shadows, and out of the various prophets, and much more out of the New Testament. But I hold back, because I do not want to weary the reader by making too large a digression, though I have committed no transgression here in this discourse, for the blood of Christ is precious blood (1 Pet 1:18-19).

Next, I will show you the several privileges and advantages that the man or woman who is under this covenant of grace has over those who are under the covenant of the law and works. They are these:

First. The covenant of grace is not grounded on our obedience, but on God’s love, even his pardoning love to us through Christ Jesus. The first covenant stood to be broken or kept by us, and God’s love or anger was to be lost or enjoyed accordingly, as we, as creatures, behaved ourselves. But now the very ground of the covenant of grace is God’s love, his mere love through Jesus Christ: “The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers” (Deut 7:7-8). Again, “In his love and in his pity he redeemed them,” “and the angel of his presence saved them,” that is, Jesus Christ (Isa 63:9). And again, “Who has saved us … not according to our works” of righteousness which we have done, “but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Tim 1:9).

Second. This love is not conveyed to us through what we have done, as was proved before, but through what he has done with whom the covenant was made. It was given us in Christ (2 Tim 1:9), just as he has chosen us in Christ, “Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph 1:3-4). “God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph 4:32), that is, through Christ’s doings, through Christ’s sufferings. Now if this is rightly understood, it uncovers an abundance of comfort for those who are within the bounds of the covenant of grace. For:

1. Here a believer sees that he will stand if Christ’s doings and sufferings stand. That is a sure foundation, for God deals with him through Christ. And so, secondly, he will not fall unless the sufferings and merits of Christ are thrown over the bar, found guilty before the eyes of divine justice, which will never happen. For the covenant was made with Christ, and he was its surety; that is, as the covenant was made with him, so he stood bound to fulfill it (Zech 9:11; Heb 7:22).

For you must understand that the covenant was made between the Father and the Son long before it was accomplished, or openly sealed with Christ’s blood. It was made before the world began (Titus 1:2; Eph 1:4; 1 Pet 1:18-20). But its conditions were not fulfilled until less than two thousand years ago, and all that while Jesus stood bound as a surety, as I said before, just as a surety commonly does, until the time when the payment was to be made. And it was by virtue of his suretyship, since he had bound himself by covenant to do all things agreed on between the Father and him, that all those of the election who were born before he came might be saved, and did enter into rest. For the forgiveness of sins that were past, though it was through the blood of Christ, was also through the forbearance of God (Rom 3:25). That is, Christ became surety for those who died before his coming, pledging that in deed and in truth, in the fullness of time, or at the time appointed, he would give a complete and full satisfaction for them according to the tenor, or condition, of the covenant (Gal 4:4).

2. Again, as the second covenant, which believers are under, is safe as their ground and foundation, so its promises are better, surer, freer, and fuller.

(1) They are better if you compare the excellence of the one with the excellence of the other. The first promised nothing but an earthly paradise: “Do this, and you shall live,” namely, live here in an earthly paradise. But the other brings the promise of a heavenly paradise.

(2) Though the covenant of works does promise an earthly paradise, yet it is a paradise or blessing that, even once obtained, might be lost again. For you are accepted by that covenant no longer than you do well. Oh, but the promises in the new covenant bring us the benefit of an eternal inheritance: that “they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” Oh, rare! It is an “eternal inheritance” (Heb 9:15).

(3) As the other is not as good as this one, so neither is it as sure. And therefore he calls the one a covenant that might be, and was, shaken, but this one is said to be such as cannot be shaken. “And this word,” he says, treating of the two covenants from verse 18 to verse 24, “And this word, yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are,” or may be, “shaken, as of things that are made, that those things that cannot be shaken,” which is the second covenant, “may remain” (Heb 12:27). For, as he says, it is that “which cannot be moved” (Heb 12:28). Therefore, you blessed saints, seeing you have received a kingdom “which cannot be moved,” “let us have grace whereby we may serve” our “God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear.”

Thus far in general; now more particularly.

(4) They are surer, in that they too are founded on God’s love, and they come to us without calling for those things at our hands that might put a stop to our certain enjoyment of them. The promises under, or of, the law might easily be stopped by our disobedience. But the promises under the gospel say, “If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out,” then, and not till then, “I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done” (Jer 31:37). Again, “I, even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own” name’s “sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isa 43:25). As if God said, I will make you a partaker of my promise; and so that I may do so, I will take away what would hinder: “I will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (Mic 7:19), so that my promise may be sure to all the seed.

And therefore the apostle, when he would show us that the new-covenant promises were surer than the old, tells us plainly that the law and works are set aside, and that the promises are made ours merely through the righteousness of faith, which is the righteousness of Christ: “For the promise, that he should be heir of the world,” he says of Abraham, “was not to him, or to his seed, through the law,” or works, “but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law,” or of works, “be heirs,” then “faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect. Therefore it is of faith … to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed” (Rom 4:13-16).

(5) They are surer because, as what would hinder is taken away, so they are committed to a faithful friend of ours for safekeeping. For all the promises of God are in Christ, not yea and nay, but yea and amen: certain and sure. They are sure because they are in the hand of our head, our friend, our brother, our husband, our flesh and bones, even in the heart and hand of our precious Jesus.

(6) They are surer because all their conditions are already fulfilled for us by Jesus Christ, as I said before. In every promise that is a new-covenant promise, if there is any condition in it, the one who undertook for us has accomplished that for us. He also gives us grace to receive the sweetness that springs from them through his obedience to everything required in them.

(7) They are surer because, as they are grounded on the love of God, everything is taken out of the way, and they are in the hand of a sure friend. And as Christ has fulfilled every condition contained in them as to justification, so the Lord has solemnly sworn with an oath for our better confidence in this particular: “For when God made promise to Abraham,” and so to all saints, “because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife,” so that there might be no more doubt or scruple about the certain fulfilling of the promise. “Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel,” that is, the certain, constant, unchangeable decree of God in making the promise for the comfort of his children, “confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things,” his promise backed with an oath, “in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Heb 6:13-18).

(8) That they are better appears also in that they are freer and fuller. That they are freer is evident, in that the one says, “No works, no life: do this, and then you shall live; if not, you shall be damned.” But the other says, We are saved by believing in what another has done, without the works of the law: “Now to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom 4:4-5). The one says, “Pay me what you owe”; the other says, “I freely and generously forgive you all.” The one says, “Because you have sinned, you shall die”; the other says, “Because Christ lives, you shall live also” (John 14:19).

(9) And as they are freer, so they are fuller: fuller of encouragement, fuller of comfort. The one, namely the law, looks like Pharaoh’s seven gaunt and ugly cows, more ready to eat a person up than to give us any food. The other is like the full grape in the cluster, which certainly has a glorious blessing in it. The one, the gospel, says, “If you have sinned, turn again”; the other, the law, says, “If you have sinned, you shall be damned, for all that I have a promise in me.”

3. The promises of the second covenant are better than those of the first, and this also appears in this: through the promises of the law we have neither faith, nor hope, nor the Spirit conveyed to us; but through the promises of the gospel all these come: “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these we might be partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4). Oh, therefore, “let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; for he is faithful that promised” (Heb 10:23). “In hope of eternal life”: how so? Because “God, that cannot lie, promised it before the world began” (Titus 1:2).

4. Those who are in this covenant are in a very happy state. For though there are several conditions in the gospel to be done, yet Christ Jesus does not expect them to be done by man as man, but by his own Spirit in them, as it is written, “Thou hast wrought all our works in us” (Isa 26:12). Is there the condition that they must believe? Why, then, he will be both the “author and finisher of their faith” (Heb 12:2-3). Is there also to be hope in his children? He also does give and has given them “good hope through his grace” (2 Thess 2:16). Again, are the people of God to behave themselves to the glory of God the Father? Then he will work in them “both to will and to do of his own good pleasure” (Phil 2:13).

5. Again, as he works all our works in us and for us, so also by virtue of this covenant we have another nature given to us, by which we are made willing to glorify God both in our bodies and in our spirits, which are his (1 Cor 6:20): “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power” (Ps 110:3).

6. Next, all those who are under this second covenant are in a wonderfully safe condition. For if they should slip or fall into some sin or sins after their conversion (and who lives and does not sin? Prov 24:16), yet through the merits and intercession of Christ Jesus, who undertook for them in this covenant, they will have their sins pardoned and their wounds healed, and they will be raised up again. The children of the first covenant do not have this privilege. For if they sin, that covenant never regards them afterward: they broke my covenant, “and I regarded them not, saith the Lord” (Heb 8:9).

But when he comes to speak of the covenant of grace, speaking first of the public person under the name of David, he says this: “He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven” (Ps 89:26-37).

“My covenant shall stand fast with him”: mark that. It is as if God had said, “I did not make this covenant with man, but with my Son, and with him I will perform it. And seeing he has given me complete satisfaction, though his children do transgress through weakness, yet my covenant is not broken because of it, seeing he with whom it was made stands firm, according to the desire of my heart. So my justice, which is satisfied, and my law have nothing to say, for there is no lack of perfection in the sacrifice of Christ.”

If you love your souls, and would have them live in the peace of God, to which you are called in one body, even all believers, then I beg you seriously to ponder, and labor to settle in your souls, this one thing: that the new covenant is not broken by our transgressions, and that is because it was not made with us. The reason the very saints of God have so many ups and downs in their journey toward heaven is that they are so weak in the faith of this one thing. For they think that if they fail in this or that particular duty, if their hearts are dead and cold, and their lusts mighty and strong, then now God is angry, and now he will shut them out of his favor. Now the new covenant is broken, and now Christ Jesus will stand their friend no longer. Now also the devil has power again, and now they must have their part in the resurrection of damnation. When, alas, for all this the covenant is not one bit more broken, and so the grace of God is no more restricted than it was before.

Therefore, I say, when you find that you are weak here and failing there, backward toward this good and your heart forward toward that evil, then be sure to keep a steadfast eye on the Mediator of this new covenant. And be persuaded that it is not only made with him, and his part fulfilled too, but that he looks upon his fulfilling of it so as not to lay your sins to your charge, though as a father he may chastise you for them: “If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless,” mark, “nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.” And what was that? Why, that “his seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me” (Ps 89:30-36).

7. Another privilege that the saints have by virtue of the new covenant is that they already have part of the possession, or hold, of heaven and glory, and that in two ways.

(1) The divine nature is conveyed from heaven into them; and, secondly, the human nature, that is, the nature of man, is received up into heaven, entertained there, and has got possession of it. We have the firstfruits of the Spirit, says the man of God; we have the earnest, or pledge, of the Spirit, which stands instead of the whole, for it is the pledge of the whole: “Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:13-14; Rom 8:8-11).

(2) The nature of man, our nature, has got into glory as the firstfruits of mankind, as a forerunner to take possession until we all come there (1 Cor 15:20). For the man born at Bethlehem, who is part of the lump of mankind, has ascended into glory as a public person, as the firstfruits, representing the whole of the children of God. So in some sense it may be said that the saints have already taken possession of the kingdom of heaven by their Jesus, their public person, since he has entered in their stead to prepare a place for them (John 14:1-4).

I beg you to consider this: when Jesus Christ came down from glory, it was so that he might bring us to glory. And so that he might be sure not to fail, he clothes himself with our nature, as if someone should take a piece out of the whole lump in place of the whole, until the rest comes, and invests it with that glory which he was in before he came down from heaven (Heb 2:14-15). And this is how that saying is to be understood which speaks of Christ and his saints: “And” he “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:6).

8. Again, not only this, but all the power of God, together with the rest of his glorious attributes, is on our side, in that they dwell in our nature, which is the man Jesus, and are pledged for us poor, simple, empty, nothing creatures as to our eternal happiness (1 Pet 1:5). “For in him,” that is, in the man Christ, who is our nature, our head, our root, our flesh, our bone, “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Mark how they are joined together: “In whom dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead. And ye are complete in him” (Col 2:9-10). God dwells completely in him, and you also are completely implanted in him who is the head of all principality and power; and all this by the consent of the Father: “For it hath pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell” (Col 1:19).

Now mark: the Godhead does not dwell in Christ Jesus for himself only, but so that it may be conveyed to us in a way of righteousness, for our comfort and help in all our needs. “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” he says (Matt 28:18). And then follows, “And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matt 28:20). “He hath received gifts for men, yea for the rebellious” (Ps 68:18). “Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16).

And the saints cannot be deprived of this, because the covenant made with Christ was, in every tittle of it, so completely fulfilled as to righteousness, both active and passive, that justice cannot object to anything. Holiness can now find fault with nothing. No, all the power of God cannot shake anything that has been done for us by the Mediator of the new covenant. So now there is no covenant of works for a believer. None of the commands, accusations, or condemnations, nor the least tittle of the old covenant, is to be charged on any of those who are the children of the second covenant. No sin is to be charged, because there is no law to be pleaded; but all is made up by our go-between, Jesus Christ. Oh, blessed covenant! Oh, blessed privilege! Be wise, therefore, you poor drooping souls who are the sons of this second covenant, and “stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free, and be not entangled again,” nor terrified in your consciences, “with the yoke of bondage”: neither the commands, accusations, nor condemnations of the law of the old covenant (Gal 5:1).

Objection. If this is so, then a person need not care what they do. They may sin, and sin again, since Christ has made satisfaction.

Answer. If I were to point out someone who was under the power of the devil and racing headlong to hell, I would not, for my life, look any further for such a person than the one who would make this kind of use of the grace of God. What! Because Christ is a Savior, you will be a sinner? Because his grace abounds, you will therefore abound in sin? O wicked wretch! Rake all of hell over, and I truly think your equal will hardly be found!

And let me tell you this before I leave you. God’s covenant with Christ for his children, who are of faith, stands sure, immutable, irrevocable, and unchangeable. In the same way, God has taken such a course with you that, unless you can make God break his oath, it is impossible for you to go to heaven if you die in that condition. “They tempted me, proved me,” and turned the grace of God into lasciviousness; “so I sware” (mark that, “so I sware”), and that in my wrath too, that they should never enter into my rest. Compare Hebrews 3:9-11 with 1 Corinthians 10:5-10.

No, says God. If Christ will not serve their turn, but they must have their sins too, then take them, devil! If heaven will not satisfy them, then take them, hell! Devour them, hell! Scald them, fry them, burn them, hell! God has more places than one to put sinners into. If they do not like heaven, he will fit them out with hell. If they do not like Christ, they will be forced to have the devil.

Therefore we must and will tell God’s poor saints the truth about the nature of the covenant of God’s grace, for the encouragement and comfort of those who would be glad to leap at Christ on any terms. Yet along with this, we also know how, through grace, to tell the hogs and sons of this world what a hog-sty is prepared for them. The very place that God has prepared to put the devil and his angels into is fitly prepared for them (Matt 25:41).

Objection. But if Christ has given God a full and complete satisfaction, then even though I go on in sin, I need not fear, since God has already been satisfied. It would be injustice in God to punish sins for which he has already been satisfied by Christ.

Answer. Rebel, rebel! There are some in Christ and some out of him.

1. Those who are in him have their sins forgiven. They themselves are made new creatures, and they have the Spirit of the Son, which is a holy, loving, self-denying Spirit. And those who are in Jesus Christ in this way are so far from delighting in sin that sin is the greatest thing that troubles them. O how willingly they would be rid of the very thoughts of it (Ps 119:113)!

When they are in a right frame of spirit, it is the grief of their souls that they cannot live more to the honor and glory of God than they do. In all their prayers to God, the breathings of their souls are as much for sanctifying grace as for pardoning grace, so that they might live a holy life. They would as willingly live holy here as be happy in the world to come. They would as willingly be cleansed from the filth of sin as have its guilt taken away. They would as willingly glorify God here as be glorified by him hereafter (Phil 3:6-21).

2. But there are some who are out of Christ, being under the law. As for all of these, whether they are outwardly respectable or openly profane, God counts them wicked. And I say, as for them, if all the angels in heaven can drag them before the judgment seat of Christ, they will be brought before it to answer for all their ungodly deeds. And being condemned for them, if all the fire in hell will burn them, they will be burned there, if they die in that condition (Jude 15).

And therefore, if you love your souls, do not give way to such a wicked spirit. “Let no man deceive you with” such “vain words” as to think that because Christ has made satisfaction to God for sin, you may therefore live in your sins. O no, God forbid that anyone should think so, “for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience” (Eph 5:6).

So, reader, I have given you a brief discourse concerning the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, and of the nature of the one together with the nature of the other. In this discourse I have also tried to show you the condition of those who are under the law, and how sad it is, both from the nature of the covenant they are under and from the way God deals with them by that covenant. And now, because I want to bring everything into as small a compass as I can, I will begin the use and application of the whole, as briefly as I can, asking the Lord to bless it to you.

1. First of all, then, by way of examination, let us begin here to look a little into which covenant you stand in before God, whether it is the covenant of works or the covenant of grace. To do this rightly, I will lay down this proposition: all people by nature come into the world under the first of these, which is called the old covenant, or the covenant of works, which is the law. “And were all by nature the children of wrath, even as others” (Eph 2:3). They could not have been that if they had not been under the law. For none who are under the other covenant are still the children of wrath. They are the children of faith, the children of the promise, the accepted children, the children not of the bondwoman but of the free (Gal 4:28-31).

Question. Now here is the question: Which of these two covenants are you under, soul?

Answer. I hope I am under the covenant of grace.

Question. But what grounds do you have for thinking that you are under that blessed covenant, and not rather under the covenant of works, that strict, soul-damning covenant?

Answer. What grounds? Why, I hope I am.

Question. But what grounds do you have for this hope of yours? A hope without grounds is like a castle built in the air. It will never be able to do you any good, but will turn out like the hope spoken of in Job: “Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be” like “a spider’s web. He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand; he shall hold it fast,” as you would hold your hope, it is likely, “but it shall not endure” (Job 8:13-15).

Answer. My hope is grounded on the promises. What else should it be grounded on?

Reply. Indeed, to build my hope on Christ Jesus, on God in Christ, through the promise, and to have this hope rightly, by the love of God being shed abroad in the heart, is a right-grounded hope (Rom 5:1-7).

Question. But what promises in the Scripture do you find your hope built on? And how do you know whether you are building your hope on the promises in the gospel, the promises of the new covenant, and not rather on the promises of the old covenant? For there are promises in that covenant as well as in the other.

Answer. I hope that if I do well I shall be accepted, because God has said I shall (Gen 4:7).

Reply. O soul, if your hope is grounded there, it is not grounded on the gospel promises, or the new covenant, but truly on the old. For these words were spoken to Cain, a son of the old covenant, and they themselves are the tenor and scope of that covenant. For that covenant runs like this: “Do this, and thou shalt live. The man that doth these things shall live by them. If thou do well, thou shalt be accepted” (Lev 18:5; Ezek 20:11; Rom 10:5; Gal 3:12; Gen 4:7).

Reply. Why, truly, if a man’s doing well and living well, and his striving to serve God as well as he can, will not help him to Christ, I do not know what will. I am sure sinning against God will not.

Question. Did you never read the Scripture that says, “Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness” (Rom 9:30-32)?

Objection. But does not the Scripture say, “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life” (Rev 22:14)?

Answer. Then the first thing to inquire into is whether keeping his commandments means striving to keep the law as it is a covenant of works, or whether it means the great commandments of the New Testament, which are cited in 1 John 3:22-23: “And whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” But what do you mean, John? Do you mean the covenant of the law, or the covenant of the gospel? Why, “this is his commandment,” he says, “That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another,” as the fruits of this faith, “as he gave us commandment.” If it is the old covenant, as a covenant of works, then the gospel is only a lost thing. If it were of works, then it is no more of grace. Therefore it is not the old covenant as the old covenant.

Question. But what do you mean by these words, “the old covenant as the old covenant”? Explain what you mean.

Answer. My meaning is this: if you would ever indeed be saved, the law is not to be looked to for life in the way it was handed out from Mount Sinai. Yet after you have faith in Christ, you may and must find solace in it and take pleasure in it, to express your love to him who has already saved you by his own blood, without your obedience to the law, whether from Sinai or anywhere else.

Question. Do you think I mean that my righteousness will save me without Christ’s? If so, you mistake me, for I do not think so. But this I say: I will labor to do what I can, and what I cannot do, Christ will do for me.

Answer. Ah, poor soul, this is the wrong way too. For this is to make Christ only a piece of a Savior. You will do something, and Christ shall do the rest. You will set your own things in first place, and if you come up short at last, then you will borrow from Christ. You are someone who does Christ the greatest injury of all: first, in that you undervalue his merits by preferring your own works before his; and second, by mingling your works, your dirty, ragged righteousness, with his.

Question. Why, would you have us do nothing? Would you have us make Christ such a drudge as to do everything while we sit idle all the while?

Answer. Poor soul, you mistake Jesus Christ when you say that you make him a drudge by letting him do everything. I tell you, he counts it a great glory to do everything for you, and it is a great dishonor to him for you so much as to think otherwise. And the saints of God who have experienced the work of grace on their souls count it the same: “Saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof” (Rev 5:9). “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing” (Rev 5:12). And why so? Read the ninth verse again: “For thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy” own “blood.” See also Ephesians 1:6-7: “To the praise of the glory of his grace … in whom we have redemption through his blood.”

Reply. All this we confess, that Jesus Christ died for us. But whoever thinks to be saved by Christ and lives in his sins shall never be saved.

Answer. I grant that. But this I say again: a man must not make his good deeds the lowest rung of the ladder by which he goes to heaven. That is, whoever will and shall go to heaven must venture his precious soul on Jesus Christ and his merits, wholly and alone, without any of his own things.

Question. What, and come to Christ as a sinner?

Answer. Yes, with all your sins upon you, even as filthy as you can be.

Question. But is this not the way to make Christ loathe us? You know that when children fall down in the dirt, they usually make their clothes as clean as they can before they go home, for fear their parents will scold them. And so, I think, should we.

Answer. This comparison is wrongly applied if you bring it to show us how we must act when we come to Christ. Whoever can make himself clean has no need of Christ. For the whole, the clean and the righteous have no need of Christ, but those who are foul and sick. Physicians, you know, if they love to be honored, will not tell their patients first to make themselves whole and then come to them. No, they tell them to come with their sores all running on them, as the woman came with her issue of blood (Mark 5), and as Mary Magdalene came with her belly full of devils, and the lepers all scabbed. And that is the right way of coming to Jesus Christ.

Reply. Well, I hope that Christ will save me, for his promises and mercy are very large; and as long as he has promised to give us life, I fear for my state the less.

Answer. It is very true that Christ’s promises are very large, blessed be the Lord forever, and so is his mercy. But notwithstanding all that, many go in at the broad gate. And therefore I say, your business is to inquire seriously whether you are under the first or the second covenant. For unless you are under the second, you will never be regarded by the Lord, since you are a sinner (Heb 8:9). And this all the more, because if God should be so good to you as to give you a share in the second, you shall have all your sins pardoned and shall certainly have eternal life, though you have been a great sinner.

But do not expect to have any part or share in the large promises and mercy of God, for the benefit and comfort of your poor soul, while you are under the old covenant. For as long as you are, you are out of Christ, through whom God conveys his mercy, grace, and love to sinners. “For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen” (2 Cor 1:20). Indeed, his mercy, grace, and love are very great, but they are treasured up in him, given out in him, through him. “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us … that he might show the exceeding riches of his grace”; but which way? “in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:4, 7).

But out of Christ you will find God a just God, a sin-avenging God, a God who will by no means spare the guilty. And be sure of this: everyone who is found out of Jesus Christ will be found guilty on the judgment day, and upon them the wrath of God shall smoke to their eternal ruin. Now, therefore, consider it, and take the counsel of the apostle in 2 Corinthians 13:5, which is to examine yourself whether you are “in the faith,” and to prove your own self: whether you have received the Spirit of Christ into your soul, whether you have been converted, whether you have been born again and made a new creature, whether you have had your sins washed away in the blood of Christ, whether you have been brought from under the old covenant into the new. And do not make a slight examination, for you have a precious soul that is either to be saved or damned.

And so that you may not be deceived, consider that it is one thing to be convinced and another to be converted; one thing to be wounded and another to be killed, and so to be made alive again by the faith of Jesus Christ. When men are killed, they are killed to all the things they lived to before, both sin and righteousness, such as all their old faith and the supposed grace they thought they had. Indeed, the old covenant will show you that you are a sinner, and a great one too. But the old covenant, the law, will not show you, without the help of the Spirit, that you are without all grace by nature. No; in the midst of your troubles you will keep yourself from coming to Christ by persuading your soul that you have come already and have some grace already.

O, therefore, be earnest in begging for the Spirit, that your soul may be enlightened and the wickedness of your heart uncovered, so that you may see the miserable state you are in by reason of sin and unbelief, which is the great condemning sin. And so, with a sight and sense of how sad your condition would be if God should deal with you in severity according to what you deserve, cry to God for faith in a crucified Christ, that you may have all your sins washed away in his blood, and such a right work of grace wrought in your soul as may stand in the judgment day.

2. Again, in the next place, by way of a second application: you know I told you that a man might go a great way in a profession of religion, and have many excellent gifts, so as to do many wondrous works, and yet be only under the law. From this you may learn not to judge yourselves to be the children of God because you may have some gifts of knowledge or understanding beyond others. No, for you may be the most knowing man in all the country as to head-knowledge, and yet be only under the law, and so consequently under the curse, notwithstanding all that (1 Cor 13). Now, seeing that men may have all this and yet perish, what then will become of those who do no good at all, and have no understanding either of their own sad state or of Christ’s mercy? Oh, sad! Read Isaiah 27:11 with understanding: “Therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will show them no favour.” See also 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9.

Now there is one thing which, for lack of it, causes most people to miscarry in a very sad manner: they are not able to distinguish between the nature of the law and the nature of the gospel. O people, people, your being blinded here, as to the knowledge of this, is one great cause of the ruin of many. As Paul says, “While Moses is read,” or while the law is laid open, “the veil is upon their heart” (2 Cor 3:15). That is, the veil of ignorance is still upon their hearts, so that they cannot discern either the nature of the law or the nature of the gospel, being so dark and blind in their minds, as you may see if you compare it with 2 Corinthians 4:3-4. And truly I am confident that, if you were well examined, many of you, I fear, would be found so ignorant that you could not give a word of right answer concerning either the law or the gospel. Indeed, my friends, suppose someone should ask you what time you spend and what pains you take in order to understand the nature and difference of these two covenants. If you spoke the truth, would you not say that you did not so much as care whether there were two or more? Would you not say, “I did not think about covenants, or study their nature. I thought that if I lived honestly, and did as well as I could, God would accept me and have mercy on me, as he had on others”?

Ah, friends, this is the cause of the ruin of thousands. For if they are blind to this, both the right use of the law and the right use of the gospel are hidden from their eyes. And so they will certainly be in danger of perishing most miserably, poor souls that they are, unless God, of his mere mercy and love, tears the veil from off their hearts, the veil of ignorance. For that is what keeps these poor souls in this stupefied and blindfolded condition, in which, if they die, they may be lamented but not helped; they may be pitied, but not preserved from the stroke of God’s everlasting vengeance.

In the next place, if you really want to be delivered from the first covenant into the second, I urge you to observe the following particulars. First, take care that you do not rest content with yourselves because you do good works, that is, works that are good in themselves. Second, take care that you do not do them in and with a legal spirit. Works are done in that spirit in the following ways.

1. You do them with a legal spirit if you do anything commanded in Scripture and, in the doing of it, think that God is well pleased with it because you, as religious people, are the ones doing it. Here I am speaking to the natural man. Paul himself was in danger of being destroyed by this very mistake. He thought that because he was zealous, and belonged to one of the strictest sects in religion, God would be good to him and accept his doings. That is clear, for he counted them his gain (Phil 3:4-8). Now this is how it is done. A man thinks that he is more sincere, or more generous, or that he does his duty with more difficulty, or at the cost of weakening his estate. If, I say, a man thinks that God accepts his labor because of this, it is done from an old-covenant spirit.

Again, some men think that they will be heard because they have prayer in their families, because they can pray long and use excellent expressions, or express themselves excellently in prayer, and because they have great freedom and fullness in prayer. I say, to think that God therefore delights in their doings and accepts their works comes from a legal spirit.

Again, some men think this way: their parents were religious before them, and were indeed the people of God, and so they think that if they also keep up the outward observance of what they learned from those who went before them, God therefore accepts them. But this also comes from a wrong spirit. And yet how many are there in England at this day who think better of themselves merely on that account! Yes, and they think the people of God ought to think so too. They do not understand that it is a common thing for an Eli to have a Hophni and a Phinehas, both sons of Belial; for a good Samuel to have perverse offspring; and likewise for a David to have an Absalom. I say, because they are ignorant of this, or else careless to regard it, they think, as the Jews in their generations did, that because they spring from such and such people they have a privilege with God above others, when there is no such thing. But this is certain: if the same faith is not in them that was in those who went before them, laying hold of the Christ of God in the same spirit as they did, they must utterly perish, for all the high opinions they have of themselves (John 8:33-35; Matt 3:7-9).

2. When people come into the presence of God without having their eye on the Divine Majesty through the flesh and blood of the Son of Mary, the Son of God, then they also come before God, and do whatever they do, from a legal spirit, an old-covenant spirit. For instance, it is true that you have some people who will go to prayer, to all appearances very fervently. They will plead very hard with God to grant them their desires, pleading their need and how great it is. They will also plead with God his great mercy, and his free promises as well. But all the while they neglect the body, or person, of Christ that I have spoken of, the righteous Lamb of God, in whom they should appear before God. I say, in doing this they appear before the Lord in nothing other than an old-covenant spirit. For they go to God only as a merciful Creator, and they themselves go only as his creatures. They do not go to him as he really is, their Father in the Son, nor as his children by regeneration through the Lord Jesus. Yes, and though they may call God their Father in mere notion, as the Pharisees did, not knowing what they are saying but having only learned such things by tradition, yet Christ will have his time to tell them to their very faces, as he once told the Jews, that for all this profession of theirs their father is the devil. That will be to their own grief and everlasting misery (John 8:44).

3. The third thing to be observed, if we do not want to be under the law or to do things in a legal spirit, is this: take care that we do none of the works of the holy law of God for life, or for acceptance with him. No, nor the works of the gospel either. To do the works of the law so that we may be accepted by God, or may please him, and may have our desires from him, is to do things from a legal or old-covenant spirit. That is expressly laid down where it is said, “To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt” (Rom 4:4-5); that is, such a man appears before God through the law and his obedience to it. And again, there are things that are gospel ordinances in themselves, such as baptism, the breaking of bread, hearing, praying, meditating, and the like. Yet, I say, if they are not done in a right spirit, the devil uses them as a hand to pull you under the covenant of works. He did the same in former times with circumcision. Circumcision was no part of the covenant of works, the ten commandments, but a seal of the righteousness of faith. Yet, I say, when it was done in a legal spirit, the soul was brought by it under the covenant of works, and so was most miserably destroyed without knowing it. And that was because there was no right understanding of the nature and terms of those covenants. And so it is now. Souls who are ignorant of the nature of the old covenant run themselves under the old covenant by the very act of submitting to various gospel ordinances. They fly off from Christ even when they think they are coming closer to him. Oh, how miserable! If you want to know when or how this is done, whether in one particular or more, I will show you as follows.

(1) A man brings himself under the covenant of works by gospel ordinances when he cannot be persuaded that God will have mercy on him unless he yields obedience to this or that particular thing commanded in the word. This is the very same spirit that was in the false brethren spoken of in Acts 15 and throughout the whole Epistle to the Galatians. Their judgment was that unless such and such things were done, they could not be saved. In the same way, nowadays we also have some who say, “Unless your infants are baptized, they cannot be saved.” Others say, “Unless you are rightly baptized, you have no ground to be assured that you are believers, or members of churches.” This is not even as good as a legal spirit; it is far worse. It is the spirit of blasphemy. That is evident, because they reckon that the Spirit, righteousness, and faith of Jesus, and the confession of it, are not sufficient to declare men to be members of the Lord Jesus. On the other hand, though men are rank hypocrites, yet if they yield an outward submission to this or that, they are immediately counted as members fit for communion. This clearly reveals that less honor is given to putting on the righteousness of the Son of God than to something a man may do and yet go to hell within an hour afterward. No, more than that: something by the very doing of which he shuts himself off from Jesus Christ forever.

(2) Men may do things from a legal or old-covenant spirit when they rest content with their doing of this or that thing, such as prayers, reading, hearing, baptism, breaking of bread, or the like. I say, they do so when they can content themselves with the thing done, and sit down at ease and satisfied because the thing is done. For instance, some men are persuaded that such and such a thing is their duty, and that unless they do it God will not be pleased with them or allow them to be heirs of his kingdom. From this spirit they rush into the thing and do it. Once it is done they are content, being persuaded that now, without doubt, they are in a happy condition because they have done such things. They are like the Pharisee who, because he had done this and that, said in a bragging way, “Lord, I thank thee that I am not as this publican,” as though to say, “For I have done this and that.” And yet, alas, the Lord never gives him a good word for his labor, but rather a reproof.

(3) A man acts from a legal spirit when he makes the strictness of his walk the ground of his assurance of eternal life. With some men, all the ground they have for believing they will be saved is that they do not walk as loosely as their neighbors. They are not as bad as others are, and therefore they do not question that all will go well with them. Now this is a false ground. It is truly legal, and savors only of some slight and shallow ideas of the old covenant. I call them shallow ideas because they are not right and sound. They will do the soul no good but deceive it, because the knowledge of the nature of this covenant does not appear to the soul. Only some commanding power that the covenant has over the soul appears to it. As the soul tries to give itself up to that power, it finds some peace and contentment, especially if it finds itself fairly willing to yield to the covenant’s commands. And is this not the very ground of your hope that God will save you from the wrath to come? If someone asked you what ground you have for thinking you will be saved, would you not say, “Truly, because I have left my sins, and because I am more inclined to do good, and to learn and get more knowledge. I try to walk in church order, as they call it. And so I hope God has done a good work for me, and I hope he will save my soul”? Do not think that I am against the order of the gospel. But alas, alas! This is the very trick of the devil, to make souls build the ground of their salvation on their strictness, on their abstaining from the wickedness of their former lives, and on their desire to be stricter and stricter. Now if you want to recognize such a man or woman, you will find them in this frame. When they think their hearts are good, they think also that Christ will have mercy on them. But when their corruptions are at work, they doubt and hesitate until their hearts are once again more ready to do the things contained in the law and the ordinances of the gospel. Again, such men commonly cheer up their hearts and keep encouraging themselves to hope that all will be well. And that is because they are not as bad as the rest, but more inclined to good than they are. They say, “I am glad I am not as this publican, but better than he, more righteous than he” (Luke 18:11).

(4) It is a legal and old-covenant spirit that secretly persuades the soul that if it is ever to be saved by Christ, it must first be fitted for Christ. It must get a good heart and good intentions to do this and that for Christ, so that, I say, when the soul comes to Christ it may not be rejected or turned away. But in deed and in truth this is the very way for the soul to turn itself away from Jesus Christ instead of turning to him. For such a soul looks on Christ as a painted Savior, a mere cipher, rather than a true and real Savior. Friend, if you can fit yourself, what need do you have of Christ? If you can get qualifications to carry to Christ so that you may be accepted, you are not looking to be accepted in the Beloved. Shall I tell you what you are like? You are like a man who says, “I will make myself clean, and then I will go to Christ so that he may wash me.” Or you are like a man possessed who will first cast the devils out of himself and then come to Christ to be cured by him. Therefore, if you want to lay hold of Christ in such a way as not to be rejected by him, I say, you must come to him as the basest person in the world, more fit to be damned, if you had what you deserve, than to have the least smile, hope, or comfort from him. Come with the fire of hell in your conscience. Come with your heart hard, dead, cold, full of wickedness and madness against your own salvation. Come renouncing all your tears, prayers, watchings, and fastings. Come as a blood-red sinner. Do not stay away from Christ until you have a greater sense of your own misery, or of the reality of God’s mercy. Do not wait until your heart is softer and your spirit in a better frame. Go against your own inclination, and against the mind of the devil and sin, and throw yourself down at the feet of Christ with a rope around your neck. Say, “Lord Jesus, hear a sinner, a hardhearted sinner, a sinner who deserves to be damned, to be cast into hell.” And resolve never to turn back or give up crying to him until you find that he has washed your conscience from dead works by the power of his blood, clothed you with his own righteousness, and made you complete in himself. This is the way to come to Christ.

Now a few words on the second doctrine, and then I will draw toward a conclusion.

Application 1. This doctrine holds a great deal of comfort for your soul, you who are a new-covenant man, one of those who are under the new covenant. In it there is, first, pardon of sin; second, the manifestation of that pardon; and third, a power to make you persevere through faith to the very end of your life.

1. There is pardon of sin, which is not in the old covenant. For in that covenant there is nothing but commands, and if they are not obeyed, condemnation. Oh, but here there is pardon of sin, even of all your sins against both the first covenant and the second, the one you are under. And it is given freely, on account of Jesus Christ the righteous. In your name and nature, and in the place of your person, he fulfilled the whole law in himself for you, and he freely gives it to you. Oh, though the law is a ministration of death and condemnation, yet the gospel you are under is the ministration of life and salvation (2 Cor 3:6-9). Though God does not regard those who live and die under the first covenant (Heb 8:9), yet those who are under the second are as the apple of his eye (Deut 32:10; Ps 17:8; Zech 2:8). Those who are under the first covenant, the law, are “called to blackness, and darkness, and tempest, the sound of a trumpet,” and a burning mountain, a sight so terrible that Moses said, “I exceedingly fear and quake” (Heb 12:18-21). “But ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born,” whose names “are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus,” to blessed Jesus, “the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Heb 12:22-24), even forgiveness of sins (Eph 1:7).

2. The covenant you are under allows for repentance in case you happen to slip or fall through sudden temptation (Rev 2:5); but the law allows for none (Gal 3:10). The covenant you are under also gives you strength; but the law is only a sound of words, commanding words, and no power is given by them to fulfill the things commanded (Heb 12:19). You who are under this second covenant are made a son; but those who are under the first are slaves and vagabonds (Gen 4:12). You who are under this covenant have a Mediator, who is to stand between justice and you; but for those under the other, their mediator has turned accuser and speaks most bitter things against their souls (1 Tim 2:5; John 5:45). Again, the way you have into paradise is a new and living way. Mark it: a living way. But for those who are under the old covenant, their way into paradise is a killing and destroying way (Heb 10:20; Gen 3:24). Again, you have the righteousness of God to appear before God with; but those under the old covenant have nothing but the righteousness of the law, which Paul counts dirt and dung (Phil 3:7-9). You have what will make you perfect, but the other will not do so: “The law made nothing perfect; but the bringing in of a better hope did,” which is the Son of God, “by the which we draw nigh to God” (Heb 7:19).

3. The new covenant promises you a new heart, as I said before, but the old covenant promises none; and a new spirit, but the old covenant promises none (Ezek 36:26). The new covenant conveys faith, but the old one conveys none (Gal 3). Through the new covenant the love of God is conveyed into the heart; but through the old covenant none of it is conveyed savingly through Jesus Christ (Rom 5). The new covenant gives not only a promise of life but, along with it, the assurance of life; the old one gives none. The old covenant worked wrath in us and toward us, but the new one works love (Rom 4:15; Gal 5:6). So much for the first application.

Application 2. All these privileges, and many more, come to you through the new covenant. And so that you might not doubt the certainty of these glorious privileges, God has ordered it so that they all come to you by way of purchase. They have been obtained for you, ready to your hand, by that one man Jesus, who is the Mediator, the person who chiefly has to deal both with God and with your soul in the things that belong to this covenant. So now you may look on all the glorious things spoken of in the new covenant and say, “All these must be mine. I must have a share in them. Christ has purchased them for me and given them to me.”

Now I do not need to say, “Oh, but how shall I come by them? God is holy, and I am a sinner. God is just, and I have offended.” No, but you may say, “Though I am vile and deserve nothing, yet Christ is holy, and he deserves all things. Though I have so provoked God by breaking his law that he could not in justice look on me, yet Christ has paid the debt so gloriously that now God can say, ‘Welcome, soul. I will give you grace, I will give you glory, you shall lie in my bosom and go out no more. My Son has pleased me. He has satisfied the loud cries of the law and justice that called for speedy vengeance on you. He has fulfilled the whole law; he has brought in everlasting righteousness (Dan 9:24-25). He has overcome the devil, he has washed away your sins with his most precious blood, he has destroyed the power of death, and he triumphs over all the enemies. This he did in his own person, as a Jesus for all in common, for all persons in their stead, that is, for as many as shall come in to him. For I give his victory to them, I give his righteousness to them, I bestow his merits on them, and I look on them as holy, harmless, undefiled, and forever lovely in my eye, through the victory of the Captain of their salvation’” (1 Cor 15:55-57).

And if you would not only hear and read this glorious doctrine, but in deed and in truth be found to have the life of it in your heart, you must be much in studying the two covenants: the nature of the one, the nature of the other, and the condition of those who are under each of them. You must also be well grounded in the manner of Christ’s victory and merits, and in how they are made yours.

1. And here you must, in the first place, believe that the baby who was born of Mary and laid in a manger at Bethlehem in the time of Caesar Augustus, that he, that baby, that child, was the very Christ.

2. You must believe that in the days of Tiberius Caesar, when Herod was tetrarch of Galilee and Pontius Pilate governor of Judea, in those days he was crucified, or hanged on a tree between two thieves, which by computation, or according to the best account, is more than sixteen hundred years ago.

3. You must also believe that when he hung on that cross of wood on Mount Calvary, he did then die there for the sins of those who died before he was crucified. He also died for the sins of those who were alive at the time of his crucifixion. And by that one death he gave satisfaction to God for all those who would be born and believe in him after his death, even to the world’s end. I say, you must believe this, on pain of eternal damnation: that by that one death, when he died, he put an end to the curse of the law and of sin; and that at that time, by his death on the cross and by his resurrection out of Joseph’s tomb, he brought in a righteousness sufficient to clothe you completely. “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Heb 10:14). Not that he had to offer himself often, “for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put,” or do, “away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb 9:26), namely, when he hung on the cross. For it is by the offering up of the body of this blessed Jesus Christ once for all. Indeed, other priests may offer sacrifices and offerings often, which can never take away sins; but this man, this Jesus, this anointed and appointed sacrifice, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins, sat down forever at the right hand of God.

This is the doctrine I will live and die by, and I am willing to be damned if it does not save me. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation (Rom 1:16); therefore I preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness (1 Cor 1:23).

A Word of Advice

But in your pursuit of the faith of the gospel you are sure to meet with devils, heretics, and particular corruptions, such as unbelief, ignorance, and the spirit of works spurred on by suggestions, false conclusions, and damnable doctrines. So, besides what has already been said, I will briefly speak a word or two more of further advice before I leave you, especially concerning these two things: first, how you are to think of the Savior; second, how you are to apply him.

1. As for the Savior:

(1) You must look on him as truly God and truly man; not man only, nor God only, but God and man in one person, both natures joined together. This is what fits him to be a suitable Savior; suitable, I say, to answer to both sides and parties he has to deal with in his office as Mediator and in his being a Savior.

(2) You must not only do this, but you must also consider and believe that whatever was done by Jesus Christ was not done by one nature without the other. You must consider that both natures, the Godhead and the manhood, gloriously worked together and joined together in undertaking the salvation of our bodies and souls. The Godhead did not undertake anything without the manhood, nor did the manhood do anything without the power and union of the Godhead. And you must of necessity hold this, or else you cannot find any sound ground and footing for your soul to rest on.

For if you look at either of these apart, that is, the Godhead without the manhood, or the manhood without the Godhead, you will conclude one of two things. Either what was done by the Godhead was not done for man, since it was done without the manhood; or else what was done with the manhood could not answer divine justice, since it did not do what it did by the power of the Godhead and in union with it. For it was the Godhead that gave power and value to the suffering of the manhood; and it is the manhood, being joined with the Godhead, that gives us a share in the heavenly glory and comforts of the Godhead.

What ground can a man have to believe that Christ is his Savior if he does not believe that Christ suffered for sin in his own human nature? And what ground can a man have to think that God the Father, who is infinite, is satisfied, if he does not also believe that the one who gave the satisfaction was equal to the one who was offended?

Therefore, beloved, when you read of the offering of the body of the Son of Man for our sins, consider that he did it in union with, and by the help of, the eternal Godhead: “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your consciences from dead works…” (Heb 9:14).

And when you read of the glorious works and splendor of the Godhead in Christ, consider that all that was done by the Godhead was done as it had union and communion with the manhood. And then you will see that the devil is overcome by the God-man, and sin, death, hell, the grave, and all are overcome by Jesus, the God-man. Then you will find them overcome indeed. They must surely be overcome when God overcomes them; and we have good ground to hope that the victory is ours when they are overcome in our nature.

2. The second thing is how to apply this Christ to the soul. For this, the following particulars are to be considered.

(1) When Jesus Christ appeared in this way, born of Mary, the Father looked on him as if the sin of the whole world were on him. No, further: God looked on him and counted him the sin of man: “He hath made him to be sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21). That is, God made his Son Jesus Christ our sin, or reckoned him to be not only a sinner but the very bulk of the sin of the whole world, and condemned him as severely as if he had been nothing but sin. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3). That is, for our sins he condemned his Son Jesus Christ, as if he had in deed and in truth been our very sin, although he was altogether “without sin” (2 Cor 5:21). Therefore, as to the taking away of your curse, you must reckon him to be made sin for you. And as to his being your justification, you must reckon him to be your righteousness. For the Scripture says, “He,” that is, God, “hath made him to be sin for us, though he knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

(2) Consider for whose sake all this glorious design of the Father and the Son was brought to pass, and you will find that it was for man, for sinful man (2 Cor 8:9).

(3) Consider the terms on which it is made ours, and you will find it to be a free gift, arising merely from the tenderheartedness of God. You are “justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood…” (Rom 3:24-25).

(4) Consider how people are to reckon it theirs. It is on the same terms on which God offers it, which is freely, as they are worthless and undeserving creatures, as they are without all good and also unable to do any good. This, I say, is the right way of applying the merits of Christ to your soul. For they are freely given to you, a poor sinner, not for anything that is in you or done by you, but freely, as you are a sinner and so stand in absolute need of them.

And, Christian, in this matter you are not to follow your sense and feeling, but the very Word of God. The thing that does the people of God the greatest injury is that they listen too little to what the gospel says, and give too much credit to what the law, sin, the devil, and conscience say. On this very ground they conclude that because there is certain guilt on the soul, therefore damnation for sin will certainly be brought on the soul too. This is to set the Word of God aside and to give credit to what is shaped by its opposite. But you must give more credit to one syllable of the written word of the gospel than you would give to all the saints and angels in heaven and earth, and much more than to the devil and your own guilty conscience.

Let me give you a parable. There was a certain man who had committed treason against his king. But because the king had compassion on him, he sent him a pardon under his own hand and seal, by the hand of a faithful messenger. But in the country where this poor man lived there were also many who tried to trouble him by often reminding him of his treason and of the law that was to be carried out on the offender. Now how could this man better honor his king than by believing his handwriting, which was the pardon? Certainly he would honor him more by doing that than by heeding all the clamor his enemies kept raising against him.

It is just so here. You have committed treason against the King of heaven, and he, through compassion, for Christ’s sake, has sent you a pardon. But the devil, the law, and your conscience are continually trying to disturb you by bringing your sins fresh to your memory. But now, would you honor your King? Why then, whoever believes “the record that God hath given of his Son” has set his seal to it that God is true. “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5:11). And therefore, my brothers, since God our Father has sent us damnable traitors a pardon from heaven, even all the promises of the gospel, and has also sealed its certainty with the heart’s blood of his dear Son, let us not be daunted, however often our enemies with their terrible voices bring our former life back to our memory.

Objection. “But,” says the soul, “what if, after I have received a pardon, I commit treason again? What should I do then?”

Answer. Suppose the case. You have committed abundance of treason; he has abundance of pardons at hand. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isa 55:7).

Sometimes I myself have been in such a strait that I have been almost driven to my wits’ end by the sight and sense of the greatness of my sins. But I called to mind that God was God in his mercy, pity, and love, as well as in his holiness, justice, and so on. And again, I considered how sufficient the satisfaction was that was given to holiness and justice, so that a way might be made for sinners to lay hold of this mercy. I say, considering this, when I was tempted to doubt and despair, I have answered in this way:

“Lord, here is one of the greatest sinners the ground ever bore; a sinner against the law, and a sinner against the gospel. I have sinned against light, and I have sinned against mercy. And now, Lord, the guilt of them breaks my heart. The devil, too, would have me despair. He tells me that you are so far from hearing my prayers in this distress of mine that I cannot anger you worse than by calling on you; for, he says, you are resolved to damn me forever and not to grant me the least of your favor. Yet, Lord, I would gladly have forgiveness. And though much may be inferred from your Word against me, yet it says that if I come to you, you will by no means cast me out. Lord, shall I honor you most by believing you can pardon my sins, or by believing you cannot? Shall I honor you most by believing you will pardon my sins, or by believing you will not? Shall I honor the blood of your Son also by despairing that its power is not sufficient, or by believing that it is sufficient to purge me from all my blood-red and crimson sins? Surely you, who could find so much mercy as to pardon Manasseh, Mary Magdalene, the three thousand murderers, persecuting Paul, murderous and adulterous David, and blaspheming Peter; you who offered mercy to Simon Magus, a witch, and received the astrologers and conjurers in Acts 19: you have mercy enough for one poor sinner. Lord, suppose my sins were bigger than all these, and I deserved mercy less than any of them. Yet you have said in your Word that whoever comes to you, you will by no means cast out.” And God has given comfort to my soul, even to such a sinner as I am. And I tell you, there is no better way to honor God and beat the devil out than to stick to the truth of God’s Word and the merits of Christ’s blood by believing. When Abraham believed, even against hope and reason, he gave glory to God (Rom 4). And this is our victory, even our faith (1 John 5:4). Believe, and all things are possible to you. Whoever believes shall be saved. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life” (John 3:36), and those who believe shall never perish, nor shall anyone pluck them out of Christ’s Father’s hands.

And if you really believe this, you will not merely confess him as the Quakers do: that is, that he was born at Bethlehem of Mary, suffered on Mount Calvary under Pontius Pilate, was dead and buried, rose again, ascended, and so on. For all this they confess, and yet in the middle of their confession they actually deny that his death on Mount Calvary gave satisfaction to God for the sins of the world, and that his resurrection out of Joseph’s tomb is the cause of our justification in the sight of God, angels, and devils. But, I say, if you really believe these things, you believe that then, so long ago, even before you were born, he bore your sins in his own body, which was then hanged on the tree, and never before or since (see 1 Pet 2:24); and that your old man was then crucified with him, that is, in the same body then crucified (Rom 6:6). This is nonsense to those who do not believe. But if you really believe, you see it so plainly, and yet it is such a mystery, that it makes you wonder.

Application 3. But in the third place, this glorious doctrine of the new covenant and its Mediator will also serve to comfort the children of the new covenant, and to keep their comfort alive, in this way: he not only died and rose again, but ascended in his own person into heaven to take possession of it for me and to prepare a place there for me. He stands there in the second part of his suretyship, to bring me safely in my coming there, and to present me in a glorious manner, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. He is there exercising his priestly office for me, pleading the perfection of his own righteousness for me and the virtue of his blood for me. He is there ready to answer the accusations of the law, the devil, and sin for me.

Here, through faith, you may look the very devil in the face and rejoice, saying, “O Satan! I have a precious Jesus, a soul-comforting Jesus, a sin-pardoning Jesus.” Here you may hear the biggest thunderclap the law can give, and yet not be daunted. Here you may say, “O law! You may roar against sin, but you cannot reach me. You may curse and condemn, but not my soul. For I have a righteous Jesus, a holy Jesus, a soul-saving Jesus, and he has delivered me from your threats, from your curses, from your condemnations. I am out of your reach and out of your bounds. I am brought into another covenant, under better promises: promises of life and salvation, free promises to comfort me without any merit of mine, even through the blood of Jesus, the satisfaction he gave to God for me. Therefore, though you lay my sins to my charge, and say you will prove me guilty, yet so long as Christ is above ground, and has brought in everlasting righteousness and given it to me, I will not fear your threats, your charges, your soul-scaring denunciations. My Christ is all, has done all, and will deliver me from all that you can bring, and from whatever else can bring an accusation against me.”

So also you may say when death assaults you, “‘O death, where is thy sting?’ You may bite, indeed, but you cannot devour. I have comfort by and through the one man Jesus. Jesus Christ has taken you captive and taken away your strength. He has pierced your heart and let out all your soul-destroying poison. Therefore, though I see you, I am not afraid of you; though I feel you, I am not daunted. For you have lost your sting in the side of the Lord Jesus; through him I overcome you and set my foot on you.” And also: “O Satan! Though I hear you grumble and make a hellish noise, and though you threaten me in very lofty terms, yet my soul will triumph over you so long as Christ is alive and can be heard in heaven; so long as he has broken your head and won the field from you; so long as you are in prison and cannot have your desire. Therefore, when I hear your voice, I fix my thoughts on Christ my Savior and listen to what he will say, for he will speak comfort. He says he has won the victory, and he gives me the crown, and makes me triumph through his most glorious conquest.”

Indeed, my brothers, the saints under the Levitical law did not have the new covenant sealed or confirmed any further than by a promise that it would be. Yet when they thought of the glorious privileges that God had promised would come (though at that time they had not come, but were seen far off), how confidently they were persuaded of them, and embraced them! They were so fully satisfied of their certainty that they did not hesitate to part with everything for the enjoyment of them. Shall not we, then, who see all things already done before us, make this a strong argument to increase our faith (Heb 11)? How many times does David in the Psalms admire, triumph, and persuade others to do the same, through the faith he had in the thing that was yet to be done! Job too: in what faith he says he would see his Redeemer, though his Redeemer had not then shed one drop of blood for him, but only because he had promised to do so! And this was signified by the blood of bulls and goats. Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah and others too: how gloriously and confidently they spoke of Christ, and of his death, blood, conquest and everlasting priesthood, even before he showed himself in the flesh which he took of the Virgin! For their words were so many sure promises, carrying a remembrance in them, and serving also for the better satisfaction of those who believed them. Yet we who have lived since Christ have more ground to hope than those under the old covenant had, though they had the word of the just God as the ground of their faith.

Mark this: they had only the promise that he would come, but we have the sure fulfillment of those promises, because he has come. They were told that he would shed his blood, but we see that he has shed it. They ventured everything on his standing surety for them, but we see that he has fulfilled the office of his suretyship, and faithfully too, in that he has redeemed us poor sinners according to his engagement. They ventured on the new covenant though it was not actually sealed, only “because he judged him faithful who had promised” (Heb 11:11). But we have the covenant sealed. All things are completely done, as sure as the heart-blood of a crucified Jesus can make it.

There is as great a difference between their dispensation and ours for comfort as there is between making a bond with a promise to seal it and actually sealing it. The covenant was made, indeed, in their time, but it was not sealed until the blood was shed on Mount Calvary. And so that we might indeed have our faith mount up with wings like an eagle, he shows us what encouragement and ground of faith we have to conclude that we will be everlastingly delivered, saying, “For where a testament” (or covenant) “is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood” (Heb 9:16-18). Christ’s blood was the confirmation of the new covenant; yet it was not sealed in the days of Abraham, Isaac or Jacob to confirm the covenant God told them of, and still they believed. Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to believe the things we have heard, and in no way let them be called into question. And all the more so, because you see the testament is not only now made but confirmed, not only spoken of and promised but truly sealed by the death and blood of Jesus, who is its testator.

My brothers, I would not have you ignorant of this one thing: though the Jews had the promise of a sacrifice, of an everlasting high priest who would deliver them, yet they had only the promise. For Christ had not been sacrificed, and had not yet come as a high priest of good things to come. They had only the type, the shadow, the figure, the ceremonies, together with Christ’s engagement as surety to bring to pass all the things that were promised would come; and on that account they were received and saved.

It was with them and their dispensation as this comparison will help you understand. Suppose two men make a covenant that the one will give the other ten thousand sheep on condition that the other gives him two thousand pounds. But since the money is not to be paid down at once, if the man buying the sheep wants any of them before the day of payment, the creditor asks for a surety. Then, on the engagement of the surety, part of the sheep are given to the debtor even before the day of payment, and the rest at and after it. So it is here. Christ covenanted with his Father for his sheep (“I lay down my life for my sheep,” he says), but the money was not to be paid down as soon as the bargain was made, as I have already said. Yet some of the sheep were saved even before the money was paid, and that because of Christ’s suretyship. As it is written, “Being justified” (or saved) “freely by his grace through the redemption” (or purchase) “that is in Christ Jesus. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past” (or, of the sinners who died in the faith before Christ was crucified, through God’s forbearing until the payment was paid); “to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness; that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom 3:24-26).

My purpose in speaking of this is to show you that it is not wisdom now to doubt whether God will save you or not, but to believe, because all things are finished as far as our justification is concerned. The covenant is not only made but also sealed; the debt is paid; the prison doors are flung off their hinges; and a proclamation of deliverance has come from heaven to the prisoners of hope: “Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope, even today do I declare,” says God, “that I will render double unto thee” (Zech 9:12). And Christ, when he had come, said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel,” that is, good tidings, “to the poor,” that their sins would be pardoned and their souls saved. “He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,” and to comfort those who mourn, “to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19).

Therefore here, soul, you may come to Jesus Christ for anything you lack, as to a common treasure-house. He is the principal man for distributing the things mentioned in the new covenant, since he has them all in his own keeping by right of purchase; for he has bought them all and paid for them all. Do you lack faith? Then come for it to the man Christ Jesus (Heb 12:2). Do you lack the Spirit? Then ask it of Jesus. Do you lack wisdom? Do you lack grace of any sort? Do you lack a new heart? Do you lack strength against your lusts, against the devil’s temptations? Do you lack strength to carry you through afflictions of body and affliction of spirit, through persecutions? Would you gladly hold out, stand to the last, and be more than a conqueror? Then be sure to meditate enough on the merits of the blood of Jesus: how he has undertaken for you, how he has done the work of your salvation in your place, how he is filled by God on purpose to fill you, and is willing to share with you whatever is in him or about him. Consider this, I say, and triumph in it.

Again, this may teach us the safe state of the saints as to their perseverance: they will stand, though hell rages, though the devil roars, and though the whole world works for the ruin of the saints of God. Some, through ignorance of the virtue of the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, say that a man may be a child of God today and a child of the devil tomorrow. That is gross ignorance. For tell me: is the blood of Christ, the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, of no more virtue than to bring in an uncertain salvation for us? Or must the effectiveness of Christ’s merits, as to our perseverance, be helped along by the doings of man? Surely those who are predestined are also justified, and those who are justified will be glorified (Rom 8:30). Saints, do not doubt the salvation of your souls, unless you intend to undervalue Christ’s blood. And do not think otherwise than that he who has begun the good work of his grace in you will perfect it until the second coming of our Lord Jesus (Phil 1:6). Should not we, as well as Paul, say, I am persuaded that nothing shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus (Rom 8)? Oh, let the saints know that unless the devil can pluck Christ out of heaven, he cannot pull a true believer out of Christ. When I say a true believer, I mean one who has the faith of the operation of God in his soul.

Lastly, is there such mercy as this? Such privileges as these? Is there so much ground of comfort, and so much cause to be glad? Is there so much store in Christ, and such a ready heart in him to give it to me? Do his bleeding wounds hold so much that their fruit should be the salvation of my soul, my sinful soul, to save me, sinful me, rebellious me, desperate me? What then? Shall I not now be holy? Shall I not now study, strive, and lay myself out for him who laid himself out, soul and body, for me? Shall I now love any lust or sin at all? Shall I now be ashamed of the cause, ways, people or saints of Jesus Christ? Shall I not now yield my members as instruments of righteousness, seeing my end is everlasting life (Rom 6)? Shall Christ think nothing too dear for me, and shall I count anything too dear for him? Shall I grieve him with my foolish conduct? Shall I slight his counsel by following my own will? Thus, therefore, the doctrine of the new covenant calls for holiness, engages us to holiness, and makes the children of that covenant take pleasure in it. Let no one, therefore, conclude from this that the doctrine of the gospel is a licentious doctrine. If anyone does, it is because they are fools, and such as have not tasted the virtue of the blood of Jesus Christ; nor did they ever feel the nature and sway that the love of Christ has in the hearts of his own. And so you may also see that the doctrine of the gospel is of great advantage to the people of God who have already come in, or to those who, on considering it, will be willing to come in and share in the glorious benefits of this glorious covenant.

But the poor soul says:

Objection. Alas! I am afraid this is too good for me.

Inquirer. Why so, may I ask?

Objection. Alas! Because I am a sinner.

Reply. Why, all this is bestowed on none but sinners. As it is written, while we were ungodly, Christ died for us (Rom 5:6, 8). “He came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim 1:15).

Objection. Oh, but I am one of the chief of sinners.

Reply. Why, this is for the chief of sinners. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief,” says Paul (1 Tim 1:15).

Objection. Oh, but my sins are so big that I cannot conceive how I could have mercy.

Reply. Why, soul? Did you ever kill anybody? Did you ever burn any of your children in the fire to idols? Have you been a witch? Did you ever use enchantments and conjuring? Did you ever curse, and swear, and deny Christ? And yet even if you have, there is still hope of pardon. Yes, sinners such as these have been pardoned, as appears from these and similar scriptures: 2 Chr 33:1-10, compared with 2 Chr 33:12-13; again, Acts 19:19-20; Acts 8:22, compared with Acts 8:9; Matt 26:74-75. But you who are resolved to go on in your sins, do not meddle with this.

Objection. But though I have not sinned those kinds of sins, perhaps I have sinned as badly.

Answer. That is not likely. Yet even if you have, there is still ground of mercy for you, since you are under the promise (John 6:37).

Objection. Alas, man! I am afraid that I have sinned the unpardonable sin, and so there is no hope for me.

Answer. Do you know what the unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost, is? And when it is committed?

Reply. It is a sin against light.

Answer. That is true. Yet not every sin against light is the sin against the Holy Ghost.

Reply. You say so?

Answer. Yes, and I prove it this way. If every sin against light had been the sin that is unpardonable, then David and Peter and others would have sinned that sin. But though they did sin against light, they did not sin that sin. Therefore not every sin against light is the sin against the Holy Ghost, the unpardonable sin.

Objection. But the Scripture says, “If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries” (Heb 10:26-27).

Answer. Do you know what that willful sin is?

Reply. Why, what is it? Isn’t it for a man to sin willingly after he has been enlightened?

Answer. 1. Yes. Yet without doubt not every willing sin is that sin. For then David would have sinned it when he lay with Bathsheba, and Jonah when he fled from the presence of the Lord, and Solomon too when he had so many concubines.

2. But that sin is a sin of another nature, and it is this. A man has made some profession that salvation comes by the blood of Jesus alone, and has had some light and power of it upon his spirit. Then, I say, after this, he knowingly, willfully, and spitefully tramples upon the blood of Christ shed on the cross. He counts it an unholy thing, or no better than the blood of any other man, and would rather venture his soul any other way than be saved by this precious blood. And this, I say, must be done after some light (Heb 6:4-5), spitefully (Heb 10:29), knowingly (2 Pet 2:21), and willfully (Heb 10:26, compared with Heb 10:29). And it is not done in a hurry and a sudden fit, as Peter’s sin was, but with some time beforehand to pause upon it first, as Judas did. It is also done with a continued resolution never to turn or be converted again, “for it is impossible to renew such again to repentance,” they are so resolved and so desperate (Heb 6).

Question. And what do you say now? After you had received some blessed light from Christ, did you ever willfully, spitefully, and knowingly stamp or trample the blood of the man Christ Jesus under your feet? And are you resolved to do so forever?

Answer. Oh no! I would not do that willfully, spitefully, and knowingly, not for all the world.

Inquiry. But still I must tell you, now that you remind me of it, that sometimes I surely have most horrible, blasphemous thoughts in me against God, Christ, and the Spirit. May these not be that sin, I wonder?

Answer. Do you delight in them? Are they things you take pleasure in?

Reply. Oh no! I would not do that for a thousand worlds. Oh, I think they sometimes make me tremble to think of them. But what if I should come to delight in them before I am aware of it?

Answer. Beg God for strength against them. And if at any time you find your wicked heart giving way to them in the least (for that is likely enough), and even though you find it may suddenly give way to that hell-bred wickedness that is in it, still do not despair. For Christ has said, “All manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven to the sons of men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man,” that is, against Christ, as someone may do through temptation, as Peter did, yet upon repentance, “it shall be forgiven him” (Matt 12:31-32).

Objection. But I thought it might be committed all of a sudden, either by some blasphemous thought or else by committing some other horrible sin.

Answer. For certain, this sin and the committing of it lie in a knowing, willful, malicious or spiteful, and also final trampling of the blood of sweet Jesus underfoot (Heb 10).

Objection. But it seems rather to be a resisting of the Spirit and its motions than what you say. For, first, its proper title is the sin against the Holy Ghost. And again, it is said that they have “done despite unto the Spirit of grace” (Heb 10:29). So, I say, it seems rather that a resisting of the Spirit and its movings is that sin.

Answer. First, for certain, the sin is committed by those who do as I said before: that is, by a final, knowing, willful, malicious trampling underfoot of the blood of Christ, which was shed on Mount Calvary when Jesus was crucified there. And though it is called the sin against the Spirit, yet, as I said before, not every sin against the Spirit is that sin. For if it were, then every sin against the light and convictions of the Spirit would be unpardonable. But that is plainly untrue, for these reasons.

First, because there are those who have sinned against the movings of the Spirit, and knowingly too, and yet did not commit that sin. Jonah is an example. When God by his Spirit had expressly told him to go to Nineveh, he ran off in quite another direction.

Second, because the very people who have sinned against the movings of the Spirit are still received to mercy if they return. Jonah is a witness of this as well. Though he had sinned against the movings of the Spirit of the Lord by doing the opposite, yet when he called to the Lord, as he himself says, “out of the belly of hell” (Jonah 2:2), the Lord heard him, gave him deliverance, and set him to his work again. Read the whole story of that prophet.

Answer. But, second, I will show you that it must be a willful, knowing, and malicious rejecting of the man Christ Jesus as the Savior. That is, it is counting his blood, his righteousness, and his intercession in his own person to be of no value for salvation (for he who rejects one of these rejects them all). This, I say, I will show you is the unpardonable sin. Then afterward I will show you briefly why it is called the sin against the Holy Ghost.

A Willful and Malicious Rejecting of the Savior

1. The man who rejects, as I have described, the blood, death, righteousness, resurrection, ascension, and intercession of the man Christ rejects that sacrifice, that blood, that righteousness, that victory, that rest, which God alone has appointed for salvation. “Behold the Lamb,” or sacrifice, “of God” (John 1:29). “We have redemption through his blood” (Eph 1:7). That I may “be found in him”: that is, in Christ’s righteousness, with Christ’s own personal obedience to his Father’s will (Phil 3:7-10). By his resurrection comes justification (Rom 4:25). His intercession now, in his own person in the heavens, while he is absent from his saints, is the cause of the saints’ perseverance (Rom 8:33-39).

2. Those who reject this sacrifice and the merits of this Christ, which he by himself has brought in for sinners, have rejected the one through whom alone all the promises of the new testament, together with all the mercy revealed by them, come to poor creatures. “For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen, unto the glory of God” (2 Cor 1:20). And all spiritual blessings are made over to us through him. That is, through and in this man, who is Christ, we have all our spiritual, heavenly, and eternal mercies (Eph 1:3-4).

3. He who knowingly, willfully, and spitefully rejects this Man for salvation sins the unpardonable sin, because there is never another sacrifice to be offered. “There is no more offering for sin … There remaineth no more sacrifice for sin” (Heb 10:18-26), that is, no other than the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, a sacrifice once for all (Heb 10:10, 14, compared with Heb 10:18, 26). No. Those who, after light and clear conviction, reject the first offering of his body for salvation crucify him the second time, which irrecoverably earns them their own damnation. “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come; if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame” (Heb 6:4-6). “If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance.” And why so? Because, says the apostle, they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame.

Oh, then, how miserably the devil has deceived some! He has gotten them to reject the merits of the first offering of the body of Christ, which was for salvation, and has gotten them to trust in a fresh crucifying of Christ, which unavoidably brings their speedy damnation.

4. Those who reject this Man, as I have described, sin the unpardonable sin, because in rejecting him they make way for the justice of God to break out upon them and to deal with them as it finds them. And it will find them, in the first place, sinners against the first covenant, which is the soul-damning covenant. It will also find them despisers of the very life, glory, consolations, pardon, grace, and love that are revealed in the second covenant, since they reject the Mediator and Priest of that covenant, who is the man Jesus. And as for the man who does this, I would like to see how his sins could be pardoned and his soul saved, seeing that the means, which is the Son of man, the Son of Mary, and his merits, are rejected. “For,” he says, “if you believe not that I am he, you shall” (mark it: “you shall,” do what you can; “you shall,” appear where you can; “you shall,” follow Moses’ law or any holiness whatever) “ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:24). So then, I say, the sin that is called the unpardonable sin is a knowing, willful, and spiteful rejecting of the sacrifice of the Son of man, offered the first time for sin.

Why It Is Called the Sin Against the Holy Ghost

And now I will show you why it is called the sin against the Holy Ghost, as in these scriptures (Matt 12; Heb 10; Mark 3).

1. It is called this because they sin against the manifest light of the Spirit. As I said before, it is a sin against the light of the Spirit. That is, they have formerly been enlightened into the nature of the gospel and the merits of the man Christ, his blood, righteousness, intercession, and so on. They have also professed and confessed the same, with some life and comfort in and through their profession of him. Yet now, against all that light, maliciously and with contempt for all their former profession, they turn their backs and trample upon the same.

2. It is called the sin against the Holy Ghost because such a person, so to speak, lays violent hands on the Spirit. He is one who sets himself in opposition to the Spirit and is resolved to resist all the motions that come in from the Spirit to persuade him otherwise. For I truly believe that men in this very rejecting of the Son of God, after some knowledge of him, and especially at their first resisting and refusing of him, have certain motions of the Spirit of God to dissuade them from so great a soul-damning act. But being filled with an overpowering measure of the spirit of the devil, they do despite to these convictions and motions by studying and scheming how they may answer them and get out from under their convincing power. And therefore it is called doing “despite unto the Spirit of grace” (Heb 10:29). And so,

3. It is called this because they reject the pleadings of the Spirit and all its gentle entreaties to the soul to stay still in the same doctrine.

4. It is called this because they reject the very testimony of the prophets and apostles, and of Christ himself. I mean their testimony, through the Spirit, to the power, virtue, sufficiency, and prevailing worth of the blood, sacrifice, death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession of the man Christ Jesus. The Scriptures, both Old and New Testament, are full of this. As the apostle says, all the prophets from Samuel, with those who followed after, have shown of these days, that is, the days in which Christ should be a sacrifice for sin (Acts 3:24, compared with Acts 3:6, 13-15, 18, 26). Again he says, “He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit” (1 Thess 4:8). That is, he rejects or despises the very testimony of the Spirit.

5. It is called the sin against the Holy Ghost because he who rejects and disowns the doctrine of salvation by the man Christ Jesus, through believing in him, despises, resists, and rejects the wisdom of the Spirit. For the wisdom of God’s Spirit never appeared more than in finding out a way for sinners to be reconciled to God by the death of this man. And therefore Christ, as he is a sacrifice, is called the wisdom of God. And again, when the Spirit reveals the Lord Jesus, it is called the “Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (Eph 1:17).

Objection. But some may say: the slighting or rejecting of the Son of man, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Mary, cannot be the sin that is unpardonable. This is clear from that scripture in Matthew 12:32, where he himself says, “Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.” Now by this it is clear that the sin that is unpardonable is one thing, and the sin against the Son of man is another. The sin that is against the Son of man is pardonable. But if that were the sin against the Holy Ghost, it would not be pardonable. Therefore the sin against the Son of man is not the sin against the Holy Ghost, the unpardonable sin.

Answer. 1. I know full well that there are several persons who have been pardoned, and yet have sinned against the Son of man and have for a time rejected him, as Paul did (1 Tim 1:13-14), and also the Jews (Acts 2:36-37). But theirs was an ignorant rejecting of him, without the enlightening, the taste, and the feeling of the power of the things of God mentioned in Hebrews 6:3-6.

2. There is, and has been, a higher manner of sinning against the Son of man which also has been, and still is, pardonable. Such was the case of Peter, who in a violent temptation, in a mighty hurry, suddenly denied him, and that after the Spirit of God had revealed to him from heaven that he, Jesus, was the Son of God (Matt 16:16-18). This also is pardonable, if there is a coming up again to repentance. Oh, rich grace! Oh, wonderful grace! That God should be so full of love to his poor creatures, even though they sin against the Son of God, whether through ignorance or through some sudden, violent charge breaking loose from hell upon them!

But still, take it for certain: a man may slight and reject the Son of God and the Spirit in the manner I hinted at before. That is, a man may have had some great measure of enlightening by the Spirit of God, and may have made some profession that Jesus Christ is the Savior and that his blood, shed on the hill outside the gates of Jerusalem, is the atonement. If, I say, after this he shall knowingly, willfully, and out of malice and spite reject that doctrine, speak against it, and trample it underfoot, resolving to do so forever, and if he continues there, I will pawn my soul on it: he has sinned the unpardonable sin, and shall never be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the world to come. Otherwise, the scriptures that testify to the truth of this must be scratched out and looked upon as mere fables.

These are the scriptures. “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (who is the Son of man, Matt 16:13), “and are again entangled therein, and overcome” (which must be by denying this Lord that bought them, 2 Pet 2:1), “the latter end is worse with them than the beginning” (2 Pet 2:20). “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift … and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come; if they shall fall away” (not only fall, but fall away, that is, finally, Heb 10:29), “it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance.” And the reason is given: “seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God” (who is the Son of man) “afresh, and put him to an open shame” (Heb 6:4-6).

Now if you would know further what it is to crucify the Son of God afresh, it is this: to undervalue and trample underfoot the merits and virtue of his blood for the forgiveness of sins. This is clearly shown in Hebrews 10:26-28, where it is said, “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy … of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God” (there is the second crucifying of Christ, which the Quakers think to be saved by), “and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing,” and then follows, “and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” (Heb 10:29).

All that Paul had to keep him from this sin was his ignorance in persecuting the man and merits of Jesus Christ (Acts 9). “But I obtained mercy,” he says, “because I did it ignorantly” (1 Tim 1:13). And Peter, though he denied him knowingly, yet did it unwillingly, and in a sudden and fearful temptation, and so by the intercession of Jesus escaped that danger. So, I say, those who commit this sin do it after light, knowingly, willfully, and spitefully, and they reject the Son of man as their Lord and Savior in the open view of the whole world. And because of this it is called the sin against the Holy Ghost.

It is a most fitting name for this sin to be called the sin against the Holy Ghost, for the reasons I have just now laid down. For this sin is committed directly against the motions, convictions, and light of that Holy Spirit of God whose business it is to hold out and make plain the truth and reality of the merits and virtues of the Lord Jesus, the Son of man.

And therefore beware, Ranters and Quakers! For I am sure that of all the people I know at this day under the whole heavens, you come nearest to that sin by your profession, which is indeed the true committing of it. For you will not venture the salvation of your souls on the blood shed on Mount Calvary, out of the side of that man who was offered up in sacrifice (Luke 23:33) for all who believed in that offering up of his body at that time: whether they believed before he offered it, or have believed, do believe, or shall believe on it in the time since, together with the time when he offered it. And this is so even though you formerly professed that salvation was worked out that way, by that sacrifice then offered, and also seemed to have some comfort from it. Yes, some of you even declared the same in the hearing of many, professing yourselves to be believers in it.

Oh, therefore, it is sad for you who were once enlightened like this and have tasted these good things, and yet, notwithstanding all your profession, are now turned from the simplicity that is in Christ to another doctrine. It will be your destruction if you continue in it, for without blood there is no forgiveness (Heb 9:22).

Many other reasons might be given, but I would not be too tedious. Yet I would put in this caution. If there are any souls who are even now willing to venture their salvation upon the merits of a naked Jesus, I truly believe for the present that they have not sinned that sin. For there is still a promise that holds itself out to such a soul, where Christ says, “Him that cometh to me, I will in nowise” (for nothing that he has done) “cast him out” (John 6:37). That promise is worthy to be written in letters of gold.

Objection. But alas, even if I never commit that sin, I still have other sins enough to damn me.

Answer. What if you had the sins of a thousand sinners? Even so, if you come to Christ, he will save you (John 6:37). See also Hebrews 7:25.

Objection. Alas, but how should I come? I fear I do not come as I should. My heart is wicked and dead; and alas, how then should I come?

Answer. Why, call to mind all the sins you ever committed, and lay the weight of them all on your heart until you are weighed down with them. Come to him in such a condition as this, and he will give you rest for your soul (Matt 11:28-30). And again, if you want to know how you should come, come undervaluing yourself as much as you possibly can, saying, “Lord, here is a sinner, the basest in all the country. If I had what I deserve, I would have been damned in hell-fire long ago. Lord, I am not worthy to have the least corner in the kingdom of heaven; and yet, oh, that you would have mercy!” Come like Ben-hadad’s servants to the king of Israel, with a rope about your neck (1 Kgs 20:31-32). Fling yourself down at Christ’s feet and lie there a while, striving with him by your prayers, and I promise you that you will succeed (Matt 11:28-30; John 6:37).

Objection. Oh, but I am not sanctified.

Answer. He will sanctify you, and he will be made your sanctification as well (1 Cor 1:30; 1 Cor 6:10-11).

Objection. Oh, but I cannot pray.

Answer. To pray is not merely to get down on your knees and say over a great many Scripture words. You may do that and still do nothing but babble. But if, from a sense of your own baseness, you can groan out your heart’s desire before the Lord, he will hear you and grant your desire; for he can tell what the groanings of the Spirit mean (Rom 8:26-27).

Objection. Oh, but I am afraid to pray, for fear that my prayers will be counted as sin in the sight of the great God.

Answer. That is a good sign that your prayers are more than bare words, and that they have some power at the throne of grace through Christ Jesus. Otherwise the devil would never work so hard to beat you off from prayer by belittling your prayers and telling you they are sin. For the best prayers he will call the worst, and the worst he will call the best; otherwise how could he be a liar?

Objection. But I am afraid the day of grace is past. And if it is, what should I do then?

Answer. Truly, it does go this way with some people: the day of grace comes to an end before their lives come to an end. Or to put it another way, the day of grace is past before the day of death has come. As Christ says, “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace” (that is, the word of grace or reconciliation), “but now they are hid from thine eyes” (Luke 19:41-42). But to satisfy you better on this matter, consider the following things.

First, does the Lord still knock at the door of your heart by his word and Spirit? If so, then the day of grace is not past with your soul. For where he knocks in this way, he also offers and promises to come in and sup, that is, to share his things with them; and he would not do that if the day of grace were past with that soul (Rev 3:20).

Objection. But how can I know whether Christ is knocking at my heart in such a way that he desires to come in? I ask so that I may also know whether the day of grace is past with me or not.

Answer. Consider these things.

1. Does the Lord make you aware of your miserable state while you have no share in Jesus Christ? Does he show you that by nature you have no part in him, no faith in him, no communion with him, no delight in him, and not the least love for him? If he has done this and is doing it, then he has knocked and is knocking at your heart.

2. Together with this, does he put into your heart an earnest desire for communion with him, along with holy resolutions not to be satisfied without real communion with him?

3. Does he sometimes give you some secret persuasions, though scarcely perceptible, that you may yet attain to him and gain a share in him?

4. Does he now and then flash some of the promises into your heart, so that they leave some heavenly savor on your spirit, though only for a very short time?

5. Do you at times see some little excellence in Christ?

And does all this stir up in your heart some longings after him? If so, then do not fear; the day of grace is not past with your poor soul. For if the day of grace were past with such a soul as this, then that scripture would have to be broken where Christ says, “Him that cometh to me, I will in nowise” (for nothing, by no means, on no terms whatsoever) “cast out” (John 6:37).

Objection. But surely, if the day of grace were not past with me, I would not go so long without an answer of God’s love to my soul. What makes me mistrust my state all the more is that I wait and wait, and still I am not delivered.

Answer. 1. Have you waited on the Lord as long as the Lord has waited on you? It may be that the Lord has waited on you these twenty or thirty, yes, forty years or more, and you have not waited on him seven years. So keep this in mind when Satan tells you that God does not love you because you have waited so long without assurance. It is his temptation. For God waited longer on you, and had to send to you by his ambassadors time after time. Therefore say, “I will wait to see what the Lord will say to me,” and all the more because he will speak peace, for he is the Lord of peace.

2. But know this: being in trouble a long time is not argument enough to prove that you are past hope. No, quite the contrary. For Jesus Christ took our nature upon him, and he also undertook deliverance, and brought it in, for those who “were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb 2:14-15).

Objection. But alas, I am not able to wait. All my strength is gone. I have waited so long that I can wait no longer.

Answer. 1. It may be that you came to this conclusion long ago, thinking you would not be able to hold out any longer, no, not a year, a month, or a week; no, perhaps not even that long. It may be that in the morning you thought you would not hold out until night, and at night, not until morning again. Yet the Lord has upheld you and kept you waiting on him for many weeks and years. So that is nothing but the devil’s temptation to make you think so. He wants to drive you to despair of God’s mercy, and so to give up following the ways of God and to close in with your sins again. Oh, therefore, do not give way to it, but believe that you will “see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord” (Ps 27:13-14).

And so that you may do this, consider these things.

(1) If, after waiting this long, you should now give up and wait no longer, you would lose all the time and effort you have spent in the way of God until now. You would be like a man who sought long for gold and did not find it, and therefore turned back from seeking it, though he was right beside it and had almost found it; and all because he was unwilling to look and seek a little further.

(2) You will lose not only your time but also your own soul, for salvation is nowhere else but in Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12).

(3) In finally drawing back, you will commit the highest sin you ever committed, so much so that God may say, “My soul shall have no pleasure in him” (Heb 10:38).

2. But consider this. You say, “All my strength is gone, so how should I wait?” Why, at the very time when you feel and find your strength quite gone, that is the time when the Lord will renew your strength and give you fresh strength. “The youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint” (Isa 40:30-31).

Objection. But even if I do wait, if I am not elected to eternal life, what good will all my waiting do me? “For it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy” (Rom 9:16). Therefore, I say, if I am not elected, it is all in vain.

Answer. 1. Why, in the first place, you may be sure that your backsliding from God will not prove your election, and neither will your growing weary of waiting on God.

2. Perhaps you are troubled to know whether you are elected, and you say, “If only I knew that, it would encourage me in my waiting on God.” I answer: I believe you. But mark this: you will not know your election first, but second. That is to say, you must first get acquainted with God in Christ, and this comes by your giving credit to his promises and to the records he has given of Jesus Christ’s blood and righteousness, together with the rest of his merits. In other words, before you can know whether you are elected, you must believe in Jesus Christ so really that your faith lays hold of the flesh and blood of Christ, and eats and drinks it, so that life is begotten in your soul by it: life from the condemnation of the law; life from the guilt of sin; life over the filth of sin; life also to walk with God in his Son and in his ways; the life of love to God the Father and to Jesus Christ his Son, and to his saints and ways, and that because they are holy, harmless, and altogether contrary to iniquity.

For these things must be in your soul as a forerunner of your being made acquainted with the other, your election. God has these two ways of showing his children their election.

(1) By the testimony of the Spirit. That is, when the soul is under trouble of conscience and grieved for sin, the Spirit seals up the soul by its comforting testimony. It persuades the soul that God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven all those sins that lie so heavy on the conscience and so greatly perplex the soul. It does this by showing the soul that the law which utters such horrible curses against it has been satisfied and fulfilled by Christ’s blood (Eph 1:13-14).

(2) By consequence. That is, the soul finds that God has been good to it, in that he has shown it its lost state and miserable condition, and has also given it some comforting hope that he will save it from that condition. I say, the soul, seeing this rightly, does or may draw this conclusion: if God had not been minded to save it, he would not have done such things as these for it.

But to deal more surely with your soul, it is not good to take either of these apart from the other. That is, it is not good to take the testimony of the Spirit, which you suppose you have, apart from its fruits, so as to conclude that the testimony you have received is sufficient ground without the other. Not that it is not sufficient, if it is the testimony of the Spirit; but the devil also deceives souls by the workings of his spirit in them, pretending that it is the Spirit of God. And again, you should not satisfy yourself, even though you do find some seekings in you after what is good, without the testimony of the other, that is, of the Spirit; for it is the testimony of two that is to be taken for truth. Therefore, I say, just as you should be much in prayer for the Spirit to testify assurance to you, so you should also look to its end when you think you have it. That end is this: to show you that your sins are forgiven you for Christ’s sake alone, and also by this to constrain you to advance him, both by words and works, in holiness and righteousness all the days of your life.

From this you may boldly conclude your election. “Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father” (1 Thess 1:3). “Knowing, brethren,” says the apostle, “beloved, your election of God.” But how? Why, by this: “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost: so that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which” has “delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess 1:4-6, 10).

Objection. But alas, for my part, instead of finding anything good in me, I find all kinds of wickedness in me: hardheartedness, hypocrisy, coldness of affection toward Christ, very great unbelief, together with everything that is base and foul. What hope, then, can I have?

Answer. If you were not such a person, you would have no need of mercy. If you were whole, you would have no need of the physician. Do you see yourself in such a sad condition as this, then? You have all the more need to come to Christ, so that you may not only be cleansed from these evils, but also be delivered from the wrath they will bring on you to all eternity if you do not get rid of them.

Question. But what should I do? What course should I take to be delivered from this sad and troublesome condition?

Answer. Do you see all kinds of wickedness in yourself? The best direction I can give a soul in such a case is to fix a steadfast eye on him who is full, and to look on him so steadfastly by faith that you may even draw down some of his fullness into your heart. For that is the right way. It is the way that was pictured beforehand, before Christ came in the flesh, in the time of Moses, when the Lord said to him, “Make thee a fiery serpent” of brass (which was a type of Christ), “and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass” that when a serpent has bitten any man, “when he looketh upon it, shall live” (Num 21:8). Even so now, in gospel times, when any soul is bitten by the fiery serpents, its sins, the nearest way to be healed is for the soul to look on the Son of Man. He, like the serpent, was hanged on a pole, or tree, so that whoever does indeed look on him by faith may be healed of all their diseases whatsoever (John 3:14-15).

To give some examples:

1. Is your heart hard? Why, then, see how full of tender mercy and compassion the heart of Christ is toward you. This may be seen in his coming down from heaven to spill his heart’s blood for you.

2. Is your heart slothful and idle? Then see how active the Lord Jesus is for you, in that he not only died for you, but has also been making intercession for you ever since his ascension into heaven (Heb 7:25).

3. Do you see and find iniquity and unrighteousness in yourself? Then look up to heaven and see a righteous person there, your own righteous Jesus Christ, now presenting you in his own perfections before the throne of his Father’s glory (1 Cor 1:30).

4. Do you see that you are very much lacking in right sanctification? Then look up, and you will see that your sanctification is a complete sanctification in the presence of God, representing all the saints as righteous, as sanctified ones, in the presence of the great God of heaven.

And so, whatever you lack, be sure to strive to fix your faith on the Son of God and behold him steadfastly, and by doing so you will find a mighty change in your soul. For when we behold him as in a mirror, even the glory of the Lord, we are changed, namely, by beholding, “from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor 3:18). This is the true way to bring both comfort to your soul and also sanctification and right holiness into your soul.

Poor souls who are under the disease of a guilty conscience, and under the workings of much corruption, do not take the nearest way to heaven if they do not, first of all, look on themselves as cursed sinners by the law; and yet at that very time they are blessed, forever blessed saints by the merits of Jesus Christ. “O wretched man that I am,” says Paul; and yet, O blessed man that I am, through my Lord Jesus Christ! For that is the scope of the Scripture (Rom 7:24-25).

Objection. But alas, I am blind and cannot see. What shall I do now?

Answer. Why, truly, you must go by prayer to him who can make blind eyes see, even to our Lord Jesus, saying as the poor blind man did, “Lord, that I might receive my sight” (Mark 10:51). And keep on begging him until you do receive sight, even a sight of Jesus Christ, his death, blood, resurrection, ascension, and intercession, and that for you, even for you. And do this all the more because:

1. He has invited you to come and buy from him such eye salve as may make you see (Rev 3:18).

2. You will never have any true comfort until you come in this way to see and behold the Lamb of God who has taken away your sins (John 1:29).

3. By this you will be able, through grace, to step over and turn aside from the various stumbling blocks that Satan, together with his instruments, has laid in our way. Otherwise you will not be able to avoid them, but will certainly fall when others stand, and grope and stumble when others walk upright, to the great harm of your poor soul.

Objection. But alas, I have nothing to bring with me. How then should I go?

Answer. Have you no sins? If you have, bring them, and exchange them for his righteousness; because he has said, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee” (Ps 55:22); and again, because he has said that though you are heavy laden, yet if you only come to him, he will give you rest (Matt 11:28).

Objection. But, you will say, Satan tells me that I am so cold in prayer, so weak in believing, so great a sinner, that I go on so slothfully in the way of God, and that I am so apt to slip at every temptation and to be entangled by it, along with other things, that I will never be able to attain those blessed things that are held out to sinners by Jesus Christ. So my trouble is great on this account also, and many times I fear that what Satan suggests to me will come upon me, that is, that I will miss eternal life.

Answer. 1. As to the latter part of the objection, that you will never attain everlasting life: that has already been obtained for you, without your doing anything, whether praying, striving, or wrestling against sin. Properly speaking, it is Christ who has abolished death in his own body on the cross, and has brought light, life, and glory to us by doing this. But what you are aiming at is this: that you will never have a share in this life, already obtained for as many as come by faith to Jesus Christ; and all because you are so slothful, so cold, so weak, so great a sinner, so prone to slip and commit infirmities.

2. I answer: did you never learn to outshoot the devil with his own bow, and to cut off his head with his own sword, as David served Goliath, who was a type of him?

Question. Oh, how should a poor soul do this? This is rare indeed.

Answer. Why, truly, like this. Does Satan tell you that you pray only faintly, and with very cold devotion? Answer him this way, and say, “I am glad you told me, for this will make me trust the more to Christ’s prayers and the less to my own. Also, from now on I will try to groan, to sigh, and to be so fervent in my crying at the throne of grace that, if I can, I will make the heavens rattle again with my mighty groans. And since you say that I am so weak in believing, I am glad you remind me of it. I hope from now on it will stir me up to cry more heartily to God for strong faith, and make me the more restless until I have it. And since you tell me that I run so slowly, and that I am likely to miss out on glory, this also shall be, through grace, to my advantage. It will make me press the more earnestly toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

“And since you tell me that my sins are wondrously great, you bring into my mind the unbearable vengeance of God if I die outside of Jesus Christ, and also the necessity of the blood, death, and merits of Christ to help me. I hope it will make me fly the faster and press the harder after a share in him; and all the more because, as you tell me, my state will be unspeakably miserable without him.”

And so all along: if he tells you of your deadness, dullness, coldness, or unbelief, or of the greatness of your sins, answer him and say, “I am glad you told me. I hope it will be a means to make me run faster, seek more earnestly, and be the more restless after Jesus Christ.” If you could only learn this art, to outrun him in his own shoes, as I may say, and to make his own darts pierce himself, then you might also say, “How Satan’s temptations, as well as all other things, work together for my good, for my advantage!” (Rom 8:28).

Objection. But I find so many weaknesses in every duty I perform, as when I pray, when I read, when I hear, or in any other duty, that it makes me dissatisfied with myself. It makes me think that my duties are worth nothing.

Answer. I answer, it may be your mercy that you are aware of infirmities in the best things you do; yes, a greater mercy than you realize.

Question. Can it be a mercy for me to be troubled with my corruptions? Can it be a privilege for me to be plagued with infirmities, and to have my best duties infected with them? How can that possibly be?

Answer. Truly, your sins, appearing in your best duties, work for your advantage in these ways:

1. In that you find ground enough in them to make you humble, and, when you have done all, still to count yourself only an unprofitable servant.

2. And by this means you are taken off from leaning on anything less than a naked Jesus for eternal life. It is likely that if you were not aware of many stray thoughts and wickednesses in your best performances, you would come close to being some proud, abominable hypocrite, or at best a pitiful, proud, deceitful wretch, such a one as would send your soul to the devil in a bundle of your own righteousness.

But now, through grace, you see that in each and every thing you do there is sin enough to condemn you. This, in the first place, makes you careful not to trust in your own doings. Second, it shows you that there is nothing in yourself that will do you any good by working in you, as far as the meritorious cause of your salvation is concerned. No; you must have a share in the birth of Jesus, in the death of Jesus, in the blood, resurrection, ascension, and intercession of a crucified Jesus. And what do you say? Does not your finding this in yourself make you fly from depending on your own doings? And does it not also make you groan more earnestly after the Lord Jesus?

Yes, and let me tell you also, it will be a cause to make you wonder at the freeness and tenderheartedness of Christ toward you when he lifts up the light of his countenance upon you, because he has regarded such a one as you, sinful you. And therefore, in this sense, it will be a mercy to the saints that they still find the remnants of sin struggling in their hearts. But this is not owing to the nature of sin itself, but to the mercy and wisdom of God, who causes all things to work together for the good of those who love and fear God (Rom 8). And therefore, whatever you find in your soul, though it is sin of the blackest, most soul-scaring kind, let it move you to run the faster to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall not be ashamed: that is, ashamed of your running to him.

But when you perceive that you are defiled, and that your best duties too are beset with many weaknesses, let that scripture come into your thoughts which says, “Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30). If you understand that, then what you cannot find in yourself you will find in Christ. Are you a fool in yourself? Then Christ is made of God your wisdom. Are you unrighteous in yourself? Christ is made of God your righteousness. Do you find that there is only very little sanctifying grace in your soul? Still, here is Christ made your sanctification. And all this is in his own person, apart from you, apart from your wisdom, apart from your righteousness, apart from your sanctification. He is outside you, in his own person, in your Father’s presence, appearing there as perfect wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification in his own person; I say, as a public person for you.

So you may believe, and say to your soul, “My soul, though you find innumerable infirmities in yourself and in your actions, yet look upon your Jesus, the man Jesus. He is wisdom, and that for you: to govern you, to take care of you, and to order all things for the best for you. He is also your righteousness, now at God’s right hand, always shining before the eyes of his glory. There it cannot be moved. However sad your condition may be, your righteousness, which is the Son of God, God-man, shines as bright as ever, and is as much accepted by God as ever. Oh, this has at times been life to me! And so, whatever you, O my soul, find wanting in yourself, through faith you will see it all laid up for you in Jesus Christ, whether it is wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, or redemption. No, not only that, but, as I said before, he is all these in his own person, apart from you, in the presence of his Father for you.”

Objection. But now, suppose someone should say in their heart, “Oh, but I am one of the old-covenant men, I fear; that is, I fear I am not within this glorious covenant of grace. And what if I am not?”

Answer. Well, you fear that you are one of the old covenant, a son of the bondwoman.

1. Know, to begin with, that you were one of them by nature, for all by nature are under that covenant. But suppose that you are under it to this very day; even so, let me tell you, in the first place, that there is hope for you. For there is a gap open, a way made by Christ for souls to come out from under the covenant of works, “for he hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us” and you (Eph 2:14). And therefore, if you want to be saved, you may come to Christ. If you lack a righteousness, as I said before, there is one in Christ. If you want to be washed, you may come to Christ. And if you want to be justified, there is justification enough in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the first thing.

2. And you cannot be as willing to come to Christ as he is willing that you should come to him. Witness his coming down from heaven; his humiliation; his spilling of his blood from both his cheeks, by sweat, under the burden of sin (Luke 22:44); and his shedding of it by the spear when he hung on the cross. It appears also by his promises, by his invitations, and by his sending out his messengers to preach the same to poor sinners. He threatens damnation on this very account, namely, the neglect of him. He declares that all the thousands and ten thousands of sins in the world should not be able to damn those who believed in him; that he would pardon all, forgive and pass by all, if they would only come to him. Moreover, he promises to cast out none, no, not the poorest, vilest, most contemptible creature in the whole world.

“Come unto me all” (Matt 11:28), every one of you, though you are ever so many, ever so vile, though your load is ever so heavy and unbearable, though you deserve no help, not the least help, no mercy, not the least compassion; yet cast your burden upon me, and you shall find rest for your souls. Come to me, and I will heal you, love you, teach you, and tell you the way to the kingdom of heaven. Come to me, and I will succor you, help you, and keep you from all devils and their temptations, from the law and its curses, and from being overcome forever by any evil whatever. Come to me for what you need, and tell me what you would have, or what you would have me do for you, and all my strength, love, wisdom, and the influence I have with my Father shall be spent for you. Come to me, your sweet Jesus, your loving and tenderhearted Jesus, your everlasting and sin-pardoning Jesus. Come to me, and I will wash you, put my righteousness upon you, pray to my Father for you, and send my Spirit into you, so that you may be saved.

Therefore, consider besides this what a privilege you will have above thousands at the day of judgment, if you do in deed and in truth take hold of this Jesus and accept him. For you will have a privilege not only in this life but in the life everlasting, even at the time of Christ’s second coming from heaven. For then the whole world will be gathered together, with all the good angels, bad angels, saints, and reprobates. All your friends and relatives, with your neighbors on the right hand and on the left, will be with you, beholding the wonderful glory and majesty of the Son of God. Then the Son of glory, even Jesus, in the very view and sight of them all, will smile and look kindly upon you. When a smile or a kind look from Christ will be worth more than ten thousand worlds, then you will have it.

You know it is counted an honor for a poor man to be looked on with favor by a judge or a king in the sight of lords, earls, dukes, and princes. Why, so it will be with you in the sight of all the princely saints, angels, and devils, in the sight of all the great nobles in the world. Then, you who take hold of Christ, whether you are rich or poor, bond or free, wise or foolish, if you take hold of him, he will say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt 25:21), even in the midst of the whole world. Those who love you will see it, and those who hate you will all behold it to their shame. For if you fear him here in secret, he will make it known even at that day upon the housetop.

Second, not only this, but you will also be lovingly received and tenderly embraced by him on that day. Christ will then have thousands of gallant saints attending on him, such as old Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, together with all the prophets, apostles, and martyrs, along with many thousands of glittering angels ministering before him. Besides, the ungodly will appear there with their pale faces, their guilty consciences, and their trembling souls, who would then give thousands and ten thousands of worlds, if they had so many, if they could enjoy just one loving look from Christ.

I say, then, then you will have the hand of Christ reached out to you, kindly to receive you, and he will say, “Come, you blessed one, step up here. You were willing to leave all for me, and now I will give all to you. Here is a throne, a crown, a kingdom; take them. You were not ashamed of me when you were in the world among my enemies, and now I will not be ashamed of you before your enemies, but will, in the view of all these devils and damned reprobates, promote you to honor and dignity. ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’ (Matt 25:34). You will see that those who have served me in truth lose nothing by it. No; you will be as pillars in my temple, and inheritors of my glory, and will have a place to walk in among my saints and angels” (Zech 3:7).

Oh, who would not be in this condition? Who would not be in this glory? It will be such a soul-ravishing glory that I am ready to think the whole reprobate world will be ready to run mad at the thought that they should miss it (Deut 28:34). Then the vilest drunkard, swearer, liar, and unclean person will gladly cry, “Lord, Lord, open to us” (Matt 25:11), yet be denied entrance. And you, in the meantime, will be embraced, entertained, made welcome, have a fair miter set upon your head, and be clothed with immortal glory (Zech 3:5).

Oh, therefore, let all this move you, and let it weigh upon your soul, to take hold of Jesus, this tenderhearted Jesus. And if, for all I have said, your sins still stick to you, and you find your hellish heart unwilling to let them go, think to yourself in this way: “Shall I have my sins and lose my soul? Will they do me any good when Christ comes? Would not heaven be better for me than my sins? And would not the company of God, Christ, saints, and angels be better than the company of Cain, Judas, and Balaam, with the devils in the furnace of fire?”

Can you, now, who read or hear these lines, turn your back and go on in your sins? Can you think so lightly of heaven, of God, of Christ, and of the salvation of your poor yet precious soul? Can you hear of Christ, his bloody sweat and death, and not be taken with it, and not be grieved for it, and not also be converted by it? If so, I might lay down for you several considerations to stir you up to mend your pace toward heaven; but I will not. There is enough written already to leave your soul without excuse, and to bring you down with a vengeance into hell-fire, devouring fire, the lake of fire, eternal, everlasting fire; oh, to make you swim and roll up and down in the flames of the furnace of fire!