CHAPTER IV: Use and subservience of conviction of sin, and humiliation for it, to induce the soul
contrary in like manner. And this principle the apostle's discourse in this chapter clearly runs upon.
CHAPTER IV
The use and subservience of conviction of sin, and humiliation for it, to induce the soul to believe on Jesus Christ for salvation.
I shall now give you an account of conviction of sin and humiliation, not in the general only, but of every particular mentioned, to let you see the reason, the use they serve to, viz., to advance God himself as man's chiefest good, and to set up Christ and his righteousness, and his own free grace in justifying, sanctifying, and in all.
First, That the soul should be wounded with sin as sin, and as in itself the greatest misery, to what a blessed end tends it!
1. By this work of humiliation, the heart is for ever weaned from the comfort that is in sin, or in any creature, so as never to be quiet till it meets with God, the God of comforts. For if this apprehension, that sin is the greatest evil, season but a man's spirit once, it sours all pleasant things with him, they have lost their taste for ever; and nothing can be so good to him as sin is evil, but only God; for nothing is so good as sin is evil, but only he. And then a man will take God and his favour for a comfort alone; all he can ever look for, or hope to find, it must be in him, his comfort in sin and all things else is everlastingly spoiled and marred; so Hosea 2:14. When God would allure and win his church's heart to him, what doth he? He 'brings her into the wilderness,' into a barrenness of all comforts, and then
'speaks comfortably to her.' A man convinced of sin and lost state is like a man condemned to die, the pleasure which may be had in the
green pasture he goes through to execution, affects him not, so nor can this man take content in anything, till he hath the favour of that God he hath offended. God only can speak comfort to such a soul, and nothing else.
And 2dly, Hereby it is made restless after Christ and his righteousness, as the means of bringing him into favour with God. If it were wrath, or trouble of conscience thereby, were all his grief, ease would content him; but it being sin, nothing but Christ and his righteousness will do it. As the hart wounded rests not till it comes to such an herb as cures it, so nor he that is wounded can take delight in anything till he spies Christ out, and sighs and pants incessantly after him.
2. For a man to see himself an unbeliever, and without faith, without Christ, it is also exceedingly necessary, John 16:10.
(1.) Because it tends to bring in the guilt of all his sins upon him, to serve the inquest against him; for when the conscience is charged with oaths, adulteries, &c., it pleads a presumptuous sinner's pretensions of a believer—I am in Christ, and I believe—and so sin cannot fasten on him, but he puts it off and slights it, and walks outfacing it and all its bills; but when he is convinced of unbelief, which is the protector of all sin, then every commandment may bring out its bill and be heard, and serve a writ upon him. Convince him of this, and you will convince him of all.
(2.) Because they may be convinced what is the main thing necessary, and the first thing they are to do, the next course they are to take; for if men should not be convinced of unbelief as the great sin of all the rest, they would not be pitched upon faith as the only and full remedy of their evil. Hereby they see the necessity of faith, the stead it must stand them in; and their aim will be to get it.
And (3dly) hereby, and for want of faith, seeing themselves out of Christ, they will be pitched upon what is the especial aim of faith,
union with him, as the foundation of all good they must receive from him. Many being humbled for want of duties, pitch upon performing them, and so are eased; but when unbelief is the main sin, and want of union with Christ the greatest misery, then union with him is the first aim of faith, and the soul is convinced that it must have his person, as Paul, Philip. 3, 'that I may win Christ,' and then have righteousness and all else. I must believe, and I must have Christ, or nothing is accepted, says the soul. Then,
(4.) By seeing a man's self to have been an ungodly person, and to have done no good, and by seeing the inwards of actions, and the carriage of the heart in them, the soul is convinced that this is true, that no good thing dwells in a man; and this moves the soul to go to Christ both for justification and sanctification, and without it a man is in danger to err in both.
For [1.] if he sees not that there is no good in him, he will certainly trust in himself, and not go wholly to Christ for righteousness; if it hath any of its own, it will trust partly in Christ, and partly in itself; and, like the ship in the Acts, be part aground, and part in the water, and so be broken a-pieces when the waves of temptation come. Go to the first working of faith, God will have a man apprehend himself an ungodly person: Rom. 4:5, 'To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.' And after faith wrought, though a man sees some good wrought in him, yet it hinders not his attributing all to Christ in justification. Yet in the first working of faith, it is clean otherwise upon a different reason: for that good which is wrought after faith, is wrought by faith, that fetched all from Christ. And so sanctification, being but borrowed by faith, hinders not faith; the daughter hinders not the mother. But if a man should see any good before, it being not wrought by faith, nor fetched from Christ, the heart would rest in it, and oppose the work of faith and going out to Christ. It being from a man's self, a man would rest in it, and not seek abroad for righteousness, whilst he hath any at home. As any one sin preserves the power of sin in the heart, though a man parts with all other, so
any good, or unrighteousness ungiven up, preserves self-confidence, and hinders justification, as the other doth sanctification. There is no remedy therefore, but that all our supposed good be discovered to be naught and rotten; that every burrow be stopped, ere these poor helpless creatures will go to the rock.
[2.] The want of such conviction will hinder sanctification; for it would not renew the man throughout, but piece new grace to old, false grace to true, and make the rent worse; for he would rest in some false good. Christ will have 'all old things pass away, and all to become new;' every stud pulled down, and nothing in the new building that was in the old. Yea, it hinders Christ from working it.
He will shew his skill in drawing his image upon a plain board, and so wipes out all afore. Bring to a curious painter, that would shew his skill, a board with a picture falsely drawn, and he will not go about to mend it; he can make no work of it, but he will take his pencil and dash all out, and shew his art in a new one; and so doth Christ. Bring a bell to a founder that hath a crack in it, and he will not go about to solder that up, and so let it go, but dash all in pieces and melt and cast it anew; and so doth Christ with those who have the seeming east of goodness, and that by letting us see the falseness of it; for that is his end in breaking and melting the heart, to cause us to apprehend all is naught.
[3.] A man's sight and sense of his utter sinfulness, both in his life, heart and nature, the multitude of sins, and the strength of sin, is necessary.
First, Because, though God pardons, he will have us know what he pardons; as he, Mat. 18:23, though he meant to pardon his servants, yet would take account of them, that pardon might be the more sweet to them. When a man's soul draweth near to the grave, then for God to say, 'Deliver him, I have found a ransom,' Job 33, how welcome is it!
Secondly, A sight of sin is needful, to constrain us to make use of Christ's righteousness, and every part of it, to search thoroughly into it, and every parcel of it, and to see the necessity of all the holiness of his nature, life, &c., that nothing could be spared. Men that are confusedly convinced that they are sinners, their faith is answerably as confused; they believe in Christ as a Saviour, and that is all; but their faith improves not his righteousness to the uttermost, nor do they search into the riches of Christ's active and passive obedience, and the holiness of his nature, as necessary to obtain their acceptance with God.
Thirdly, It is necessary that we may not rest in a false sanctification.
Men that see but the corruption of their outward actions, content themselves with an outward reformation. But men that see their lusts, rest not till they be mortified; they bend their force against them. A convinced soul sees his nature corrupted, and the spring of all defiled, he will not rest till he hath a new nature; as the power of corruption he sees lies there, so the power of godliness, he will see, lies in cleansing that fountain. Paul seeing a law of death in his members, rests not till the law of life in Christ condemns it.
Fourthly, A conviction of our sinfulness is needful, that we may see an utter helplessness and hopelessness in ourselves for time to come.
The heart is ready to account it can do something for time to come, though it can do nothing rightly; yea, when it is stripped of selfrighteousness for time past, yet not self-ability for time to come; but now it thinks and casts with itself, I will go fast, and go pray, and go meditate on Christ and a promise, and I will get him ere I have done; which resolutions are good, when in sense of a man's own emptiness they are stirred up and maintained by a dependance upon God, to work faith; but the heart naturally secretly projects this out of itself, as they in James 4:13, and not, 'if God enable me,' &c. They reckon without him; and in hopes of this the heart rests, and thinks in the end to get faith to come. Among other steps and degrees of our misery, this is made one, that a man is not only 'ungodly, but without strength,' Rom. 5:6. A man that hath no money in his purse, yet
whilst he hath hands to work, he makes no such reckoning of want; and so men, when they see they want all good for the time past, yet they hope to work it out; they have hands left, and with them they fall to work; but when a man shall see hands cut off too, and nothing but stumps left, which are as unfit and unable to lay hold on Christ, as a man's arm without hands is upon a rope to save him; and God must not only find him Christ, but his grace must give him hands to lay hold on him also: that the apprehension of this serves both to drive him out of himself, and to magnify God's free grace in working faith. For if any pretended power in himself were able to help him, he would never go out of himself to Christ, nor would he attribute all wholly unto grace, which is that God intends to have exalted; Eph.
2:8, 'You are saved by grace, through faith.' Might some think, we shall acknowledge grace enough, if we acknowledge that grace pardons all, and effects all, though faith be of our own working: 'No (says the apostle), 'and that not of yourselves,' not so much as faith,
'it is the gift of God.' And so Paul, to magnify Christ's grace, he says Christ died not only for men, and ungodly persons, but also for persons 'without strength,' Rom. 5. This you must apprehend and find, and then grace will be grace indeed, and nothing but grace; and then when you despair of yourselves, you will rejoice wholly in Christ. What says Paul, Phil 3? 'We have no confidence in the flesh,' but despair utterly of all in us, and 'rejoice in Christ Jesus,' acknowledging that he is all, and doth all. God cures one contrary by another; self-confidence cannot be cured but by despair. God glorifies not, till the body be dead and rotten in the grave; and he sanctifies not till the heart be dead to itself, and unable to stir, to move no more to Christ than the earth can towards heaven. If the sun come nigh it, well and good, but it cannot move nigher to it. Or as Luther compares it, the barren earth may gape for rain, but it cannot procure it, till heaven pour it freely down into her lap. And so he calls this righteousness of faith a passive righteousness, and faith a mere receiving grace.