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left thee the sweet: the condemnation is out Christ drank up all the Father’s wrath at one draught, and nothing but salvation is left for thee. Thou sayest thou canst not believe, thou canst not repent. Fitter for Christ if thou hast nothing but sin and misery. Go to Christ with all thy impenitence and unbelief, to get faith and repentance from him———that is glorious. Say unto him Lord, I have brought no righteousness or grace to be accepted in or justified by; I am come for thine. We would be bringing to Christ, which must not be; grace will not stand with works, Tit. iii. 5; Rom. xi. 6. Self-righteousness and self-sufficiency are the darlings of nature, which she preserves as her life; that makes Christ obnoxious to nature; nature cannot desire him; he is just directly opposite to all nature’s glorious interests. Let nature make a gospel, and it would make it contrary to Christ. It would be to the just, the innocent, the holy, &c. Christ made the gospel for thee, that is, for needy sinners, the ungodly, the unrighteous, the accursed. Nature cannot endure to think the gospel is only for sinners; it will rather' choose to despair than go to Christ upon such terrible terms. When nature is opposed to guilt or wrath, it will go to its own haunts of self-righteousness, self-goodness, &c. An infinite power must cast down those strong holds. None but the self-justiciary stands excluded out of the gospel. Christ will look at the most abominable sinner before him, because to such a one Christ cannot be made justification———he is no sinner. To say in compliment, I am a sinner, is easy; but to pray with the publican indeed, Lord be merciful to me a sinner, is the hardest prayer in the world. It is easy to profess Christ with the mouth, but to confess him with the heart, as
