"Every step." Then we must first make our body and soul an offering for the sin of others; for this did he before he came thither.
"Every step." Then we must go to heaven for the sake of our own righteousness; for that was one of his steps thither.
O, sir, what will thy gallant, generous mind do here? Indeed, you talk of his being an expiatory sacrifice for us, but you put no more trust to that than to baptism or the Lord's supper; counting that with the other two but things indifferent in themselves.
You add again, that "this Son of God being raised from the dead and ascended to heaven, is our high-priest there." But you talk not at all of his sprinkling the mercy-seat with his blood, but clap upon him the heathens' demons, negotiating the affairs of men with the supreme God, and so wrap up [Footnote: That is, dismiss the subject.] with a testification that it is needless to enlarge on the point.
What man that ever had read or assented to the gospel, but would have spoken more honorably of Christ than you have done? His sacrifice must be stepped over; his intercession is needless to be enlarged upon. But when it falleth in your way to talk of your human nature, of the dictates of the first principles of morals within you, and of your generous mind to follow it, Oh what need there is now of amplifying, enlarging, and pressing it on men's consciences, as if that poor heathenish pagan principle was the very Spirit of God within us, and as if righteousness done by that was that and that only that would or could fling heaven's gates off the hinges.
Yea, a little after you tell us that "the doctrine of sending the Holy Ghost was to move and excite us to our duty, and to assist, cheer, and comfort us in the performance of it;" still meaning our close adhering, by the purity of our human nature, to the dictates of the law as written in our hearts as men; which is as false as God is true.
For the Holy Ghost is sent into our hearts, not to excite us to a compliance with our old and wind-shaken excellencies that came into the world with us, but to write new laws in our hearts, even the law of faith, the word of faith and of grace, and the doctrine of remission of sins through the blood of the Lamb of God, that holiness might flow from thence.
CHRIST A TEACHER.
At this time I sat under the ministry of holy Mr. Gifford. whose doctrine, by God's grace, was much for my stability. This man made it much his business to deliver the people of God from all those hard and unsound tests that by nature we are prone to. He would bid us take special heed that we took not up any truth upon trust, as from this or that or any other man or men; but cry mightily to God that he would convince us of the reality thereof, and set us down therein by his own Spirit in the holy word; "for," said he, "if you do otherwise, when temptation comes strongly upon you, you not having received them with evidence from heaven, will find you want that help and strength now to resist, that once you thought you had."
This was as seasonable to my soul as the former and latter rain in their season, for I had found, and that by sad experience, the truth of these his words; for I had felt that no man, especially when tempted by the devil, "can say that Jesus Christ is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost."