A Word of Advice to
SAINTS and SINNERS.
*1.A WORD of advice to my own heart and thine. Thou partakest of the ordinances of God. Thou dost well. But if thou hast not the blood of Christ at the root of all, they will prove but painted pageantry to go to hell in.
Try every day, on what bottom thy hope of glory is built, and whether it was laid by the hand of Christ. If not it will never be able to endure the storm that must come against it. Satan will throw it all down, and great will be the fall thereof.
*Glorious professor! Thou shalt be winnowed; every vein of thy profession will be tried to the purpose: ’tis terrible to have it all come tumbling down, and to find nothing to bottom upon.
*Soaring professor! See to thy waxen wings betimes; they will melt with the heat of temptations. What a misery is it, to trade much, and break at length; and to have no stock, no foundation laid for eternity!
*Gifted professor! Look there be not a worm at the root that will spoil all thy fine gourd, and make it die about thee, in a day of scorching: look over thy soul daily, and ask, Where is the blood of Christ to be seen upon it? Many eminent professors have come at length to cry out, Undone, undone to all eternity!
2. Consider the greatest sins may be hid under the greatest duties. See the wound that sin hath made in thy soul be perfectly cured by the blood of Christ; not skinned over with duties, humblings, enlargements. Apply what thou wilt besides the blood of Christ, it will poison the sore. Thou wilt find that sin was never mortified truly; nothing can kill it but the beholding Christ’s righteousness.
Nature can afford no balsam fit for the cure of a soul. Healing from duty, and not from Christ, is the most desperate disease. Poor ragged nature, with all its highest improvements, can never spin a garment fine enough to cover the soul’s nakedness. Nothing is fit for that use, but Christ’s perfect righteousness.