Page:Causes and cure of spiritual darkness.pdf/7

7 again to a lively hope, not by even our evangelical holiness, but by the resurrection of Christ from the dead,' and the facts, doctrines, and promises connected with it, credited and trusted as they lie in the Bible. The greatest saint must depend upon the same righteousness and strength in Christ as the greatest sinner, and the latter is as welcome to that dependance as the former ; if, having the comfort of that dependance, he makes it his serious care to purify himself from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.' Though we are never so poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked, yet we may apply to Christ, even in this miserable condition, with assurance of success, as appears from his own word, if we apply with a view to our deliverance from the power as well as the guilt of our sins.

All this you very well know, and therefore need none of my instructions, but I meant not to instruct, but to stir up your mind by way of remembrance.

I scarcely ever knew a disconsolate Christian, however notionally clear in the doctrine of the Gospel, and the way of a sinner's acceptance with God, but that as to act and the real exercise of his mind, was some how entangled in his own righteousness ; and built his comforts and hopes so much upon his evidences of renewing grace, as in some culpable degree to overlook the ' only Name given under heaven' for our consolation, and so far to miss his aim and disappoint his desires and expectations. Terrified with the charge of guilt, his first attempt usually is, to prove himself not guilty, or at least to extenuate