Page:Choice drop of honey from the rock, Christ, or, A short word of advice to all saints and sinners.pdf/7

Rh of Christ, and of Christ’s willingness to save upon this consideration merely. That thou art a sinner; things all harder than to make a world. All the power in nature cannot get up so high in a storm of sin and guilt, really to believe, there is any grace, any willingness in Christ to save. When Satan charged sin upon the conscience, then for the soul to charge it upon Christ, that is gospel-like. That is to make him Christ, he serves for that use. To accept Christ’s righteousness alone, his blood alone for salvation, that is the sum of the gospel. When the soul, in all duties and distresses, can say, Nothing but Christ, Christ alone, for righteousness, justification, and redemption, 1 Cor. i. 30, not humblings, not duties, not graces, &c. that soul hath got above the reach of the billows, even to the haven of rest.

All temptations, Satan’s advantages our complainings, are laid in self-righteousness, and self-excellency: God pursueth these, by setting Satan upon thee, as Laban did Jacob for his images: these must be torn from thee, be as unwilling as thou wilt; these hinder Christ from coming in, and till Christ come in, guilt will not go out; and where guilt is, there is hardness of heart: and therefore much guilt argues little, if any thing, of Christ.