Chap. 3.] TILE SAINTS REST. 39 where I was decaying, and from the dust and darkness where I seemed forgotten, and be here set before his throne ! That I should be taken, with Mordecai, from cap- tivity, and be set next unto the king ; and, with Daniel from the den, to be made ruler of princes and provinces ! Who can fathom unmeasurable love ?" If worthiness were our condition for admittance, we might sit down and weep, with St. John, because no man was found worthy. But the Lion of the tribe of Judah is worthy, and bath pre- vailed; and by that title we must hold the inheritance. We shall offer there the offering that David refused, even praise for that which cost us nothing. Here our commis- sion runs, Freelyye have received, freelygive; but Christ has dearly bought, yet freely gives. If it were only for nothing, and without our merit, the wonder were great; but it is moreover against our merit, and against our long endeavoring our own ruin. What an astonishing thought it will be, to think of the unmea- surable difference between our deservings and receivings! between the state we should have been in, and the state we are in ! to look down upon hell, and see the vast dif- ference that grace bath made between us and them ! to see the inheritance there, which we were born to, so different from that which we are adopted to ! What pangs of leve will it cause within us to think, " Yonder was the place that sin would have brought me to, but this is it that Christ bath brought me to ! Yonder death was the wages of my sin, but this eternal life is the gift of God, through Jesus Christ my Lord ! Who made me to differ ? Had I not now been in those flames, if I had had my own way, and been let alone to my own will ? Should I not have lingered in Sodom till the flames had seizedon me, if God had not in mercy brought me out Doubtless, this will be our everlasting admiration, that so rich a crown should fit the head of so vile a sinner ! that such high advance- ment, and such long unfruitfulness and unkindness, can be the state of the same person! and that such vile rebellions can conclude in such most precious joys ! But no thanks to us, nor to any of our duties and labors, much less to our neglects and laziness : we know to whom the praise is due, and must be given for ever. Indeed, to this very end it wasp that infinite wisdom cast the whole design of man's
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