260 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. This will place all your obedience on a sure and rigid basis; even the same that is fixed on in the Gospel. For the present, all that you do is indeed but to com- pound with God for your sin ; you hope, by what you do for him and to him, to buy off what you have done against him, that you may not fall into the hands of his wrath and vengeance. This makes all you do to be irk- some. As a man that labors all his days to pay an old debt, and brings in nothing to lay up for himself, how tedious and wearisome is his toil! It is likely that by and by he will give over, and run away from his credi- tor. So it is in this case: men who have secret re- serves of recompensing God by their obedience, every day find their debt growing upon them, and have every day less hope of making a satisfactory payment. This makes them weary, and for the most part they faint under their discouragements, and at length they fly wholly from God. This way alone will give peace to your conscience : it will give you to see that all your debts are paid by Christ, and freely forgiven to you by God. So that what you do is of gratitude or thank- fulness, and leads to the glory of God, the honor of Christ, and your own comfortable account at the last day. This encourages the soul to labor, to trade, to endeavor; all things now conspire to .his spiritual advantage. This is the sum of what has been said : the obedience that you perform under your convictions is burdensome and unpleasant to you; and it is altogether unaccepta- ble to God. You lose all you do, and all that you hope -to do hereafter, if the foundation be not laid in the re- ceiving ofpardon in the blood of Christ. It is high time
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