25. We have boldness in the gospel

We have boldness in the gospel

We see the glory of God with boldness in the gospel. We go boldly to God. Christ takes us by the hand and leads to his Father. We have boldness and access to God through Christ by the Spirit, as St Paul teacheth in divers places,† God is not terrible to us. Now in Christ, God’s nature is fatherly and sweet to us. Christ in the gospel is our head. Therefore we go boldly to God in Christ; and Christ by his Spirit brings us to his Father. We may boldly lay open our souls in prayer; and all our complaints before him as to a Father. We come not as malefactors to a judge, as slaves to a lord, but as children to a father, as a wife to her spouse. ’With open face’ in the gospel, we behold God, that is, with boldness we go to him. The gospel by shining upon us takes away a spirit of fear and bondage; the more we see Christ the less fear; the more love the less fear. The more we see the grace of God in Christ, it diminisheth a spirit of fear, and puts into us a spirit of love and boldness. For it presents to us in Christ, full satisfaction to divine justice, that when we offer Christ to the Father whom he hath sent and sealed for us, God cannot refuse a Saviour of his own sending and sealing, and appointing to satisfy his justice. Therefore we go boldly to the throne of grace. It is a marvellous privilege that we see God clearly in the gospel, with open face, with a spirit of boldness, the veil of ignorance being taken away. For the sight of God to a conscience that is natural, and is not convinced of the mercy of God by the Spirit, it is a terrible sight. A guilty conscience cannot see a man but it trembles. It cannot see a judge without trembling. And will not the trembling conscience, the guilty soul, flee from the face of God apace, that trembles at the sight of a man? What is so contrary as the nature of God to the nature of man out of Christ? The unholy, impure, and unclean nature of man, to the pure, holy nature of God? If Christ had not taken our nature and sanctified it in himself, and satisfied justice in it, what boldness could this unclean nature of ours have had to go to the holy God? Let us, I beseech you, be wrapped up in admiration of the singular love of God to us, especially in the days of the gospel, that now we see in a glass, in a clear glass, the love of God in Christ, and with open face boldly we may go to God.

Sometimes when the soul is bold in sin, it weakeneth boldness and faith, and makes us look upon that object that our sins hath deserved, upon a wise God. For howsoever we may behold his glorious face in Christ, yet if we behold sin against conscience, God will hide himself, Christ will hide his face, and hide the promises, and leave us to terrors of conscience; and the soul shall not apprehend his gracious face in Christ, but that correction that our sin hath deserved. God hath power over the soul, and makes the soul apprehend what object he will; and he presents to a bold soul that runs into sin what it deserves, hell for the present. There is no terrors to the terror of a Christian that is bold in sin, till God shine upon him in his grace again. Sins against conscience, especially wasting sins, weaken faith, that we cannot go so boldly to God. Therefore those that say when they sin against conscience, that all the cause of their grief is because they do not conceive the free mercy of God, they are ignorant of God’s ways. God is wise, and though he pardon sin, as sin is pardoned in heaven, before it be pardoned in the conscience, they shall never be pardoned in thy conscience till God have made thy conscience smart for it; and God will let wrath into thy conscience, and thy faith shall stagger. It is a sin for faith to stagger, it should not do so; but it will tremble and quake, till we have humbled ourselves before God.

What is the way, after we have had boldness and sweet familiarity with God, and it hath been interrupted by sin? how shall we recover ourselves?

Surely, to apprehend our sins to be pardonable in Christ, and that God is an everlasting Father, and that the covenant of grace is everlasting, and that there is mercy in Israel for this thing; and the conceit* of mercy must work our hearts to grief and shame. That is certain; for mark in the gospel, ’Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden,’ Matthew 11:28. He calls us when we find our consciences afflicted and tormented. ’He came to save that which was lost,’ Matthew 18:11. By the blessed power of the Spirit, the blood of Christ is as a fountain ’for Judah and Jerusalem to wash in,’ Zechariah 13:1, and the ’blood of Christ purgeth us from sin,’ 1 John 1:7; and Christ bids us for daily trespasses ask pardon, Matthew 6:12. Daily therefore conceive goodness in God still, an everlasting current of mercy; and this must work upon us grief and shame, and recover and strengthen our faith again. For God’s children, after breaches, arise the stronger rather than ever they were before. But this only by the way. We see here how God’s glorious grace is conveyed to us, and what is wrought in us to apprehend it, a spiritual eye to see it, in the glass of the gospel, and ’with open face we behold it,’ we may go boldly to the throne of grace.

I beseech you, let not that privilege be forgotten, this privilege of the gospel. What is the glory of the times we live in, but God’s face discovered in Christ? In the gospel faith is wrought in us to apprehend this, to see God’s face openly, and that we may come boldly with Benjamin, our elder brother;* come with Esau’s garments, Genesis 27:23; come with Christ, and we cannot be too bold. Remember alway there must be a reverent familiarity, because he hath majesty mixed with his bowels of mercy. Both are mixed together; beams and bowels. So our carriage to him must be loving and familiar, as he is full of bowels of mercy. But then he hath majesty. A reverent familiarity is fit for a father, and for so gracious and so sweet a God. Therefore that phrase we see in the Scriptures, ’We go boldly,’ and cry, ’Abba, Father,’ Romans 8:15. Father is a word of reverence; that is, we go boldly to God in Christ, and open our wants as to a father, with love and reverence; as it is said here, ’with open face.’ Let us not forget this privilege.

’We all.’

Here is the generality, ’We all.’ Before, in Moses’s time, he alone went into the mount and saw God; but now ’we all,’ Jews and Gentiles, where the gospel is preached, ’we all.’ Therefore, you see here the church is enlarged by the coming of Christ. And it was a comfort to St Paul, and to all good Christians, to think of the enlargement of the church by taking in the Gentiles, as it will be a comfort hereafter to think of the enlarging of the church by taking in the Jews again. The more the better in religion. Why is it a privilege for many, that ’we all?’ Because in matters of grace and glory there is no envy at all. All may share without prejudice. All cannot be kings here upon earth, nor all cannot be great men, because the more one hath the less another hath. But in Christ and in religion all may be gracious. God respects every one, as if there were none but them. He respects all as one, and one, as if there were none but he. Every man in solidum, as civilians express it, entirely enjoyeth Christ, as if there were none but he. He is to all as one, and to one as if there were none but he. There is no envy, as I said, in grace and glory, where all may share alike. And that is the reason why it is alway comfortable to think of community in religion. It is joined with comfort. And indeed so it is matter of comfort to see a communion of many in one; for what is the mystical body of Christ Jesus but many members joined in one body, under one gracious and glorious head? And therefore it is a deformed sight to see fraction and disunion. It is that the devil rules in. Divide and rule. It is fit for the devil. God and Christ rule in union. The same Spirit of God that knits the members to the head by faith, knits the members one to another in love; and all grace is derived from the head to the members, as they are united to the body. If there be therefore disunion, there is no grace conveyed so far as there is disunion. There is no grace conveyed from the head; for the body grows up as compact under one head.

Therefore let us labour to cherish union, and as we hate distraction itself, so hate distraction and division; for dissipation causeth distraction.† Therefore by all means labour for union, especially now we are to take the communion, that is a seal of our communion with Christ by faith, and one with another. By love let us labour to bring our hearts to a holy communion. None gains by disunion but the devil himself. Alway his policy is to make the breach greater where any is. Therefore let us labour by all means to be united. The more join together in the blessed mysteries of the gospel, the more comfort and the more glory. When all live and join together in holy things of God, and in sweet love one to another, it is the glory of that place and society and state. So much for that ’we all.’

’And are changed.’

I shewed before how man’s happiness stands partly in communion with God, and partly in his conformity and likeness to God. And surely wheresoever there is communion there will be conformity. This conformity is here set down springing from communion. ’We all behold the glory of God.’ Now, reconciled in Jesus Christ, what doth that beholding work? A conformity. We are ’changed into the same image, from glory to glory.’ In these words we see, First, A necessity of a change; changed we must be.

Then in this change there must be a pattern of conformity. We are changed into the image of Christ, who is the prototype, the first type and idea of all perfection. We are changed into the same image. And then, how this change is wrought to the image of Christ. It is by beholding the glory of Christ in the gospel. There is a transforming power in beholding the glory of God’s mercy in Christ. It is not a delighting object only, to see the mercy of God in Christ, but it is a powerful object that hath an influence upon the soul. And then the state of man after this change, it is a glorious condition, ’We are changed from glory.’ And then it is a growing condition, ’We are changed from glory to glory.’ Still, till we come to that pitch, where there can be no growth; when the soul shall be filled ’with the fulness of God,’ as the apostle speaks, Ephesians 3:19; when the soul shall have all the powers that it hath to receive and retain, and comprehend, all the corners of it filled. So we grow from glory to glory till then. These things follow one another. To begin with the first.

There is a necessity of a change. In the state we are we must be changed, as Christ tells Nicodemus, John 3:1, seq. There must be a change; and such a change as is a new birth. It must be all new, as a bell; if there be but a crack in it, it must be new moulded and cast again. It is good for nothing else. So the soul of man, if there be but a flaw, but a crack, all is naught. It must be cast and moulded again anew. We must be set in tune again. All is out of tune. Before the soul can make any sweet harmony in the ears of God, there must be a change. There is no coming to heaven without a change. What need I press this, it is so easy a point in religion. ’Except we be born anew we cannot enter into heaven,’ John 3:3. But to clear from evidence of reason the necessity of a change in the whole man.

First, Because we are in a contrary state to grace and to God. We are dead. There must be life in us before we come to heaven. We are enemies, and if* enemies we must be made friends. How shall we be fit for communion else with God, wherein our happiness stands, without conformity? Communion is between friends. Before those that are in an opposite condition can be friends, there must be an alteration; and this alteration it must be on God’s part, or on our part. Now who must change? God that is unchangeable, or we that are corrupt and changeable? God will not change. There is no reason he should. He is goodness itself, alway unchangeable. His perfection stands in an individual point. He cannot alter a whit. There is not a shadow of change in God. Therefore, when there is difference between God and us, the change must be on our part. We must be changed, as it is Romans 12:2, and other places, ’in the spirit of our minds.’ We must be wholly moulded anew. Where there is a condition so opposite as the frame of our hearts is to God, he being holiness and we a mass and lump of sin, of necessity there must be a change. God intends in the gospel to bring us near himself, and Christ’s end is to bring us to God, as it is 1 Peter 3:18. All the gospel is to bring us back to God from whom we fell. Now our nature, as I said, is defiled and unholy; and we cannot be friends with God till there be a likeness in disposition to God. Therefore our natures must be suitable to the sweet and holy and pure nature of God in some measure. We enter into a covenant with God, in the covenant of grace, and how can we maintain the covenant of grace, without some likeness to God and Christ? In that regard of necessity there must be a change; and this change must be on our part. As we see in an instrument, those strings that are out of tune are brought to them that are in, so it is we that must change and alter, and not God. God is alway unchangeable, like himself in his love; and it is our comfort that he is so unchangeable in his mercy and holiness and justice. Therefore I say the change must be on our part.

’Flesh and blood, as it is, cannot enter into heaven,’ 1 Corinthians 15:50; that is, the nature of man, as it is corrupted; we must have new judgments of things, and new desires, and new esteem, new affections, new joys, new delights, new conversation, new company. All the frame of the soul must be new. There must be a new bent of soul. It must be turned another way. The face of the soul must look clean another way. Whereas before it looked to the world-ward, and to things below, now it must look to God-ward and heaven-ward. Therefore those that are in their pure naturals, that feel no change in themselves, what shall we think of them? They are not in the state of grace, for of necessity there must be a change.

There is a double change, real and gradual.

First, A real change, from ill to good. And then, A gradual change from better to better, ’from glory to glory.’ The first change is from the state of nature to grace at our first conversion, when God puts the first form and stamp upon us. And then a change in grace, ’from glory to glory,’ we must be changed.

Second, Then again, we all expect glory in heaven; and how can we do that except we be fitted for it? The church is the fitting place for glory. We enter into heaven in the church here. We are hewn and squared here. If we be not holy here, we shall never enter into heaven. There must be a change begun here if ever it be perfected in heaven. ’No unclean thing shall come there,’ Revelation 21:27. As soon as ever Satan, an angel of light, sinned, he was tumbled out of heaven. It will brook* no unclean thing; no unclean thing shall ever come there again. Therefore our nature must be altered suitable to that place and glorious condition, before we come to heaven. Except we be new born, we cannot enter into the kingdom of God. There is direct Scripture for it. Beloved, this is forgot. Men trust to the grace and mercy of God, and look not after a change; and this holds many from embracing the gospel in the truth of it; rom knowing Christ as the truth is in him. They hear they must be changed, which they are unwilling to. They believe that God is merciful, and that Christ died, &c. They snatch so much of the gospel, as may serve to build them up in self-love. So far they think all is well. But when they see such grace as must teach them ’to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts,’ Titus 2:12, and such grace as must change and alter them, this they cannot brook. They are content to go to heaven if they may have it in a way to hell; in maintaining their corruptions; being proud and covetous and worldly, as they are. This must not be. Of necessity there must be a change.

Third, Nay, I say more, beside the former reasons, the soul that truly desires mercy and favour, desires always power against sin. Pardon and power go together, in God’s gift and in the desire of a Christian’s soul. There is no Christian soul but he desires the grace of sanctification to change him, as much as the grace of pardon; for he looks upon corruption and sin as the vilest thing in the world; and upon grace and the new creature as the best thing in the world. There is no man changed but he hath those apprehensions of sanctification.

Remember this against some weak conceits likewise, that would have all the change in justification. They rent* Christ’s offices, as if he were all priest, and not a king to govern; as if he were righteousness, and not sanctification; as if he had merit to die for us and to give us his righteousness, and no efficacy to change our natures; as if in the covenant of grace God did not write his law in our hearts, but only forgave our sins. He doth both in the covenant of grace. And where God makes a combination, we must not break it. Efficacy and merit, justification and sanctification, water and blood, go together. There must be a change. But to follow the point a little further.

Fourth, There must be change, because no holy action can come from an unchanged power and faculty. Actions spring from powers and faculties. They are suitable to them. Therefore there must be a change in the powers and faculties of the soul, before there be a change in the life and conversation. These three follow in nature. The form, and living, and being of things; and powers; and action issuing from the power. So in the life of grace and sanctification there is a power and ability to believe in God, and to be holy, and to love God; and then the actions of love spring from that power. We live, and then we have a power to move. In nature, being and life and moving go together. So if we have a being in grace, we have a power to move. I beseech you, therefore, consider the necessity of a change of the inward man, of the powers and faculties of the soul. Can the eye see without a power of seeing? or the ear hear without a faculty of hearing? Can the soul perform sanctified actions without a sanctified power? It is impossible. And especially the alteration and change is in the will, which some would have untouched. They would have it free; those that would have no more given to grace than needs must. But grace works upon the will most of all. Divinity rules the will especially. For the bent of the will makes a good or a bad man; and the desires of the will carry the whole man with it. We are as the bent is of our will. We are as the choice of our will is. If the choice, and bent, and bias be the right way, by the Spirit, it is good. If the will be not inclined and wrought to go the best way, there is no work of grace at all. Though all grace come in through the understanding enlightened, that is the first, yet it goeth into the will. It passeth through the understanding into the will, and it puts a new taste and relish upon the will and affections.

Well, you see, therefore, that the grace wrought in the gospel it is not a mere persuasion and entreaty, &c., but a powerful work of the Spirit entering into the soul and changing it, and altering and turning the bent and inclination of the will heavenward, whereas* corruption of nature turns the soul downward to things below. When the Spirit of God entereth into the soul, it is not only by mere outward persuasion to leave it to the liberty of will, but it altereth the taste of the will. The soul is carried up, and is shut to things below. It useth the world as though it used it not. We must have great conceits of the work of grace. The Scripture hath great words of it. It is an alteration, a change, a new man, a new creature, new birth, &c. We see the necessity of a change.

Fifth. Again, another reason is this: God, where he calls and dignifies, he also qualifies. Princes cannot qualify those they raise, but God, whom he advanceth to glory, he fits and qualifies for glory; where he bestows his mercies and favours to life everlasting, he calls to great matters, and he also changeth them. If Saul were changed when he came to be a king, in regard of a new quality, shall we think that God will call any to the participation of his glorious mercy in Christ, in pardoning their sin, and accepting them to life eternal, but he will change them? No. Whosoever he calls to glory, he changeth and altereth their dispositions to be fit for so glorious a condition as a Christian is called to. There must be a change.

Proud men love not to hear of this. It is a prejudice to their former authority. What! I that was accounted a wise man, now to be a fool! I that was accounted so and so, to alter all my frame and course, and to turn the stream another way—the world will say I go mad. I say because grace altereth and changeth all: ’Old things are passed away, and all things are become new,’ 2 Corinthians 5:17; those that are carnal and proud cannot endure a change, because it is some prejudice to their reputation. But it must be so if they look for salvation. Thus you see that point proved enough.

’Into the same image.’ The pattern to which we are changed is the image of Christ. It is a rule, and a true rule, the first in every kind is the measure of all the rest. It is the idea, the pattern, and platform of all the rest. Now Christ is the first, for he is the ’first-born,’ the ’first fruits,’ the ’first beloved.’ Therefore he is the pattern of all the rest, and the measure of all other. The nearer we come to Christ, the better we are; for that is the measure of a thing, the nearer it answereth to that the better. Now Christ is the best, and our nature in Christ is joined to the Godhead in one person. Therefore we are changed to the likeness of Christ, ’the second Adam;’ for as before we are changed, we are corrupted and depraved according to the likeness of the first Adam after his fall; and as before his fall, if he had not fallen, we had been born according to his likeness, that is, good and righteous; so now being fallen, as soon as by faith we are planted and grafted into the second Adam we are changed into his likeness. Christ as it were is God’s master-piece, that is, the excellentest work, and device, and frame of heaven that ever was, to set up such a Mediator, to reconcile justice and mercy in bringing God and man into one person. Now Christ being God’s master-piece, the best and most excellent frame of all, he is fit to be the pattern of all excellency whatsoever. Therefore he is the image, the idea, the pattern and platform of all our sanctification.

Christ the second Adam is the image into which we are changed. We are not changed to the image of the first Adam by grace, but to the image of the second Adam. There is from him a derivation of all good, opposite to all the ill we drew from the first Adam. We drew from the first Adam the displeasure of God; by the second we obtain the favour of God by his death and satisfaction. With the wrath of God we drew corruption from the first Adam, in the second we have grace. From the first Adam we have death, and all the miseries that attend death and follow it. In the second Adam we have life and all happiness, till it end in glory. In a word, whatsoever ill we have in the first Adam, it is repaired abundantly in the second, when we are changed into his image. Therefore, when you read of the image of God in the New Testament, it must be understood of the image of God in Jesus Christ, the second Adam.

Now this image consists in knowledge, in holiness and righteousness. If we compare Colossians 3 with Ephesians 4, this was perfect in Christ, who was the image of his Father, and we must be like Christ the second Adam in sanctification.

Now the grounds why we must be conformable to the image of the second Adam, and not to the first, are these:

Because the second Adam is far excelling the first Adam; and as I said, we must be conformed to the best image. As we have borne the image of the first, so we must bear the image of the second, as it is in 1 Corinthians 15:49. And then the image of God in the second Adam is more durable. For all excellencies and grace is more firmly set on Christ than ever they were upon Adam. It is set upon him with such a character and stamp as shall never be altered. When God set his image on the first Adam it was rased, and decayed, and lost, by the malice of the devil, because it was not set on so firmly, Adam being a man and a good man, yet he was a man changeable. But Christ is God-man; in one nature God hath set such a stamp of grace on the human nature, being eternally united to the Godhead, that shall never be altered. Therefore we are renewed according to the image of God as it is stamped on Christ, not as it was stamped on the first Adam. And that is the reason why the state of God’s children is unalterable, why being once gracious they are so for ever. If God set the stamp of the Spirit of Christ on them, it is firm, as it is upon Christ. It never alters in Christ, nor in those that are members of Christ. The alteration is in growth from better to better. God’s children sometimes a little deface that image by sin, security, and the like. But as a piece of coin that is a little defaced, yet it hath the old stamp still, and is acknowledged for good coin, so a Christian in all desertions, in the worst state, he hath the stamp still. Though it be darkened by his carelessness, yet after it receives a fresh stamp it is an everlasting stamp. When once we are God’s coin we are never reprobate silver. And all is, because we are ’renewed according to the image of Christ,’ and grace is firmly set in our nature in Christ so sure that all the devils in hell cannot rase it out. And he is the ’quickening Spirit,’ and therefore able to transform us to his likeness better than the first Adam was. Therefore the image of God is the likeness of the second Adam, and we are changed into that.

Now the reasons why the second Adam changeth us into his own image are many:

First, Because he is a powerful head that changeth all his members, a powerful root that changeth all his branches into his own nature, a powerful husband that changeth his own spouse. I say, he is a quickening Spirit, a public person, and the root of all believers, as the first Adam was of us all as we are natural men.

Second, Again, it is meet that brethren should be all alike; therefore, as it is in Romans 8:29, ’we are predestinate to be conform to Christ.’ ’He is the first among many brethren.’ The chief brethren must be all alike. Therefore we being predestinate to salvation, it was fit we should be predestinate to be conformable to our elder brother, that brethren might be of one nature and disposition. It is fit that the husband and wife should be of one disposition. Christ is the husband and we are the spouse. Therefore by grace he alters, and cleanseth, and purgeth his spouse, as it is Ephesians 5:25, seq., ’He loved his spouse, and gave himself for it; that he might purge it, and make it a glorious spouse.’ It is meet the wife should be the glory of the husband, as St Paul saith, 1 Corinthians 11:7, that is, that she should reflect the excellencies of her husband. Therefore that the church might be the glory of Christ and reflect the excellencies of Christ, she is changed to be like Christ more and more daily. There is a kind of congruity that brethren should be like, and that the spouse and the husband should be alike. Therefore God hath ordained that we should be like him in a threefold degree: in suffering, in grace, and in glory. Whosoever will be like him in glory, must be like him in grace. First God’s election and ordaining must have its issue; that is, the representation of the likeness of Christ in our natures.

Third, Again, the end of Christ’s coming was ’to destroy the works of the devil,’ 1 John 3:8, to deface all Satan’s works, especially his work in us, the image of Satan in our dispositions. For every man by nature carries the image of the devil on him, till the image of Christ be stamped on, and the image of Satan rased out. For in man there is naturally an opposition to the truth, a hatred of God and of good things. Now Christ coming to dissolve the works of the devil, puts out this image, and sets his own stamp and image upon the soul. Therefore unless Christ change us to his own image he should miss of the end of his coming. These and many such reasons there are to prove that we are restored according to the image of Christ Jesus, and why Christ will change us to his own likeness. To add one more:

Fourth, The end of Christ is, that we should enter into a sweet communion with him. Therefore he will set such a stamp upon us as he may delight in us and be friends. Now if he should not change our natures, what correspondence could there be between Christ and us? Now when he hath altered and changed us, he looks on us as carrying his stamp and image.

Use 1. If this be so, that we are changed into the image of the second Adam, Jesus Christ, then I beseech you let us labour every day more and more to study Christ, that so by beholding Christ we may be transformed into his likeness. For the looking upon Christ is a transforming sight. Therefore let us look into his disposition as it is set forth in the gospel, and to his carriage, and look to his privileges, that so we may receive ’grace for grace,’ grace suitable to his grace, disposition suitable to his disposition, conversation suitable to his conversation, and privilege and prerogative suitable to his prerogative, that we may be like him every way.

What was his disposition and carriage? It were too large to unfold it to you as it is in the gospel, but because we must be changed into the image of Christ, it is good to look to that picture, that we may resemble that Image as much as may be. You see in the gospel how he carried himself to his friends, enemies, the devil, himself.

You see how full of love he was. What drew him from heaven to earth, and so to his cross and to his grave, but love to mankind? You see how full of goodness he was: ’He went about doing all the good he could,’ Acts 10:38. How much good doth that speech savour of that Paul speaks of him, ’It is a more blessed thing to give than to receive,’ Acts 20:35. See how full of zeal he was! He whipped the buyers and sellers out of the temple, John 2:15. He was full of goodness. It was his meat and drink to do good, John 4:32, seq. It was as natural to him as for a fountain to stream out.

(1.) And as I said for his carriage toward his friends, to those that were good, how sweet and indulgent was he.

[1.] Where there was any beginnings of goodness, he did encourage it. He never sent any back again, but those that went back again of their own head, as the young man. Christ sent him not back. He was so full of sweetness to weak Christians, nay, he discovered himself most to the weakest. He was never more familiar with any than with the woman of Samaria, that was an adulteress, John 4:6, seq.; and Mary that had been a sinner, how sweetly did he appear to her first, John 20:1, seq. How sweet was he to sinners when they repented! how ready to forgive and pardon! See it in Peter. He never cast him in the teeth with his apostasy; he never upbraided him with it; he never so much as tells him of it, only he ’looks’ upon him, and afterward, ’Lovest thou me?’ &c., John 21:15.

[2.] He would not ’quench the smoking flax, nor break the bruised reed,’ Matthew 12:20, so gentle and sweet a Saviour have we. He was sweet to those that were good in the lowest degree of goodness; nay, where there was but a representation of goodness, as in the young man, he kissed and embraced him when he came and said, ’What good thing shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ Mark 10:17. He embraced him, and made much of him. And so to the Pharisee, ’Thou art not far from the kingdom of God,’ Mark 12:34. He laboured to pull him further. He was of a winning, gaining disposition. Those that were good he loved them, and carried himself so to all as much as might be. Shall we not labour to be of his disposition, not to set people further off, but to be of a gaining, winning nature?

[3.] See how obedient he was to his Father, ’Not my will, but thine be done,’ Matthew 26:42; both in active and passive obedience, in all things he looked to his Father’s will, being subordinate to him. Wheresoever there is subordination, there ought to be obedience. Now there is a subordination to God as our Father in Christ. Therefore we should labour to be obedient even to death, as Christ was. Our happiness stands in subordination. The happiness of the inferior is in subjection to the superior that may do him good. Therefore we must be obedient to God as Christ was. We see he prayed whole nights.*