Christ inviting sinners to come to him for rest

And therefore you that have so many excuses for your sin, just as your Grand-Father Adam had, he put it off to the Woman, and the Woman unto the Serpent, and one to another, so you, it is true, my Nature is passionate, and I am froward by Nature, and a hundred such excuses men have, whereas all thy care should be to humble thy Soul for thy sins, and if there be any thing to alleviate thy sin, and lessen it, Christ will do that, and the more thou excusest thy self, the greater will be ⟨p. 245⟩thy sin, and it is better for thee, for another to excuse it, than thy self. As when a Child or servant shall offend, and one that is a near friend or neighbour shall come and excuse them, this is a great deal better than if they did it themselves. Now those that are under the Law, they have no excuse to be made for them, but those that are come to Christ they have Christ to make all the excuses for them.

And therefore you that have so many excuses for your sin, just as your Grand-Father Adam had, he put it off to the Woman, and the Woman unto the Serpent, and one to another, so you, it is true, my Nature is passionate, and I am froward by Nature, and a hundred such excuses men have, whereas all thy care should be to humble thy Soul for thy sins, and if there be any thing to alleviate thy sin, and lessen it, Christ will do that, and the more thou excusest thy self, the greater will be ⟨p. 245⟩thy sin, and it is better for thee, for another to excuse it, than thy self. As when a Child or servant shal offend, and one that is a neer friend or neighbor shal come and excuse them, this is a great deal better than if they did it themselves. Now those that are under the Law, they have no excuse to be made for them, but those that are come to Christ they have Christ to make al the excuses for them.

Oh! take heed of abusing the rich grace of God in Christ, this I know, that this is such a pure quality, that it hath not such a malignant quality in it that it will be abused, and where you see any such quality, know that they have it not aright, they have something else instead of the thing, as sometimes you shall see two things as like one another as can be, suppose drinks made with some kind of composition, they shall look just like one another, but one shall have some venom in it, enough to kill one, and the other shall be wholesome and able to recover one, yet both shall have the same ur, and the same taste, so it is with the free grace d in Christ, you may have the same word spoken, e thing expressed to one and to another, the very same thing preached for the outside of it, for the word, for the expression in a sermon, the same doctrine raised for the expression, and yet they shall be so carried that one shall have a malignancy in it, and the other shall have a sovereign power in it: now when the soul hath the true rest in Christ, that rest hath not such a malignant power to make the heart worse by it. But of that I shall speak more afterwards.