We see sin great, we think Christ doth so, and measure infinite love with our line, infinite merits with our sins, which is the great pride and blasphemy, Ps. ciii. 11, 12; Is. x. 15. Hear what he saith: I have found a ransom, Job xxxiii. 24; in him I am well pleased, Matt. iii. 18. God will have nothing else; nothing else will do thee good, or satisfy conscience, but Christ who satisfied the Father. God doth all upon the account of Christ. Thy deserts are hell, wrath, rejection. Christ’s deserts are life, pardon, and acceptance. He will not only shew thee one, but he will give thee the other. It is Christ’s own glory and happiness to pardon. Consider, whilst Christ was upon the earth, he was more among publicans and sinners, than among scribes and pharisees, his professed adversaries, for they were righteous ones: it is not as thou imaginest, that his state in glory makes him neglected, scornful to poor sinners; No. He hath the same heart now in heaven; he is good, and changeth not; he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, John, i. 20. He went through all thy temptations, dejections, sorrows, desertions, rejections, Matt. iv. 3 to 12 and 26; Mark, xv. 24; Luke, xxii. 44; Matt. xxiv. 38. And he hath drawn the bitterness of the cup, and left thee the sweet: the condemnation is out; Christ drank up all the Father’s wrath at one draught, and nothing but salvation is left for thee. Thou sayest thou canst not believe, thou canst not repent. Fitter for Christ if thou hast nothing but sin and misery. Go to Christ with all thy impenitence and unbelief, to get faith and repentance from him--that is glorious: Say unto him, Lord, I have brought no righteousness of grace to be accepted in or justified by; I am come for thine. We would be bringing to Christ, which must not be; grace will not stand with works, Tit. iii. 5; Rom. xi. 6. Self-righteousness and self-sufficiency are the darlings of nature, which she preserves as her life; that makes Christ obnoxious to nature; nature cannot desire him; he is just directly opposite to all nature’s glorious interests. Let nature make a gospel, and it would make it contrary to Christ. It would be to the just, the innocent, the holy, &c. Christ made the gospel for thee, that is, for needy sinners, the ungodly, the unrighteous, the accursed. Nature cannot endure to think the gospel is only for sinners; it will rather choose to despair than go to Christ upon such terrible terms. When nature is opposed to guilt or wrath, it will go to its own haunts of self-righteousness, self-goodness, &c. An infinite power must cast down those strong holds. None but the self-justiciary stands excluded out of the gospel. Christ will look at the most abominable sinner before him, because to such a one Christ cannot be made justification--he is no sinner. To say in compliment, I am a sinner, is easy; but to pray with the publican indeed, Lord be merciful to me a sinner, is the hardest prayer in the world.