5. That this may be the better understood, we ought to represent to ourselves the traveller in the Gospel, who, falling among thieves, was cruelly wounded and bruised by them, and at last utterly disabled from helping himself again. Luke 10:30. Him, therefore, the good Samaritan receives into his arms, binds up his wounds, sets him on his beast, takes him to an inn, and omits nothing that a faithful physician could administer to a sick and wounded person. And as the traveller showed himself obedient to his physician, and strictly followed the directions prescribed by him; so we ought to act if we desire to be healed of our disease. We ought to _suffer_ the healing hand of the Lord, and not to resist, when he attempts the cleansing of our wounds; and when, after having poured in wine and oil, he binds them up. To obtain the blessed effect of these spiritual operations, we must wholly resign ourselves to him, who alone is able to save us; and then we may trust to the goodness of God, that on his side he will not fail to restore us to health and soundness. 6. No sooner does a sinner repent than he begins his happy return towards the Lord, grieving for his former transgressions, and suffering that his wounds be washed with the sharp wine of the law, and the oil of consolation. Whoever complies with these terms, in him, Christ, by his grace, works an unfeigned faith, attended with all the fruits it produces,—righteousness, life, peace, joy, comfort, and salvation, and thus “worketh in him both to will and to do, of his good pleasure.” Phil. 2:13. 7. But it is not in the power of man by nature to forsake sin. The Scripture calls the natural man a “servant of sin” (John 8:34), and one that is “sold under sin” (Rom. 7:14), who can do nothing but sin; and the prophet says, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil.” Jer. 13:23. But “the grace of God that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men (by the Gospel), teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.” Tit. 2:11, 12. This is offered us by the word of God; and it is this grace which excites, teaches, and allures fallen man; which urges and influences him to renounce sin, and to submit to the discipline of grace. And these divine admonitions, furnished through the Word, fully agree with the inward testimony of the conscience; so that a man is convinced both from without and from within of his sinful life, and of the necessity of quitting it, in order to preserve his soul from everlasting destruction, for whoever lives in sin, lives in opposition to God and his own conscience.