many years: if I had come in when I was young, mercy might have been shown me. To this he says, I am LONGSUFFERING. Yea, but my sins every way abound in number, and it is impossible to reckon them up, and they abound in heinousness: I have committed the same sins again and again; I have been false to him, broken my promise with him again and again; his name also answers this objection, he is ABUNDANT IN GOODNESS; he abounds more in grace, than you in sinning; and though thou hast been false again and again to him, and broken all covenants, yet he is ABUNDANT IN truth, he is better than his word, for he cannot to our capacities express all that mercy that is in him for us. Yea, but I have committed great sins, aggravated with many and great circumstances, against knowledge, wilfully:-then he forgives INIQUITY, and TRANSGRESSION and SIN; sins of all sorts-crimson, yea, and scarlet sins, Isaiah i. 18. Yea, but there is mercy thus in him but for a few, and I may be none of that number; yes, there is mercy for thousands, and he KEEPS IT; treasures of it lie by him, if men would but come in and take them.

Object what thou canst, his name will answer thee. Needest thou COMFORT as well as PARDON ? He is both The FATHER OF MERCIES, and the GOD OF ALL COMFORT, that is his name, 2 Cor. i. 3. Needest thou peace of conscience, being filled with terrors? He is the GOD OF PEACE, 1 Thess. v. 23. Yea, but I have an heart empty of grace and holiness, and full of corruption; He is the GOD OF ALL GRACE to heal thee, as well as of peace to pardon thee. Needest thou wisdom and direction? He is The FATHER OF LIGHTS, as the apostle says, James i. 17. Is thy heart inconstant, and full of double-mindedness He is UNCHANGEABLE also, as he speaks there, James i. 17.

Thus all the objections that can be made,

may be answered out of his name; therefore it is allsufficient for faith to rest upon.

The same may be also fully gathered out of his son's name; in whom God hath made himself strong to show mercy, and bestow all good gifts. His name is adequate to God's name, that is, is of as large extent in worth and merit, as God's heart is in his purposes of showing and bestowing mercies. His name hath likewise an all-sufficiency in it to supply all our wants and desires, and to satisfy all our scruples. For example that his name mentioned by the prophet Isaiah, ix. 6, compared with 1 Cor. i. 30. For would we have peace of conscience, and the guilt of sin removed? He is the PRINCE OF PEACE, and is made RIGHTEOUSNESS to us. Are we in depths of distress, terrors within, terrors without, out of which we see no redemption? He is the MIGHTY GOD, ABLE TO SAVE TO THE UTTERMOST, being made REDEMPTION to us. Want we grace, and his image to be renewed and increased in us? He is the EVER. Lasting FatheR; a Father to beget his likeness in us, and EVERLASTING, to maintain it ever, when it is once begun; He is made SANCTIFICATION to us. Want we wisdom to guide us? He is the COUNSELLOR, and is made WISDOM to us. All we want he hath; even as all he hath we want; and further, although we not only want all these, but never so much of all these, his name is also WONDERFUL. For such he is in all these; "able to do above all that we ask or think." Or if the soul desire more distinct and particular satisfaction in point of justification, which consists in the pardon of sins and acceptation to the favor of God, it being the point which in this state of desertion is questioned, and wherein the soul desires satisfaction, that other name of his, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, Jer. xxiii. 6, will answer all objections

and doubts that our hearts can raise.

For if that right

eousness of his, satisfied God, who in condemning us is greater than our hearts, then surely it may satisfy our hearts much more. The righteousness of his life and death is not only an adequate ransom, 1 Tim. ii. 6. But there is PLENTEOUS REDEMPTION in it, Psalm cxxx. 7. Yea, to superfluity, as the apostle's phrase implies, 1 Tim. i. 14; that is, OVERFULL, more than would serve the purpose, and that to pardon his sins, who WAS THE CHIEF OF SINNERS, 15. He elsewhere challenges all the powers of sin, hell, and darkness to appear in this dispute, and undertakes to answer them all out of this one position, which he lays as a foundation truth, "CHRIST HATH DIED," Rom. viii. 34, which is in effect the same as this, THE LORD our righteoUSNESS. "Who is he that condemneth?" What can be alleged either in the heinousness of sin in the general, or in any of thy sins in particular, unto which an answer may not hence be given, from the righteousness of his life and death? Is it that sin is an offence against the great God? AGAINST THEE, AGAINST THEE, &c., as David says and is not His righteousness, the righteousness of Jehovah ? JEHOVAH our righteousness, who is the MIGHTY GOD. Is the glory of this great God, and all his excellencies debased by us in sinning? And will not the emptying of his glory, whose name is the brightness of the Father's glory, in performing this righteousness for us, satisfy and make amends? Are our sins the transgression of the holy and righteous law in every part? and did not Jehovah, who gave and made that law, to make himself our righteousness, MAKE HIMSELF UNDER THE LAW? Gal. iv. 4; and to make up a FULL righteousness, FULFIL every part of it, Rom. viii. 3, 4. Is it thy continuance in sin, and the number and the

:

iteration of them that amazeth thee? ALL FULNESS DWELLS IN HIM, who is our righteousness, Col. i. 19, and hath dwelt in him, longer than sin in thee. And the righteousness of our Messiah, is an EVERLASTING RIGHTEOUSNESS, Dan. ix. 24. The merit of which, an eternity of sinning could not exhaust, or make void. And is all this righteousness laid up for himself only, or for any other sort of creatures, so as thou mightest never come to have an interest in it? No! The height of our comfort is, that OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, is one WORD of his Name, and that our names are put into his. FOR US it is, and ours it is ordained to be. OURS, not for himself, he had no need of it, being God blessed for ever. OURS, not the angels', for they are justified by their own; nor the bad, they are put out of God's will for ever. But OURS, who are the sons of men; and among them, who are broken, lost, whose souls draw near to the grave, and their lives to the destroyers, Job xxxiii. 22; and who come and pray unto God, and stay themselves upon it unto them God cannot deny it, for it is theirs for he will render to man "His righteousness," Job xxxiii. 26. So that his Son's name is all-sufficient to answer all objections for faith to rest upon: "so that they that know his name will put their trust in him," Psalm ix. 10.

and AMEN only in this hist

A second reason why his name is sufficient, though you have and see nothing in yourself, nor any promise made to any grace in you to rest upon, is, because even all those promises made to conditions in us, which we ordinarily look to, are YEA, name, and his Son's name. THAT is the original of them all, the root, the seed of them all; his name is the first matter of all those secondary promises, his name gives being to them all; if it were not for the mercy, grace,

D

truth, kindness in him, and the righteousness which is in his Son, all the promises which are made, what were they worth? As the worth of a bond depends upon the sufficiency of the man who gives it, so do all these promises upon his name. Therefore, now, when you rely upon his name, having as yet no promise made to anything in yourself to rely upon, you then trust on that which is the foundation of all those promises; you then have recourse to the original, which is more authentic than extract copies; you rely on that, which all those other are resolved into, and therefore is sufficient, though all the rest fail you in your own apprehension.

Thirdly, his mere name is support enough for faith, and may be so, because it is for his name's sake, and his Son's name's sake, he doth all he doth: and for nothing in us, but merely for what is in himself. So Isaiah xlviii. 9, 11, "For my name's sake," &c. So also Ezek. xxxvi. 22, 32. For my name's sake, and not your sake. And again, Isaiah xliii. 25, "I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for my own sake, and will not remember thy sins." FOR IT, he blotteth out transgression, and pardoneth it. And if it be for his name's sake, he doth all, and fulfilleth all promises made to us, then, when thou seest nothing in thyself, to which any promise is made, nothing which may appear to be any motive to pardon thee, then, trust those in that his name; that because he is God, and hath mercy in himself, that therefore he will do it. For that which is the only motive to God himself to do anything for us, must needs be (when apprehended and believed by us) the strongest and surest ground for our faith to rest upon, to persuade the heart that he will do it.

This, then, may direct poor souls in distress, what to venture all upon, upon what ground to hazard souls,