To say in compliment, “I am a sinner,” is easy; but to pray with the publican indeed, “LORD, be merciful to me the sinner,” is the hardest prayer in the world. It is easy to say, “I believe in Christ”; but to see Christ full of grace and truth, of Whose fullness you may receive Grace for Grace; that is Faith indeed. It is easy to profess Christ with the mouth; but to confess Him with the heart, as Peter, to be “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” the alone Mediator, that is above flesh and blood. Many call Christ, Savior; a few know Him so. To see grace and salvation in Christ, is the greatest sight in the world! None can do that, but at the same time they shall see that glory and salvation to be theirs. Sights will cause applications. I may be ashamed to think in the midst of so much profession, that I have known so little of the blood of Christ, which is the main thing of the Gospel. A Christless, formal religion, will be the blackest sight next to hell that can be. You may have many good things, and yet one thing may be lacking, that may make you go away sorrowful from Christ. You have never sold all; you have never parted with all your own righteousness, and so on. You may be high in duty and yet a perfect enemy and adversary to Christ, in every prayer, in every ordinance. Labor after sanctification to your utmost; but make not a Christ of it to save yourself; if so, it must come down one way or other. Christ’s infinite satisfaction, not your sanctification, must be your justification before God. When the LORD shall appear terrible from out of His Holy Place, fire shall consume that as hay and stubble.

This is sound Doctrine: To rest all upon the everlasting mountains of God’s love and grace in Christ, to live continually in the sight of Christ’s infinite righteousness and merits- these things are sanctifying. Without them the heart is carnal, and in those sights to see the full vileness, yet littleness of sin (in comparison to Christ’s righteousness), and to see all pardoned: in those sights to pray, hear, and so forth, seeing your polluted self, and all your weak performances, accepted continually; in those sights to trample upon all your self-glories, righteousness, privileges, as abominable, and be found continually in the righteousness of Christ only, rejoicing in the ruins of your own righteousness, the spoiling of all your own excellencies, that Christ alone, as Mediator, may be exalted in His throne. Mourn over all your duties, however glorious, that you have not performed in the sight and sense of Christ’s love. Without the blood of Christ on your conscience, all is dead service, (Heb 9:14).