“It has, my dear young friend, been my earnest inquiry, especially of late years, standing on the brink of eternity, ’What is there within us, or without us, on which a sinner can rest in a dying hour?’ If it be a holy life, there is no peace for me.  Taking the law of God for my rule, backslider is my name; yet peace I have found, and on the best Security; this blessed Bible is my charter.  I have searched it with diligence and prayer, and my mind is confirmed in the following truths:  That the whole world is become guilty before God, and is under his wrath and curse on that account.  This is our state:  a miserable state it is, and as hopeless as miserable, for any thing we can do merely of ourselves.  But I read in this Bible to the full amount of the following conclusions—­that in the counsel of the mysterious Triune Jehovah, Jesus Christ, the second person of the incomprehensible Trinity, was sanctified, or set apart to become the Saviour of law-condemned sinners, to take their nature upon him, comply with the requisitions of the eternal immutable law of God, and become their surety.  Man is a rebel, it is put to his account:  a penalty is incurred—­He, as their surety, is made liable.  Are they again to be made heirs of eternal life?  Perfect obedience is the condition—­and of Him, as their surety, it is demanded.  All this being fulfilled, sinners are become his property:  he has paid their debt, and merited for them eternal life, all in their own nature, as their Head and representative; so that believers are complete in him.  This is the righteousness of God, wrought out by Jesus Christ, in his own person, God-man, as their surety.  To this nothing of the believer’s is to be added—­with this nothing of his mixed; it is for ever perfect; entirely distinct from that holiness of heart and life which is wrought in him in consequence of this.  God has declared himself well pleased with this righteousness, and that being himself reconciled, he is in Christ Jesus reconciling sinners to him.

“Hence all the invitations scattered thick in the Old and New Testament, not only to the penitent, weary, and heavy laden, but to the stout-hearted, the backslider, to them that are wearying themselves in their own way.  ’Ho, every one that thirsteth’—­’Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely,’ Hence all the promises annexed to believing, accepting, receiving, trusting, resting:  Christ the Saviour is the object—­the gift of God to sinners for all the above purposes.  The Lord has convinced me that I have nothing in myself on which I can rest; my conscience echoes to his word in all that it asserts of my nature and my state; but this Saviour is provided for sinners exactly of this description.  I am invited to put in my claim, I believe the record, I rest my salvation on his word; God giveth to me eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  Jesus calls me to look unto him, and be saved; I do look unto him, and I am saved.  He assures me that