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and provinces! Who can fathom unmeasurable love?" If worthiness were our<br />
condition for admittance, we might sit down and weep, with St. John,<br />
because no man was found worthy. But "the Lion of the tribe of Judah" is<br />
worthy, and hath prevailed; and by that title we must hold the inheritance.<br />
We shall offer there the offering that David refused, even praise for that<br />
which cost us nothing. Here our commission runs, "Freely ye have received,<br />
freely give;" but Christ has dearly bought, yet freely gives.<br />
If it were only for nothing, and without our merit, the wonder were<br />
great; but it is moreover against our merit, and against our long endeavoring<br />
our own ruin. What an astonishing thought it will be, to think of the<br />
immeasurable difference between our deservings and receivings! between<br />
the state we should have been in, and the state we are in! to look down upon<br />
hell, and see the vast difference from that to which we are adopted! What<br />
pangs of love will it cause within us to think, "Yonder was the place that sin<br />
would have brought me to; but this is it that Christ hath brought me to!<br />
Yonder death was the wages of my sin, but this eternal life is the gift of God,<br />
through Jesus Christ my Lord. Who made me to differ? Had I not now been<br />
in those flames if I had had my own way, and been let alone to my own will?<br />
Should I not have lingered in Sodom till the flames had seized on me, if God<br />
had not in mercy brought me out?" Doubtless this will be our everlasting<br />
admiration, that so rich a crown should fit the head of so vile a sinner; that<br />
such high advancement, and such long unfruitfulness and unkindness, can be<br />
the state of the same person, and that such vile rebellions can conclude in<br />
such most precious joys! But no thanks to us, nor to any of our duties and<br />
labors, much less to our neglects and laziness: we know to whom the praise<br />
is due, and must be given for ever. Indeed, to this very end it was that infinite<br />
wisdom cast the whole design of man's salvation into this mould of<br />
purchases and freeness, that the love and joy of man might be perfected, and<br />
the honor of grace most highly advanced; that the thought of merit might<br />
neither cloud the one nor obstruct the other; and that on these two hinges the<br />
gate of heaven might turn. So then let DESERVED be written on the door of<br />
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