"What is it to bring sin to Christ's cross, and to crucify it there?" I answer, it contains the following things: --
1. To behold the sinfulness of sin in the death of Christ. You may see much of the evil of it by looking into the holy law, and observing its polluting effect upon your own hearts: but such sights of sin, by themselves, will not subdue it. Look upon the cross of Christ; behold him suffering, bleeding, dying, and under his Father's withdrawment for sin imputed to him: there you may look and wonder, look and mourn, look and raise your indignation against sin in the strongest manner. This will be a most effectual means of making you to be truly ashamed of it, and to mourn for it with a godly, an evangelical sorrow.
2. To account every indulged sin in you as crucifying the Son of God afresh. By giving way to iniquity, by harboring it in your bosoms, or by casting a pleasing glance upon the abominable thing, you are guilty, not only of breaking the law, but of undervaluing the blood of the covenant. What! Did Christ die for sin, and shall you indulge it? Surely this would be doing what lies in your power to bring him down, and nail him upon the cross afresh. Oh! Could we but have such conceptions of sin indulged, they would greatly tend to set our hearts at the utmost distance from it.
3. It is to cast the guilt of our sin upon the atonement of Christ, by faith. Do we now see ourselves very guilty and filthy? Are we ashamed of ourselves and enabled to abhor ourselves, because of our abominations? Now surely we cannot but experimentally conceive, that nothing short of an infinite atonement can procure remission. Behold therefore the atonement Christ has made; see how satisfactory it is to divine justice, see how sufficient it is for our pardon: and let us now endeavor to answer the challenges of a guilty conscience by the blood of Jesus Christ. Thus we shall receive a divine pardon to our consciences; thus we shall receive a divine pardon to our consciences; thus we shall receive peace and reconciliation with God. And then we shall find him restoring comforts to us, restoring the joys of his salvation, and the quickenings of his free Spirit.
How unhappy is the believer, while he lies under the guilt of unpardoned sin, and while the corruption and unbelief of his heart keeps him back from a free confession of it! He has now lost all enjoyment of himself, all communion with God, and all special pleasure in, or profit by, his ordinances. He now sinks in deep mire, where there is no standing: he is now come into deep waters, where the floods overflow him. But when he is enabled to see his sin, guilt and impurity, and to disburden his conscience by an application to the blood of Christ, O then his soul is eased, his heart purified, his spiritual liberty restored, and a gracious God returns to him in lovingkindness and tender mercy
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