And are you not in a poor case for rising up again out of the mire now, when you have let go hold of God, as your God in Christ? This is not the way to rise, your best course is, to act faith again, and renew that claim which you have formerly made, for grace, in order both for justification and sanctification, Ezra ix. 6; Psalm lxv. 3; Jonah ii. 12.—I now come to the

3. Thing in drawing near to God with full assurance, which was, that you improve your claimed interest for all your necessities, without doubting of success. Christ has opened heaven to you; and if you have come in through the vail, taken God in Christ as your God, and claimed him as such, he would have you to be familiar in his Father's house, and want nothing which is there suitable to your condition; but to put out the hand of faith, with full assurance, that you are as welcome to the heavenly treasures as the blood that purchased them can make you and that is, welcome to the full. I doubt not but this is the import of the text. Poor empty ereature, thou canst not subsist without communion with heaven; but thou must drink of the fountain, before thou canst meddle with the streams; himself must be thine, before the least article of the furniture of the house can be thine; therefore thou must take God in Christ for your God, then you must claim him, and, having claimed him, be familiar with him, and all that is his, in the way of believing.-In explaining this, I shall shew,

I. How the believer should be familiar in the house over which Christ is set, and thus draw near with full assurance.

II. Why he should be so familiar.

1. We are to shew, how the believer should be familiar in the house over which Christ is set, and thus draw near with full assurance. Upon this I observe, that he should,

1. Come and tell him all his wants freely, without concealing any thing from him, for this would argue distance and distrust: Song vii. 11, "Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages." Faith has a most enlarged desire, it is always in want of something, and its work is to beg, to take freely without money and without price; and for that reason it is pitched upon as the great mean of communion betwixt God and sinners; Rom. iv. 16, "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace, to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed." And the stronger faith is, it spreads out the more wants, and spreads them out the more freely before the Lord, as to a friend. Do you want any thing as to which you cannot tell the Lord? It argues either no real need, or else little faith. Strong faith is a free communer in heaven, and will conceal nothing, but tell all: Eph. iii.12, "In

whom we have boldness and access, with confidence, by the faith of him." (Boldness, Gr. telling all).—He should,

2. Come and seek all he needs, without blushing: Heb. iv. 16, "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may find mercy, and obtain grace to help in time of need." Faith coming in within the vail, comes into a friend's house; and the more free and familiar it is there, and the less reserved, the more welcome. There are two seekers that do not blush before the Lord in their asking: 1. A proud unhumbled heart, whose sense of need is very small; and these, for their shamelessness, get the door cast on their face: 1 Pet. v. 5, " For God resisteth the proud." Luke i. 5, "And the rich he sendeth empty away." 2. A strong faith, whose sense of need is very great, which drives away the unbelieving blushes out of the face; and such shamefaced seekers never get a denial in heaven: Luke xi. 8, "Yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth."

There is a blessed shamelessness in faith with full assurance; it makes persons very familiar in God's house. It can come there at any time, it keeps no set hours, it can step forward at midnight, (Luke xi. 5,) when doors used to be shut, and knock at the gates, without fear of giving disturbance. It was a dark night to Job; God had drawn a sable covering over the face of his throne to him; yet faith goes forwards, and draws it by, Job xiii. 15, 16, (quoted above). See also Isa. Ixiii. 15, 16. It can plead the relation of a friend to the master of the house. The believer stands in many relations to the Lord, and faith fixes on that relation which will serve its plea best. If the soul be under particular necessities, where it must have a friend's help, the soul will claim the help of God as its friend, notwithstanding the infinite disproportion between the relatives. And in this case, it can be very full in its demands: Luke xi. 5, "Lend me three loaves." Possibly less might serve a friend on a journey, who is to tarry only a night, but strong faith is not to be dealt with scrimply. It must have what will be enough and to spare, for it desires to be more than a conqueror.-Faith thinks no shame to complain of an empty house at home, Luke xi. 6, and that it has nothing to set before this stranger. The report faith brings to heaven, is still of emptiness, for they that live by faith are always from hand to mouth, and never want an errand to the God of heaven for some supply or other.-Finally, It can confidently borrow, without one word of paying again. See the whole of our Saviour's parable, the design of which is to recommend importunity at the throne of grace, Luke xi. 5-10. This is the way of faith's trading with heaven, without money in hand, and without price to

be paid. For faith just involves the soul in the debt of free grace, and can trade at no other market, for no other is suited for the bankrupt family of Adam.

3. He should even put out his hand, and draw to him, by believing the promises suited to his case, and this with a faith of application: Matth. xxi. 22, “And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive them." It is the business of faith, to read the person's particular name in the general promise, and to fill up his own name in these promises, which are, as it were, God's blank bills and bonds, and then come forward with them even to his seat, with David's plea: Psalm cxix. 49, "Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope." And this without doubting. They can never be familiar with heaven, who stand afar off from the promises.-Thou shouldst believe that the promises shall be made out; they are the words of truth, which shall have a certain accomplishment. And though the unbelieving world take them but for fair words, thou takest them for sure words, which are full of mercy, and shall not miscarry, but shall surely be accomplished at the set time: Psalm xii. 6, "The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times."-Again, believe that they shall be made out to thee. What canst thou be the better of a salve not applied to thy sore, or of a promise which is not applied by faith to thy own soul. It is by the faith of application that these breasts of consolation are sucked, and that the water is drawn out of the wells of salvation. And what other way can we be partakers of the sap which flows from them, but by thus believing, as was before shewn. And for this cause it is necessary to be well acquainted with the Bible, and to mark the promises, that whatever be thy case, thou mayest have a word suited to it to plead with God, for the word is that by which influences are conveyed. And seeing much lies in believing and applying the promises, take these two notes to clear your way in this exercise.-I observe,

(1.) That whosoever receives Christ, and takes God for his God in him, has a right to all the promises of the covenant suited to his case, and has a right to apply them. They meet all in Christ, for "all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen, unto the glory of God by us." And so all of them may be claimed in him, even as he who marries a wife may plead all that is promised with her in the contract. It is with him that God freely gives us all things, Rom. viii. 32. Take Christ, then, and the promise is yours in him. I observe,

(2.) That the promises are made primarily to Jesus Christ:

Gal. iii. 16, "Now, to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." He is the second Adam, the great contractor with the Father in the covenant of grace, and through him to all who are his, even as the promise of the first covenant was to Adam, and his seed in him. And they were made to him on condition of his satisfying the demands of the law, which is now done; so that, with respect to us, they are all absolute and free; properly speaking, none of them are conditional. Some of them describe the qualification of these to whom they shall be accomplished, as Matth. v. 3-10, which qualification is, however, wrought in them, in accomplishment of the leading promises, the promises of grace, such as Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them." But both the one and the other are pleadable only through Jesus Christ, being through him made absolute to those who are his; so that in Christ you have a right to all that is suited to your case. Hence it is that promises, made to some particular saints, may be confidently applied by others in their circumstances, as growing all upon one root, which is our common Lord. Thus, God said to Joshua, chap. i. 5, “As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee; I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." He says to every believer, Heb. xiii. 5, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."

Lastly, He should hang on about the Lord's hand till the supply come, and that confidently. This is that which in the scriptures is celebrated under the name of trusting, relying, staying on the Lord. The whole weight of all our wants is to be laid over on the Lord, and a confident expectation maintained, that he will supply them, according to his word. Trust reposed in a generous man is a strong tie on him to help and answer expectation. Lot, Gen. xix. 8, would have any ill done to himself rather than to his guests, because, says he, "for this cause they came under the shadow of my roof." And they that trust in the Lord according to his word, shall never be ashamed. Thus, the believer should be familiar in the house over which Christ is set, and in this way draw near with full assurance. Let us now,

II. Shew why the believer should be so familiar in this house, improving his claimed interest for his necessities, without doubting of the success. He should be so,

1. Because heaven is made home to him by the blood of the Son

of God, and therefore no reason to doubt of welcome, Heb. x. 19, 20. That is a kindly word, which you have in John xx. 17, "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended unto my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." It is our Father's house because it is Christ's Father's house; and where may one be familiar, if not in their Father's house? It is the house prepared for them first by Christ's satisfaction, then by his intercession: John xiv. 2, "I go to prepare a place for you." It is the house their Lord and husband is set over; it is the house they came of, for they are born from above; and it is the house they are to dwell in for ever, nay, the Lord himself is their home: Psalm xc. 1, "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations." The Jewish doctors called him place, because the only resting-place of the soul is in God, and to believers he is unquestionably their rest.

2. It is a pleasure to have full breasts sucked. The breasts of grace and goodness in God to sinners through Christ, are full, there is nothing wanting, faith has only to suck, and to be satisfied. It is applied to the church, what you have in Isa. lxvi. 11, “That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory." The breasts are, as it were, held forth in the word of the gospel, which is our great privilege. There is all fulness in Christ, the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him, that so sinners might have access to God through the vail of his flesh, and be filled with all the fulness of God. The fulness in him is not the fulness of a vessel, to serve itself only, but the fulness of a fountain to be communicated, which still gives, and yet has enough. Well may we, then, draw near to God with full assurance of faith.-We should be thus familiar; for, 3. This is the great end for which sinners are at all brought to God through Christ, namely, that they may partake of his fulness. It is the great end of all the promises: 2 Pet. i. 4, " Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these we might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." The communication betwixt God and man was interrupted by Adam's fall; it is opened by Jesus Christ, that influences from heaven may run freely, and that in him they may get all their wants made up. They may be assured of a cordial welcome when taking for their necessities these things which are brought in for this very end, that they may be supplied.

4. The Lord offers himself in the gospel for all, and the sinner who takes him aright, takes him for all, and instead of all, Matth.