o believe on the Son, charges
them also to believe that they are lost without him. And if the most
presumptuous sinners would once give obedience to this commandment, really
there would be no fear of presumption in coming too soon unto Jesus. A
sense of sin is not set as a porter, to keep out any who are willing to
come in, but rather to open the door, and constrain them that were
unwilling to enter in, so that if the least measure of that can do this,
we are not to stand till we have more, but to come to the Prince exalted
to get remission of sins, and more true gospel sorrow which worketh
repentance unto salvation from dead works. You should not therefore
understand any promises in the scriptures so, as if there were any
conditions set down to seclude any from coming, who are willing to come.
For they do but declare the nature and manner of what they are invited to,
that no man may mistake believing, and take his own empty presumptions or
fancies, which embolden him to sin more, for that true faith which is full
of good fruits.

Now, in the text, the pious soul, having once subscribed to the guilt and
curse of all the commandments by believing the law, he looks also upon the
Son, Jesus Christ, and finds the law fulfilled, the curse removed, all
satisfied in him. He finds all the commandments obeyed in his person, all
the wrath due for the breach of them pacified and quenched by his
sufferings. And he gives a cheerful and cordial approbation of all this.
He receives Christ as the end of the law for righteousness, which Christ
made up by obedience and suffering to supply our disobedience. We should
stay or rest upon this, as that which pacifies the Father's wrath to the
full. This is what gives the answer of a good conscience, and pacifies
every penitent soul, and secures his title to heaven. Now this presents
God with a full atonement and obedience to all the law, which he accepts
from a believer as if it were his own. This is the large comprehension of
believing, it takes in its arms, as it were, in one bundle,(429) all the
precepts and curses, and devolves them over on Christ, puts them in an
able hand, and then takes them all, as satisfied and fulfilled by him, and
holds them up in one bundle to the Father. And hence it proceeds, in the
third place, that believing on the Son takes in all again to be the rule
of walking and the mark to aim at. Finding such a perfect exoneration of
bygones(430) in Christ and standing i