. ii. 11, &c. All men
love the salvation it brings. But do ye love the lessons it teaches you?
Ye would all be glad to have that blessed hope, and obtain the salvation
which the saints look for, when Christ shall appear again in glory. But
how few learn and practise what the gospel teacheth, to mortify and deny
your corrupt lusts, and live daily in the practice of sobriety, equity,
and piety! O if this were engraven upon your hearts, that ye might study
to do that in this present world, which this precious grace and gospel
teaches us to do in it! Know ye not, brethren, that all your pains in
seeking heaven, are not about heaven itself immediately, but the way to
it, which is holiness? Without this, no man shall see the Lord, ye need
not seek the kingdom of glory, hope for it, and look for it. But seek
grace and righteousness in this world, and if ye obtain them, ye have not
much to do, but to look for the blessed hope and Christ's glorious
appearance to judgment. For if ye have sought and got grace here, Christ
will come with grace and glory at the day of his revelation. Will ye
consider that ye are redeemed by Christ? But from what is it? From hell
only, and eternal death only? No, no, for we are redeemed from all
iniquity, as well as the curse of the law and the wrath to come, Matt. i.
21, Tit. ii. 14. This deliverance from sin is the greater and best half of
our redemption. Consider also to what ye are redeemed. Is it to happiness
and glory only? No certainly, but unto grace also. For Christ "gave
himself for us, that he might purify us unto himself a peculiar people,
zealous of good works." These things should ministers teach and exhort,
and above all things press them upon men's consciences. We are redeemed
from all our enemies to serve God without fear, in holiness and
righteousness all the days of our life, Luke i. 74, 75. Yea, glory is not
glory, except it be complete grace, so we must call the kingdom of glory.
If ye believed that it was nigh you, ye would look then for the perfection
of grace. And will ye not love the beginning of it here?

But this is not all. There is yet more here to comfort us. Seek the
righteousness of God. There is a righteousness of God by faith, manifested
in the gospel for lost sinners, who have nothing to cover them. Now I say
ye must so seek inherent grace, as ye may not make it your covering, and
the only foundation of your confidence. Sinners, the thing which ye first
seek and find