to us, if we had received into the heart the belief of our own
wretchedness and misery. I do not know a more sovereign cordial for a
fainting soul, than this faithful saying, "That Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners." And therefore we are most willing to dwell on this
subject, and to inculcate it often upon you, that without him you are
undone and lost, and in him you may be saved. I profess, all other
subjects, howsoever they might be more pleasing to some hearers, are
unpleasant and unsavoury to me. This is that we should once learn, and
ever be learning--to know him that came to save us, and come to him.

We laboured to show unto you the state of sin and misery that Adam's first
transgression hath subjected all mankind unto, which if it were really and
truly apprehended, I do not think but it would make this saying welcome to
your souls. Man being plunged into such a deep pit of misery, sin and
death having overflowed the whole world, and this being seen and
acknowledged by a sinner, certainly the next question in order of nature
is this, hath God left all to perish in this estate? Is there any remedy
provided for sin and misery? And this will be indeed the query of a
self-condemned sinner. Now there is a plank after this broken ship; there
is an answer sweet and satisfactory to this question; "Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners."

We shall not expatiate into many notions about this, or multiply many
branches of this. The matter is plain and simple, and we desire to hold
out plainly and simply, that this is the remedy of sin and misery. When
none could be found on the right hand or left hand, here a Saviour from
heaven comes down from above, whence no good could be expected, because a
good God was provoked. "Can there any good thing come out of
Nazareth?"--that was a proverb concerning him. But I think in some sense it
might be said, Can any good come down from heaven, from his holy
habitation to this accursed earth? Could any thing be expected from heaven
but wrath and vengeance? And if no good could be expected that way, what
way could it come? Sure if not from heaven, then from no airth.(154) Yet
from heaven our help is come, from whence it could not be looked for,--even
from him who was offended, and whose justice was engaged against man. That
he might both satisfy justice and save man,--that he might not wrong
himself nor destroy man utterly,--he sends his only begotten Son, equal
wit