Introduction to the Work

1 Peter 1:18-19. Inasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, etc.

Among all the heavenly truths of the gospel, which our Lord Christ has revealed and commended to his church, out of his holy Word, there is none more precious than that wherein the application of the rich redemption purchased by him is [reconstructed: applied], and made good to the hearts of those who [reconstructed: belong] to the election of his grace; as giving a [reconstructed: crown] to all the rest of the doctrine taught and learned, [reconstructed: and] putting the soul into possession of all those treasures of grace, which were only promised on God's part, [reconstructed: and only] hoped apprehended by the sinner before: in a word, that which gives life to the fainting heart, in the [reconstructed: enjoyment] of God's free grace.

For what avails it the hungry to hear of fat [reconstructed: feasts and] choice wines, and rare [reconstructed: dainties], and not to know [reconstructed: how to] come at them? What profits it the condemned malefactor to hear tell of a pardon, and the party [reconstructed: appointed to] give it, if yet he be ignorant what way he should [reconstructed: use to] procure it, for his own deliverance? So here, what avails it the forlorn sinner, sitting down under the sentence of condemnation, and fainting away for [reconstructed: mercy] and forgiveness, to hear of the rich mercy of a [reconstructed: God], the sufficiency of the merits of a Christ, and the redemption provided by both; and yet see no way to obtain them, or the deliverance of his soul by them? The knowledge of the mercy adds rather to the [reconstructed: heightening of] his misery and distress, to think there is so much [reconstructed: grace] to be had, and he has so much need, and yet [he] finds no way to get it, no well-grounded hope to obtain it.

The truths themselves which properly [reconstructed: belong to] this place of divinity, and lay forth the [reconstructed: riches of] God's grace, and the work of his Spirit in the soul, are wonderful for secrecy, sweetness, and power [reconstructed: thereof]; as they ever have and do at this day exercise the [reconstructed: ablest] judgments that are or ever were; so were [reconstructed: they to] be handled by a head and heart fully fitted to [reconstructed: so] good a matter, and expressed by a tongue as the [reconstructed: pen of] a ready writer (as the Psalmist speaks), I [reconstructed: think it] would appear that, as the difficulty is great, so the fit would be equal, and the comfort unmatchable [reconstructed: that] would issue from the open discovery of those mysteries.

For my self (being privy to my own weakness), it [reconstructed: may] suffice in a familiar manner to accommodate my [reconstructed: discourse] (though it may be somewhat rudely) to the [reconstructed: capacity] of the meanest: and in the manner of my [reconstructed: proceeding], in order to that end, attend the Method [reconstructed: following]:

First, by a short and familiar description we shall [reconstructed: show] what that work is which we purpose to [reconstructed: handle].

Secondly, we shall choose such texts, in which all the divine truths contained in the descriptions are [reconstructed: clearly expressed]; that so we may go no further than we have the Oracles of God (his good Word) to go before us; neither shall we meddle with every particular which the several texts will offer to our consideration, but [reconstructed: only] handle such as concern our purpose.

Lastly, we shall knit the whole frame together by [reconstructed: the] joints and sinews of distributions and divisions, [reconstructed: that] such as are attentive may never be at a loss, nor yet [reconstructed: lose] or mistake the Lord, but that it may be well seen (as David has it) how the Lord goes in his [reconstructed: Sanctuary], where the prints and footsteps of God be, in [reconstructed: his] proceeding with the soul in this great work.

To press on to our [reconstructed: chief] purpose: know then [reconstructed: we] must, after Adam by his fall and apostasy had [reconstructed: fallen] away from God, and that gracious estate in which he was created according to his image; having [reconstructed: wholly] undone himself and his posterity, being all [reconstructed: become] children of wrath, under the curse of the law, which they could not avoid being just, nor bear being [reconstructed: executed], as issuing from the infinite displeasure of an [reconstructed: infinite] God: whose law they had broken, and [reconstructed: had trodden] the seal of the covenant under their feet. For the recovery of him and any of his out of this [reconstructed: miserable] condition, two things were requisite to be done [reconstructed: according] to God's righteous dispensation in the way of Providence.

First, there must be a redemption [reconstructed: wrought by] the death and obedience of Christ, that God's [reconstructed: justice] and holiness which were wronged might be [reconstructed: satisfied].

Secondly, there must be an application of redemption to the souls of such for whom [reconstructed: it was] paid, that so they might have the good and [reconstructed: benefit of] that which Christ had performed and God [reconstructed: designed] in their behalf; and both these must be done for the sons of Adam, who ever shall see the face of grace or glory. For such is the [reconstructed: helpless] condition [reconstructed: into] which Adam had brought [reconstructed: himself and his posterity], that as he has no [reconstructed: power] of his own to do any [reconstructed: work] that may redeem himself [reconstructed: from his misery], [illegible] of his own [reconstructed: to apply] that to himself which is [illegible], further [reconstructed: than] he is fitted by the preventing grace of Christ. In the former of these we have the [reconstructed: purchase of redemption] open before us; in the latter we come to possession of them: the former shows the [reconstructed: price], this second the appropriation of it to such, and such only to whom God has intended it, [reconstructed: and] for whom it has been made by Christ. [illegible] the sweet of the [reconstructed: gospel], which we [reconstructed: shall, God] helping, [reconstructed: pursue] a little in the [reconstructed: present] exercise, as long as the Lord is pleased to give [reconstructed: us] liberty. To begin then with a description of the doctrine of application, it may be this, in brief.