Come and Buy Christ without Money!

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Joshua

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Andrew Gray (Works, pp. 141, 142):

1. Come and buy Christ, and yet buy him without money: that is, come and receive Christ, and ye shall have as unquestionable a right to him, as if ye had bought him; that is, to buy him without money. Ye have nothing to commend you to Christ but necessities, and necessities bid you go, and Christ biddeth you come,—why then will ye sit that call?

2. What a gospel-mystery is that, Ye are to buy Christ, and he is above price!—there is nothing that we can give to buy that pearl of great price, and yet we must buy him: then the meaning is, Come, and buy Christ by faith, and by forsaking your idols—this is all the price that he doth require for himself; and so he requireth nothing of you, but what he himself doth give, or what is both your duty and advantage to forsake, and which is no gain for him to receive. Christ is not enriched by your hearts, and by giving your consent to him.

3. This is a gospel-mystery, that we are to buy without money and without price, and yet to buy with a price! according to that word, Prov. 17:16, There is a price put in the hand of fools to buy wisdom. And what is the meaning of that, to buy with price, and to buy without price? It is, in short, this,—though Christ be offered to you in the gospel freely, ye must not sit down, but be active in closing with him.

What is the price that Christ requireth of you? It is even this,—that ye would forsake your soul-destroying idols, and that ye would forsake your former evil ways, and take hold of the present opportunity for embracing him. And O cursed shall the heart be, that will not embrace Christ! O but to have him one hour in our arms, is well worth ten thousand eternities of the enjoyments of all things that are here below!—ye would never open your arms again to another lover, if once ye had him between your breasts. O but a sight of him that now is the eternal ravishment of all that are above, would transport your hearts with joy—with delight and admiration above all expression.

4. There is this gospel-mystery, by which we would press you to embrace Christ,—a Christian must buy Christ, and yet must have him freely. Is there not an inconsistence, do you suppose, between buying and having freely? But I would say this to clear it,—Christ is both the seller, he is the ware, and he is the buyer. Christ presenteth himself unto your hearts, and he desireth to sell himself, and he persuadeth, and freely enableth you to buy him. I will tell you what Christ doth, he standeth without our hearts, and within our hearts; he standeth without, and knocketh by the Word, and he standeth within, and openeth by his Spirit. Christ both commandeth and obeyeth, both within doors and without doors, and all this he doth freely.​
 
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