SERMON IL Heb. 9. 4_ How much more (hall the .Floor of Chrift, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered ¡imfelf without Spot to God, purge your Confci- ence from dead Works to ferve the living God? hap. io. 22. Let us draw near with a true Heart, in fill Jíurance of Faith, having our Hearts fprinkled from an evil Confcience, and our Bodies soaped with,pure Water. F we knew what fort of Confciences we naturally have and were fuitably fenfible of the evil Rate of them, it would be to us as good news from a far country, to hear bow they may be gotten purged and made good; and low little foever men think of this now, and however eafy they fancy it to be to get their Confciences folidly quieted and calmed, there is a day coming, when fleep- ing and fecure Confciences will be awzkned, and when it will be found more'eafy to endure the' greatefl toil, and the moft exquifite torment on earth, than to wreftle with, and to be clofly purfued, and conftantly haunted by the terrors of an evil and awakned Confcience, which will tore alainfl men as a lion, and tear (as it were) the very caul of their heart then, O then, they who would never be perfwaded before to believe what an evil and defiled Confcience is, nor what the benefit and advan- tage of peace with God, and in the Confcience is, fhall be made, to their eternal prejudice, to know the truth ^of both. In both thefe places, now read in your hearing, the apofile's fcope is, to commend the tranfcendent worth, and matchlefs excellency of Jefus Chriff, and the incom= parable efficacy of his moll precious blood, from this noble, notable and non -Inch effe& of it, viz. That when nothing elfe can lay, or allay the form and tempeft of an evil Confcience, nor purge it from thefe defiling dead gvorks, this blood can do it to purpofe, and effeetuall y, tvhm applied by with; when no legal facrifice, nor waih..
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