vry a .ay.+ bath a good Confcience,a Confcience fprinkled and purged by the blood of Chrift ; fo no man can to the full reprefent to you the exceeding terriblenefs of the terror of an evil Confciençe,when awakned by the wrath of God, pleading and purfuing a quarrel with the foul, which quarrel he is infinitely powerful to avenge. It would be very fuitable to be often enquiring at ourfelves, What is become of the quarrel ? and what folid ground of peace and confidence towards God is there ? We will all molt certainly and inavoidably be put on this great trial. O fuffer not yourfelves to be fo far deluded, as to think that a fi- rent and ftupid Confcience is a good Confcience, and bath no danger with it ; which is as great folly as to think that a feellefs and benummed member of the body is thereby in no danger ; nay, the danger is fo much the greater. idly, Obferve, That tho' all men naturally be under this evil of an unpurged Confcience, yet, in the covenant of Grace,'God bath laid down a way how fanners may get:- their Confciences purged. This is the apoftle's fcope in both thefe fcriptures, even to lay a folid ground for the confolation of believers, and for a high commendation of God's grace, viz. that, by application made to the blood of Jefus, there is as real a purging of the Confcience from fin win at, as there was accefs made to perfons cere- rnonially unclean, by thefe facrifices and wa{hings under the law, to external Church - privileges, being ceremonial cleanfed thereby ; whit.h is not fo to be underftood, as if the fin committed had never really and aEtually been, fo as the purged believer íhould neither remember it, nor re - pent of it ; that is not at all the meaning of the do &rine But it is to be underftood legally,that as to the removing of the guilt of fin, and as to his having peace with God, and in his own Confcience, it is purged fo, as fin cannot Rand in the way of his cxpe&ing God's favour,nor limply in the way of his delighting himfelf therein, more than if it had never been. Tho' the man be the debitor, yet there is a way laid down in the Gofpel- covenant to de- clare him free ; even as a man that has plaid the dyvour or bankrupt, tho' he cannot limply, and in all relpe&s e made as if he had never been fo, yet., by another's pay - ing of the debt, he is before the Judge acquitted, and is 4eckoned
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