way, tho' they be riot perfe5ly pure, but many degrees removed from ir, and becaufe thereof are under many quarrels from God, and challenges from their own Con - fciences, he would have fuel-: making ufe of that blood for removing all quarrels, and fo to come forward. This phrafe of having the Confcience fprinkled, is an allufion to that which we have, Exod. 12. y. 7, and 13. where the Lord being to finite all the firft -born of Egypt, to prevent the falling of the ftroke and plague on the Ifraelites, he appoints them to kill a lamb, and to fprinkle the lintel and door -polls of their houfes with the blood thereof, that, when the deftroying angel paffed thorow to (mite the firff born of the Egyptians, he might pafs over their houfes that were fo fprinkled. And the force of the allufion is this, Man's Confcience, in a natural eftate, is like that deftroying angel ; and, as Ifrael hefpxin- kled the door -polls of their houfes with the blood of the Pafchal Lamb, fo he would have them to befprinkle their hearts with the blood of Chrift, as Chap. 9. 14. and 12. 24. and then their Confcience will not finite them to their hurt, but they fhall be paff over, as the Ifrae- lites were paffed over by the deftroying angel. In the words then thefe two are clear, z. That the Confcience of a perfon unreconciled to God, is a mighty fierce and terrible purfuer, ready to feize on him, as the avenger of blood did on the man (layer, or as the deftroying angel did on the Egyptians : And, O but, ir be a dreadful thing to be obnoxious to God's wrath, and to the challenges,accuíarions, throws and pangs of a Con. fcience that bath J'uft ground of a quarrel againff a man, who hath nothing wherewith to anfwer its challenges and accufations ! 241y, That the efficacy of Chriff's blood is fuch, that it is able to purge the Confcience of fuch a man that fieeth to it, and ro fence and guard hirn againflt the wrath of God, and the challenges and accufations of his own Confcience ; fo that, as it hath no juil ground to purfue, fo, it being God's deputy, it cannot, neither will purfue him as God's enemy, it having no warrant from hire as its fovereign to do fo : But, as the fprinkling of the houfes of the Ifraelites with the blood of the parfover Lamb preferved them from being plagued or hurt by the defiroying
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