76 FORGIVENESS OF SiI7., consumed, so to pacify their conscience in expiating the guilt of their iniquities: shall I take this course? will it relieve me'i I am ready to part with my first-born into the fire, so that I may have deliverance from ray transgressions. Alas ! to accept of such offerings never entered the heart of God. And so is it still as to any duties man can perform. Where there is no discovery of forgiveness they will yield the soul no relief, no sup- port; God is not to be treated with upon such terms, Hence, THIS DISCOVERY OF FORGIVENESS IN GOD IS GREAT, holy, and mysterious, and which very few on gospel-grounds attain to. All men indeed say there is forgiveness; and most men are persuaded that they think so; only men in great and desperate extremities, like Cain or Spira, seem to call it into question. But their thoughts are empty, yea, for the most part, wicked and atheistical. They think that " God is altogether such an one as themselves ;" that indeed he takes little or no care about sin, but passes it over as lightly as they do. In the progress of this work I shall show that, notwithstanding all their pretences, the most of men never had, indeed, any real discovery of forgiveness, and point out the difference between their vain credulity and a gracious gospel-dis- covery of forgiveness in God. This discovery includes both the revelation of it made by God, and our under- standing and reception of that revelation to our own advantage. The grounds of the difficulty of making this discovery consist partly in THE IIINDERANCES that lie in the way of it; and partly in the nature of the thing discovered : of both which I shall briefly treat. I. The constant voice of conscience lies against the
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