146 FOURTH SERMON conveying the virtue of the blood of Christ unto the conscience, even as the beams of the sun do the heat and influence thereof unto the earth, thereby calling out the herbs and flowers, and healing those deformi- ties which winter had brought upon it. 3. By removing and withdrawing of judgments, which the sins of a people had brought like wounds or sicknesses upon them. So healing is opposite to smiting and wounding, Deut. xxxii. 39. Job v. 18. Hos. vi. 1, 2. Jer. xxxiii. 5, 6. 4. By comforting against the anguish and distress which sin is apt to bring upon the conscience. For as medicines cleanse away corrupt humours, so cor- dials likewise strengthen and refresh weak and de- jected patients ; and this is one of Christ's principal works to bind and heal the broken in heart, to restore comforts unto mourners, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to have mercy upon those whose bones are vexed, Psa. cxlvii. 3. Isa. lvii. 18, 19. Luke iv. 18. Psa. vi. 2, 3. I am not willing to shut any of these out of the meaning of the text. 1. Be- cause it is an answer to that prayer, " Take away all iniquity." The all that is in it, the guilt, the stain, the power, the punishment, the anguish, whatever evil it is apt to bring upon the conscience : let it not do us any hurt at all. 2. Because God's works are perfect ; where he forgives sin he removes it, where he con - vinceth of righteousness, unto pardon of sin, he con - vinceth also of judgment, unto the casting out of the prince of this world, and bringeth forth that judgment unto victory, Matt. xii. 20. Their backsliding." Their prayer was against all iniquity, and God in his answer thereunto singleth out one kind of iniquity, but one of the greatest by name:
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