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SERM. 1.7
INWARD WITNESS TO
CHRISTIANITY.
9
doubting,
till
we
arrive
at
full glory.
When
a
soul
is
made
sensible,
that
all its
iniquities are for ever cancelled,
that
God
will
never
avenge
any
of
his
crimes
upon
him,
when
he
knows
that
this
God,
who has
a right
to
punish
with everlasting revenge,
is
at
peace,
and
will
demand
no
more satisfaction for
his
sins;
this soul
then has
the
beginning
of
heaven.
This
is
a
part
of
final blessedness,
and
of
complete
eternal
life.
Now this
is,
in some
measure, found
in believers.
here
:
They
that
have
trusted
in the Son
of
God,
begin
to
find
'peace in
their
own consciences, they
can
hope.
God
is
reconciled
to
them
through
the
blood
of
Christ,
that their
iniquities are atoned
for,
and
that
peace
is
made betwixt God and
them.
This
belongs only to
the
doctrine of
Christ,
and
witnesses
it
to
be
divine
:
For
there
is
no religion
that
ever
pretended
to
lay
such
a
foundation
of
pardon and
peace,
as
the religion
of
the
Son
of God does;
for
he
has
made himself
a propitia-
tion; Jesus
the righteous
is
become
our
reconciler
by
becoming
a
sacrifice
:
Ram.
iii. 25.
Him hath
God
set
forth
for
a
propitiation
through
faith
in
his blood to
declare his righteousness
far
the
remission
of
sins
that
are
past,
that
he
might
be
just,
and
the
justifier
of
hint
that
believes
in
Jesus
:
Therefore
beingjusted
by
faith,
we
have peace
with
God, Rom.
v.
1.
Behold the Lamb
of
God,
that
takes away the sins
of
the
world!
was
the
language of
John,
who was
but
the
forerunner
of
our
religion,
and
took a
prospect of it
at
a little
distance:
And
much more
of
the
particular
glories and blessings
of
this
atonement
is
displayed
by
the
blessed
apostles the
followers
of
the Lamb.
Other
religions,
that
have been drawn from the
re-
mains
of
the light
of nature,
or
that
have been
invented
by
the superstitious
fears
and
fancies
of
men,
and ob-
truded
on
mankind
by
the
craft of their
fellow
-
creatures,
are
all
at
a
loss
in this instance,
and
can never speak
solid peace
and pardon.
1.
The
religion
of
the
Heathens, and
the best
of
phi-
losophers,
could
never assure
us,
Whether
God would
pardon
sin
at
all,
or
no.
The light of nature
indeed
would.
dictate thus
much,
that God
is,
in his own
nature,
gracious,
and compassionate, and
kind; but
whether