r land."
There were sin-offerings and burnt-offerings appointed in the law for a
national atonement (Lev. iv., xiii., xxi.; Num. xv. 25, 26) which did
typify pardoning of national sins through the merit of Jesus Christ. We
must improve the office of the Mediator, and the promise of free grace, in
the behalf of God's people, as well as of our own souls, which, if it be
indeed done, will not hinder, but further a great mourning and deep
humiliation in the land. And so much of tribulation.

The third thing held forth in this text (of which I must be very short) is
mortification. This also is a refining fire: Matt. iii. 11, "He shall
baptise you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire;" Mark ix. 49, "For every
one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with
salt." He hath been before speaking of mortification, of the plucking out
of the right eye, the cutting off the right hand, or the right foot, and
now he presseth the same thing by a double allusion to the law,--there was
a necessity both of fire and salt; the sacrifice was seasoned with salt
(Lev. ii. 13), and the fire upon the altar was not to be put out, but
every morning the wood was burnt upon it, and the burnt-offering laid upon
it (Lev. vi. 12, 13). So if we will present ourselves as a holy and
acceptable sacrifice to God, we must be seasoned with the salt, and our
corruptions burnt up with the fire of mortification.

The doctrine shall be this: "It is not enough to join in public
reformation, yea, to suffer tribulation for the name of Christ, except we
also endeavour mortification." This mortification is a third step distinct
from the other two, and without this the other two can make us but "almost
Christians," or, "not far from the kingdom of God." In the parable of the
sower and the seed, as we find it both in Matthew (chap. xiii.), Mark
(chap, iv.), and Luke (chap, viii.), this method may be observed, That of
the four sorts of ground, the second is better than the first, the third
better than the second, but the fourth only is the good ground, which is
fruitful, and getteth a blessing. Some men's hearts are like the highway,
and the hardbeaten road, where every foul spirit, and every lust hath
walked and conversed, their consciences, through the custom of sin, are,
as it were, "seared with a hot iron;" in these the word takes no place,
but all that they bear doth presently slip from them. Others receive the
word with a present good affectio