ell.
Those drops of cold water that thou canst distil out of the creature will
never give any solid ease to thy conscience. Thou mayest abate the fury of
it, or put it off for a season. Thou who art afraid of hell and wrath,
mayest procure some short vacancy from those terrors by turning to the
world, but certainly they will recur again, and break out in a greater
fire like a fever that is not diminished, but increased by much drinking
cold water. Or if thou go about to refresh thyself and satisfy thy
challenges by thy own attainments in religion, and by reflection upon thy
own heart and ways, finding something in thy esteem that may
counterbalance thy evils, and so give thee some confidence of God's
favour, those, I say, are but deceitful things, and will never either
quench the displeasure of God for thy sins, but rather add fuel to it,
because thou justifiest thyself, which is an abomination before him. Nor
yet will it totally extinguish and put to silence the clamours of thy
conscience, but, that some day thou shalt be spoiled of all that self
confidence and self defence, and find thyself so much the more displeasing
to God, that thou didst please thyself and undertake to pacify him.
Therefore, my beloved, let me, above all things, recommend this unto you
as the prime foundation of all religion, upon which all our peace with
God, pardon of sin, and fellowship with God must be built,--that the blood
of Jesus Christ be applied unto your consciences by believing, and that,
first of all, upon the discovery of your enmity with God, and infinite
distance from him, you apply your hearts unto this blood, which is the
atonement--to the reconciling sacrifice, which alone hath virtue and power
with God. Do not imagine that any peace can be without this. Would ye walk
with God, which is a badge of agreement? Would ye have fellowship with
God, which is a fruit of reconciliation? Would ye have pardon of sins, and
the particular knowledge of it, which is the greatest effect of
favour,--and all this, without and before application of Christ, "who is
our peace," in whom only the Father is well pleased? Will ye seek these,
and yet depute this point of believing, as if it were possible to attain
these without the sprinkling of that blood on the heart, which indeed
cleanseth it from an evil accusing conscience? If you desire to walk in
the light, as he is in the light, why weary ye yourselves in thy ways? Why
take ye such a compass of en