a blessed estate? Whatever a man hath done
against God is all forgiven and forgotten, it shall never come into
remembrance. Are not angels blessed who are friends with God? Such is the
soul whose sins are pardoned through Christ,--its sins are as if they never
had been. The soul is not only escaped that terrible wrath of God, but
being at peace with God, all the goodness that is communicable to
creatures, it shall partake of, "that they may be one, as we are one, that
they may be perfect in one," John xvii. This Christ prayed for, and this
was the end of his death,--to make of two one. So, then, the glory that
Christ is partaker of with the Father, we must be partakers of with him,
and all this by virtue of that peace with God by him. O if ye knew what
enmity with God is! how would it endear and make precious peace with him!
The one engageth all that is in God to be against a man; the other
engageth all that is in him to be for a man. And is not he then a great
one, whether he be a friend or an enemy, is he not the best friend and
worst enemy, who hath most power, yea, all power, to employ for whom he
will, and against whom he will? What a blessed change is it, to have God,
of a consuming fire, made a sun, with healing and consolation! that the
righteous, holy, and just God, before whom no flesh can stand, should
accept so rebellious sinners, and dwell among them! He had not only power
to destroy, but law against us also. What a perfect peace is it, then,
that the Judge becometh a merciful Father, and the law of ordinances is
cancelled, and that power employed to keep salvation to us, and us to
salvation! Ye who have made peace and atonement through Christ's blood,
rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, there wants nothing to make you
completely blessed, but the clear and perfect sight and knowledge of your
estate before God.

Now, when this peace, which is made up in heaven, is intimated unto the
conscience, then all the tempests and clouds of it evanish, and this is
the peace of believing, which is the soul's resting and quieting itself
upon the believing favour of God. There may be a great calm above,
good-will in God towards men, and yet great tempests in this lower region,
no peace on earth. There is a peace of conscience which is a disease of
conscience, a benumbedness of conscience, or a sleep of conscience, when
men walk in the imagination of their own hearts, and flatter themselves in
their own eyes, will not