s all our life and happiness; yet since the first rebellion, every
man is set contrary to God, and in his affections and actions denounces
war against heaven, whence hath flowed the sad and woful suspension of all
these blessings, and comfortable influences, which only beautify and bless
the soul of man. And now there is nothing to be seen but the terrible
countenance of an angry God, the revengeful sword of justice shaken in the
word; all above us as if the sun were turned into blackness, and the moon
into blood, and behold trouble and darkness, and dimness of anguish.

Now whenever a soul begins to apprehend his enmity and division in sad
earnest, there follows an intestine war in the conscience. The terrors of
God raise up a terrible party within a man's self, and that is the bitter
remembrance of his sins. These are mustered and set in order in
battle-array against a man, and every one of these, as they are thought
upon, strike a dart into his heart. They shoot an arrow dipped in the
wrath of God, the poison whereof drinketh up his spirit, Job vi. 4. Though
the most part of souls have now a dead calm, and are asleep like Saul in
the field in the midst of his enemies, or as Jonas in the ship in the
midst of the tempest, yet when they awake out of that deep stupidity, God
will write bitter things against them, and make them to possess their
iniquities; and they shall find that he hath numbered their steps, and
watched over their sin, and sealed it as in a bag, to be kept in record.
Then he will renew his witnesses against them, and put their feet in the
stocks, and they shall then apprehend that changes and war are against
them, and that they are set as a mark against God, and so they will be a
burden to themselves, Job vii. 20. What a storm will it raise in the
soul! Now to lay this tempest, and calm this wind, is the business of the
gospel, because it reveals these glad tidings of peace and reconciliation
with God, which can only be the ground of a perfect calm in the
conscience. Herein is the atonement and propitiation set forth, that which
by its fragrant and sweet smell hath pacified heaven, and appeased
justice; and this only is able to pacify the troubled soul, and lay the
tumultuous waves of the conscience, Eph. ii. 13-20; Col. i. 19-22. This
gives the answer of a good conscience, which is like the sweet and gentle
breathing of a calm day after a tempest, 1 Pet. iii. 21. Now it is not so
much God reconcileable