is asleep ; but as soon as it awakes, the horror of his condition is sure again to affright liim worse than before. God keep you all from sucli a cure for your troubles of conscience, which is a thousand times worse than the disease itself. Better to have a dog that will by his barking tell us a thief is in our yard, than one that will sit still, and let us be robbed before we have any notice of our danger.
Secondly, Some draw their peace of conscience from a legal cistern ; all the comfort they have is from their own righteousness ; this good work and that good duty they bless themselves in when any qualm comes over their hearts ; the cordial drink, which they use to revive and comfort themselves with, is drawn not from the satisfaction which Christ by his death hath given to God for them poor sinners, but from the righteousness of their own lives ; not from Christ's intercession in lieaven for them, but their own good prayers on earth for themselves ; in a word, when any spark of disquiet kindles in their con- sciences, (as it were strange if, where so nmch combustible matter is, there should not, at one time or other, some smothering fire begin in such a one's bosom,) then, not Christ's blood, but their own tears are cast on to quench it. Well, who- ever thou art that goest this way to work to obtain peace of conscience, I accuse thee as an enemy to Jesus Christ and his gospel. If any herb could be found growing in thy garden to heal the wovmds of thy conscience, why did the Lord Christ commend for such a rarity the balm which lie came from heaven on purpose to compound with his own blood? why doth he call sinners from all besides himself as comforters of no value, and bid us come to him, as ever we would find rest for our souls? Matt. xi. 28. No, know poor creature, and believe it, (while the knowing of it may do thee good,) either Christ was an impostor, and the gospel a fable, which I hope thou art not such an infidel, worse than the devil himself, to believe ; or else thou takest not the right method of healing thy conscience, wounded for. sin, and laying a sure bottom for solid peace in thy bosom. Prayers and tears, (repentance I mean,) good works and duties, these are not to be neglected ; nay, thou canst never have peace without them in thy conscience ; yet these do not, cannot procure this peace for thee, because they cannot obtain thy peace with God ; and peace of conscience is nothing but the echo of pardoning mercy, which, sounding in the conscience, brings the soul into a sweet rest with the pleasant music it makes. And the echo is but the same voice repeated ; so that if prayers and tears, good duties and good works, cannot procure our peace of pardon, then not our peace of comfort. I pray remember I said, you can never have inward peace without these ; and yet not have it by these. A wound would hardly ever cure, if not "wrapped up from the open air, and also kept clean ; yet not these, but the balm cures it. Cease therefore not from praying, and the exercise of any other holy exercise of grace or duty, but from expecting thy peace and comfort to grow from their root ; or else thou shuttest thyself out from having any benefit of that true peace which the gospel offers. The one resists the other, like those two famous rivers in Germany, whose streams, when they meet, will not mingle together. Gospel-peace will not mingle and incorporate (as I may so sav) with any other ; thou must drink it pure and unmixed, or have none at all. ' We,' saith holy Paul for himself, and all other sincere believers, ' are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh,' Phil. iii. 3; as if he had said. We are not short of any in holy duties and services ; nay, we exceed them, for ' we worship God in the spirit;' but this is not the tap from whence we draw oiu" joy anj, comfort; we rejoice (fiduciarily) in Christ Jesus, not in the flesh, where that which he called worshipping (jod in the spirit, now in opposition to Christ, and rejoicing in him, he calls flesh.
Section IV. — Fourthly, They are to be reproved from hence, who do indeed use the balm of the gospel for the healing of conscience-wounds ; but they use it veiy unevangelically. The matter they bottom their peace and comfort on is right and good, — Christ and the mercy of God through him in the promise to poor sinners ; what can be said better? But they do not observe gospel-rule and order in the applying it. They snatch the promise presumptuously, force and ravish it, rather than seek to have Christ's consent ; like Saul, wiio was in such haste that he could not stay till Samuel came to sacrifice for him, but
gg^ THE GOSPEL OP PEACE.