Let us labour, therefore, in all our services of God, to bring especially the spiritual part. The prophet Hosea finds fault with Ephraim : ' They loved to tread out the corn, but not to wear the yoke,' Hosea x. 11. Now the ox that wears no yoke, it is no trouble to tread out the corn ; they fed upon the corn as they trod it. ' Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn,' Deut. xxv. 4. So Christians are like Epkraim. They are content to take the easy part of religion, but to take the yoke, that which is hard, that they love not. Now we must labour to bear the yoke of religion. What the heart doth is done in religion ; what the heart doth not, is not done ; and there is a kind of divinity, a divine power in all the parts of God's worship that is requisite besides the bring- ing of the outward man. As in hearing there is required a divine power to
THE DEMAND OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 481
make a man hear as bo ought to do, to bow the neck of the inward man of the soul. And so to receive the sacrament, more is required than the outward man. There is a form and power in all the parts of religion. Let us not rest in the form, but labour for the power. There is a power in hearing of the word to transform us into the obedience of it, and a power in the sacrament to renew our covenants Avith God for a new life, and to cast ourselves altogether upon God's mercy in Jesus Christ — besides the outward elements — to have further communion with Christ.
We see what kind of persons those were in 2 Tim. iii. 5, that practised ' a form of religion, without the power.' He names a catalogue of sins there : ' they were lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.' Yet these people will have a form of religion notwithstanding, but they deny the power of it. But I hasten to that that I will more dwell on.
Use 2. The ministers likewise are to learn their duty hence, to observe the dispositions of i^eople, and what bars the tj lay to their own salvation. If we see them superstitious, that they swell in outward performances, and so are deluded by Satan in an ill state, and feed themselves with husks, then we are to take away such objections as much as we can, as St Peter here, when he had said that baptism answers to the flood. Both shew the deliverance of God's people by the blood of Christ. Ay, saith he, not the outward baptism, the washing of the body, but ' the answer of a good conscience.'
So Christ takes away a secret objection. Say not with yourselves, ' We have Abraham to our father,' Mat. iii 9. And to feed people in their ill humours, this is not the way, but to labour to make them spiritual, for G od is a Spirit, and he loves that part of his worship that is spiritual and in- ward. We shall have no man damned in the church if there were not an inward spiritual part of God's worship, for the worst men of all will be busiest in outward performances, and glory most in it of any other. It is a delusion that brings thousands to hell ; and that made me a little dwell upon it. But I go on. ' Not the washing away the filth of the body,'
' But the answer of a good conscience.'
Upon the preventing of an objection and removing their false confidence, he positively sets down what that is that doth save in baptism. Saith he, it is ' the answer of a good conscience.' The scope of the words should have moved the holy apostle to have said thus, * not the putting oft' the filth of the body, but the putting ofl' the filth of the soul.' But instead of that he sets down the act of the soul, which is an ' answer of a good con- science to God,' by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Where, first of all, you must know this for a ground. Indeed, it is a hard plaoe of Scripture. I will only take that that I think fittest, and raise what observations I think fit for you, that out of that you must know for a ground that —
There is a covenant of grace.
Since God and man brake in the creation, there is a covenant which we call a ' covenant of grace.' God hath stooped so low, he hath condescended to enter into terms of covenant with us. Now, the foundation of this covenant is, that God will be our God, and give us grace and glory, and all good in Christ, the mediator of the new covenant. Christ is the founda- tion of the covenant, the mediator of the covenant, a friend to both : to God as God, to man as man, God and man in himself and by ofiice ; such is his office, as to procure love and agreement between God and man. He
VOL. VII. H h
482 THE DEMAND OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE.