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           (a) They differ in their causes.  This darkness, which sometimes is upon the sincere Christian's spirit in deep distress, comes from the withdrawing of God’s lightsome countenance; but the horror of the other from his own guilty conscience, that before was lullabied asleep with prosperity, but now, being awak­ened by the hand of God on him, doth accuse him to have been false with God in the whole course of his profession.  It is true, some particular guilt may be contracted by the Christian through negligence or strong temptation in his Christian course, for which his conscience may accuse him, and may further em­bitter the present desertion he is in so far, as from those particular miscarriages to fear his sincerity in the rest, though he hath no reason to do it; but his conscience cannot charge him of an hypocritical de­sign, to have been the spring that hath set him on work through the whole course of his profession.

           (b) They differ in their accompaniments.  There is something concomitant with the Christian’s present darkness of spirit, that distinguisheth it from the hypocrite’s horror; and it is the lively working of grace, which then commonly is very visible when his peace and former comfort are most questioned by him.  The less joy he hath from any present sense of the love of God, the more abounding you shall find him in sorrow for his sin that clouded his joy.  The further Christ is gone out of his sight, the more he clings in his love to Christ, and vehemently cries after him in prayer, as we see in Heman, ‘Unto thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee,’ Ps. 88:13.  O the fervent prayers that then are shot from his troubled spirit to heaven, the pangs of affection which are springing after God, and his face and favour!  Never did banished child more desire admittance into his angry father's presence, than he to have the light of God’s countenance shine on him, which is now veiled from him.  O how he searcheth his heart, studies the Scripture, wrestles with God for to give him that grace, the non-evidence of which at present makes him so question the com­forts he hath formerly had!  Might he but have true grace, he will not fall out with God for want of comfort, though he stays for it till the other world.  Never did any woman big with child long more to have the child in her arms that is at present in her womb, than such a soul doth to have that grace which is in his heart—but through temptation questioned by him at present—evidenced to him in the truth of it. Whereas the hypocrite in the midst of all his horror doth not, cannot—till he hath a better heart put into his bosom —cordially love or desire grace and holiness for any intrinsic excellency in itself—only as an expedient for escaping the tormentor’s hand, which he sees he is now falling into.

           (c) They differ in the issue.  The Christian—he, like a star in the heavens, wades through the cloud that, for a time, hides his comfort; but the other, like a meteor in the air, blazeth a little, and then drops into some ditch or other, where it is quenched.  Or, as the Spirit of God distinguisheth them, ‘The light of the righteous rejoiceth: but the lamp (or candle, as in the Hebrew) of the wicked shall be put out,’ Prov. 13:9. The sincere Christian’s joy and comfort is compared there to the light of the sun, that is climbing higher, while it is muffled up with clouds from our eye; and by and by, when it breaks out more gloriously, doth rejoice over those mists and clouds that seemed to ob­scure it; but the joy of the wicked, like a candle, wastes and spends—being fed with gross fuel of out­ward prosperity, which in a short time fails—and the wretches comfort goes out in a snuff at last, past all hope of being lighted again.  The Christian’s trouble of spirit again is compared to a swooning fainting fit, which he within a while recovers.  A qualm comes over the holy man’s heart from the thought of his sins in the day of his great distress.  ‘Innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me,’ Ps. 40:12; but, before the psalm is at an end, after a few deep groans in prayer, ver. 13, 14, he comes again to himself, and acts his faith strongly on God ‘yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer,’ ver. 17.  But the hypocrite’s confidence and hope, when once it begins to sink and falter, it dies and perisheth.  ‘The eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall not escape, and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost,’ Job 11:20.

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           (1.) From the worldling’s.  His peace and comfort, poor wretch, runs dregs as soon as creature-enjoyments run a tilt—when poverty, disgrace, sick­ness, or anything else, crosseth him in that which he fondly doted on, then his night is come, and day shut up in dismal darkness.  In this respect it is, that Christ, as I conceive, opposeth his peace to the world’s.  ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,’ John 14:27.  Pray mark, Christ is laying in arguments of comfort for his disciples against his departure, which he knew would go so near their hearts.  One amongst the rest is taken from the difference of that peace and comfort which he leaves them, from what the world gives.  If he had said, If the peace and comfort you have from me lay in such things as the world’s peace is made up of—plenty, ease, outward prosperity, and carnal joy—truly then you had reason to be the great­est mourners at my funeral that ever followed friend to the grave; for after my departure you are like to have none of these; nay, rather expect trouble and persecution.  But know, the peace I have with you is not in your houses, but hearts; the comfort I give you lies not in silver and gold, but in pardon of sin, hopes of glory, and inward consolations, which the Comforter that is to come from me to dwell with you, shall, upon my appointment, pay into your bosoms; and this shall outlive all the world’s joy.  This is such a legacy as never any left their children.  Many a fa­ther dying, hath in a farewell speech to his children, wished them all peace and comfort when he should be dead and gone; but who besides Jesus Christ could send a comforter into their hearts, and thrust peace and comfort into their bosoms?  Again, it distinguish­eth the true Christian’s peace,

           (2.) From the hypocrite’s.  He, though he pretends to place his comfort, not in the creatures, but in God, and seems to take joy in the interest which he lays claim to have in Christ and the precious promises of the gospel; yet, when it comes indeed to the trial, that he sees all his creature-comforts gone, and not like to return anymore—which at this time had his heart, though he would not it should be thought so —and now he sees he must in earnest into another world, to stand or fall eternally, as he shall then be found in God’s own scrutiny to have been sincere or false-hearted in his pretensions to Christ and his grace; truly, then recoil his thoughts, his conscience flies in his face, and reproacheth him for spiritual cozenage and forgery.  Now, soul, speak, is it thus with thee? does thy peace go with thee just to the prison door, and there leave thee?  Art thou confident thy sins are pardoned all the while thou art in health and strength, but as soon as ever the sergeant knocks at the door to speak with thee—as soon as death, I mean, comes in sight—do thy thoughts then alter, and thy conscience tells thee he comes to prove thee a liar in thy pretended peace and joy?  This is a sad symptom.  I know indeed that the time of affliction is a trying time to grace; that is true.  The sincere Christian for a while may, like a valiant soldier, be beat from his artillery, and the enemy Satan may seem to possess his peace and confidence; yea, so far have some precious saints been carried down the stream of violent temptations, as to question whether their former comforts were from the Holy Spirit the Comforter, or the evil spirit the deceiver; yet their is great difference between the one and the other.

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3. Character of gospel peace.  Gospel peace in the conscience is strengthening and restorative.  It makes the Christian strong to fight against sin and Sa­tan.  The Christian is revived, and finds his strength come, upon a little tasting of this honey; but O what a slaughter doth he make of his spiritual enemies, when he hath a full meal of this honey, a deep draught of this wine! now he goes like a giant re­freshed with wine into the field against them.  No lust can stand before him.  It makes him strong to work. O how Paul laid about him for Christ!  He ‘laboured more abundantly than they all.’  The good man re­membered what a wretch he once was, and what mer­cy he had obtained; the sense of this love of God lay so glowing at his heart, that it infired him with a zeal for God above his fellow-apostles.  This made holy David pray so hard to drink again of this wine, which so long had been locked up from him.  ‘Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit; then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee,’ Ps. 51:12, 13. Pray mark, it was not his lickerish palate after the sweet taste of this wine of comfort that was the only or chief reason why he so longed for it; but the admirable virtue he knew in it, to inspirit and empower him with zeal for God.  Whereas the false peace and comfort of hypocrites is more heady than hearty; it leaves them as weak as they were before; yea, it lies rotting, like unwholesome food in the stomach, and leaves a surfeit in their souls—as lus­cious summer fruits do in the bodies of men—which soon breaks out in loose practices.  Thieves common­ly spend their money as ill as they get it; and so do hypocrites and formalists their stolen comforts.  Stay but a little, and you shall find them feasting some lust or other with them.  ‘I have peace-offerings with me,’ saith the religious whore—the hypo­critical harlot —‘this day I have paid my vows, therefore I came forth to meet thee,’ Prov 7:14, 15.  She pacifies her con­science and comforts herself with this religious service she performs; and now, having, as she thought, quit scores with God, she returns to her own lustful trade; yea, emboldens herself from this, in her wickedness.  ‘Therefore came I forth to meet thee,’ as if she durst not have played the whore with man till she had played the hypocrite with God, and stopped the mouth of her conscience with her peace-offering. Look, therefore, I beseech you, very carefully, what effect your peace and comfort have in your hearts and lives.  Are you the more humble or proud for your comfort? do you walk more closely or loosely after your peace? how stand you to duties of worship? are you made more ready for communion with God in them, or do you grow strange to and infrequent in them? have you more quickening in them, or lie more formal and lifeless under them?  In a word, can you show that grace and peace grow in thee alike? or doth the one less appear, since thou doest more pretend to the other?  By this thou mayest know whether thy peace comes from the peace-maker, or peace-marrer, from the God of truth or the father of lies.

4. Character of gospel peace.  Gospel peace com­forts the soul, and that strongly, when it hath no oth­er comfort to mingle with it.  It is a cordial rich enough itself, and needs not any other ingredient to be compounded with it.  David singles out God by himself.  ‘Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee,’ Ps. 73:25. Give David but his God, and let who will take all be­sides; let him alone to live comfortably, may he but have his love and favour.  Hence it is that the Chris­tian’s peace pays him in the greatest revenues of joy and comfort, when outward enjoyments contribute least, yea nothing at all, but bring in matter of trouble.  ‘But David encouraged himself in his God,’ I Sam. 30:6.  You know when that was.  If David’s peace had not been right and sound, he would have been more troubled to think of God at such a time than of all his other disasters.  ‘Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them,’ Ps. 119:165.  This distinguishes the saint’s peace, both from the worldling’s and the hypocrite’s

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2. Character of gospel peace.Gospel peace is obtained in a gospel way, and that is twofold.

           (1.) Gospel peace is given to the soul in a way of obedience and holy walking.  ‘As many as walk ac­cording to this rule, peace be on them, Gal. 6:16.  Now this rule you may see, to be the rule of the ‘new crea­ture,’ ver. 15.  And what is that, but the holy rule of the word? to which the principles of grace planted in the soul of a believer are so fitted, that there is not a more connatural agreement betwixt the eye and light, than betwixt the disposition of this new nature in a saint, and the rule of holiness in the word.  Now, it is not enough for one to be a new creature, and to have a principle of grace in his bosom, but he must actually walk by this rule, or else he will be to seek for true peace in his conscience.  No comfort in the saints is to be found, but what the Comforter brings.  And he who commands us to ‘withdraw from them’ (though our brethren) ‘that walk disorderly,’ II Thes. 3:6, will himself surely withdraw from such, and withhold his comforts, so long as they are disorderly walkers; which they are as long as they walk beside this rule. And therefore, if thou be such a one, say not the Spirit brought thy comfort to thy hand; for he would not bid thee good speed in an evil way.  No; he hath been withdrawn as a Comforter ever since thou hast withdrawn thy foot from walking by the holy rule.  All thy peace, which thou pretendest to have in this time, is base-born; and thou hast more cause to be ashamed of it, than to glory in it.  It is little credit to the wife, that she hath a child when her husband is abroad, and cannot father it; and as little to pretend to comfort, when the Spirit of Christ will not own it.

           (2.) Gospel peace is given in the soul in a way of duty, and close attendance on God in his ordinances. ‘Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means.’ II Thes. 3:16—that is, bless all means of comforting and filling your souls with inward peace, so that he who drives no trade in ordinances, and brags of his peace and comfort, speaks enough to bring the truth of it into suspicion in the thoughts of sober Christians.  I know God can by immediate illapses of his Spirit comfort the Christian, and save him the labour of hearing, praying, meditating; but where did he say he would?  Why may we not expect a harvest as well without sowing and ploughing, as peace without using the means?  If we were like Israel in the wilderness—in such a state and posture, where­in the means is cut from us, and not by pride or sloth put from us, as sometimes it is the Christian’s condition [when] he is sick, and knocked off from ordinances, or, by some other providence as pressing, shut out from the help of this means or that—then I should not wonder to see comfort lie as thick in his soul as manna about the Israelites’ tents; but as God would not rain bread any longer, when once they had corn, of which with their labour might make bread, Joshua 5:11, 12, so neither will the Lord comfort by a miracle, when the soul may have it in an ordinance. God could have taught the eunuch, and satisfied him with light from heaven, and never have sent for Philip to preach to him.  But he chooseth to do it out of Philip’s mouth, rather than immediately out of his own, no doubt to put honour on his ordinance.

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 Use Second.  Let this doctrine be as a touchstone to try the truth of your peace and comfort; hath it a gospel stamp upon it?  The devil hath his false mint of comfort as well as of grace; put thyself therefore to the trial, while I shall lay before you some characters of the peace that Christ in his gospel speaks to his people.

1. Character of gospel peace.  Gospel comfort may be known by the vessel it is poured into, which is a broken heart.  The promise is superscribed by name to such, and such only.  ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones,’ Isa. 57:15.  Christ’s commission from his Father binds him up; he can comfort none besides.  ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,’ Isa. 61:1.  And what he receives himself from the Father, the same he gives to those he sends upon the same errand.  First, he gives his Spirit, concerning whom he tells his disciples, that ‘the Comforter, when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment,’ John 16:8.  Mark, first of sin; and as for his inferior messengers, they have direction to whom they are to apply the comforts of the gospel.  ‘Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.  Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not,’ Isa. 35:3.  And upon their peril be it, if they pour this ointment upon the head of an unhumbled sinner; to give such any comfort, by promising life to him, as he is.  God protests against it; he calls it a lie, a ‘strengthening the hands of the wicked,’ and as much as in them lies, by blowing him up with a false comfort, to make sure that he shall never have the true peace.

           Thus you see the order of the gospel in comforting souls.  As in needle-work, the sad groundwork is laid before the beautiful colours; as the statuary cuts and carves his statue before he gilds it; so doth the Spirit of Christ beginning with sadness, ends in joy; first cuts and wounds, then heals and overlays the soul with comfort and peace.  I hope that you do not think I limit the Holy One in his workings to the same degree and measure in all.  I have opened my thoughts in another place concerning this.  But so far the convincing, humbling work of the Spirit goes in every soul before peace and comfort comes, as to empty the soul of all her false comforts and confidences which she had laid up; that the heart becomes like a vessel whose bottom is beat out, and all the water it held thereby split and let out.  The sins it loved, now it hates.  The hopes and comforts it pleased itself with, they are gone, and the creature left in desolate solitary condition.  No way now it sees, but perish it must, except Christ be her friend, and interpose betwixt hell and it.  To him she therefore makes her moan, as willing to follow his counsel, and to be ordered by his direction, as every patient was by his physician, of whose skill and care he is thoroughly satisfied.  This I call ‘the broken heart,’ which if you be wholly strangers to, your acquaintance is to begin with gospel peace.  I beseech you, rest not till you have an answer from your consciences.  What is it they say? was your wine once water? doth your light arise out of darkness? is your peace the issue of a soul-conflict and trouble? did you bleed before you were healed?  You may hope it is a kindly work of God’s gracious Spirit; make much of it, and bless thy God that hath given this wine to cheer thy sad heart. But if thou commencest per saltum—by a leap, hast thy wine, before thy pots were filled with water—[if] thy morning be come, before thou hast had thy even­ing—thy peace be settled, before thy false peace is broken—thy conscience sound and whole, before it is lanced, and the putrid stuff of thy pride, carnal con­fidence, and other sins thou hast lived in, be let out —[if so,] thou mayest have some ease for a while; but know it, the Lord Jesus denies it to be his cure.  The strong man’s house kept ‘in peace,’ Luke 11:21, as well as the good man’s.  It requires more power to work true sorrow, than false joy and peace.  A happier man thou wouldst be, if mourning in the distress of a troubled conscience, than dancing about this idol peace, which the devil, thy sworn enemy, mocks thee withal.

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           (2.) 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 heaven for them, but [from] their own good prayers on earth for themselves.  In a word, when any spark of disquiet kindles in their consciences—as it were strange, if, where so much 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 to quench it.  Well, whosever 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 wounds of thy conscience, why did the Lord Christ commend for such a rarity the balm which he 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. 11:28.  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 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 say, 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,’ Php. 3:3.  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 our joy and comfort; we rejoice (fiduciarily) in Christ Jesus, not in the flesh,’ where, that which he called worshipping God in the Spirit, now, in opposition to Christ and rejoicing in him, he calls flesh.

           They are to be proved from hence, who do indeed use the balm of the gospel for the healing of conscience-wounds; but who use it very 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, who was in such haste that he could not stay till Samuel came to sacrifice for him, but boldly falls to work before he comes, flat against order given him. Thus many are so hot upon having comfort, that they will not stay for the Spirit of God to come and sprin­kle their consciences with the blood of Christ in gospel order; but profanely do it themselves, by ap­plying the comfort of those promises which indeed at present does not belong to them.  O sirs, can this do well in the end?  Should he consult well for his health, that will not stay for the doctor’s direction, but runs into the apothecary’s shop, and on his own head takes his physic, without the counsel of the physician how to prepare it, or himself for the taking of it?  This every profane wretch doth, that lives in sin, and yet sprinkles himself with the blood of Christ, and blesseth himself in the pardoning mercy of God.  But let such know that, as the blood of the paschal lamb was not struck on the Egyptians’ doors, but the Israelites’; so neither is the blood of Christ to be sprinkled on the obstinate sinner, but on the sin­cere penitent.  Nay, further, as that blood was not to be spilt on the threshold of an Israelite’s door, where it might be trampled on, but on the side posts; so neither is the blood of Christ to be applied to the be­liever himself while he lies in any sin unrepented of, for his present comfort.  This were indeed to throw it under his foot to be trod upon.  David confesseth his sin with shame, before Nathan comforts him with the news of a pardon.

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3. Sort.  This reproves those that think to heal their consciences with other than gospel balm; who leave the waters of living comfort, that flow from this fountain opened in the gospel by Christ, to draw their peace and comfort out of cisterns of their own hewing, and they are two—a carnal cistern, and a legal cistern.

           (1.) Some think to draw their peace out of a car­nal cistern.  There is not more variety of plasters and foolish medicines used for the cure of the ague of the body, than there is of carnal receipts used by self-deceiving sinners to rid themselves of the shaking ague which the fear of God's wrath brings upon their guilty consciences.  Some, if they be but a little awakened by the word, and they feel their hearts chill within them, from a few serious thoughts of their wretched undone condition, fall to the physic of Fe­lix; who, as soon as his conscience began to be sick at Paul’s sermon, had enough of the preacher, and made all the haste he could to get that unpleasing noise out of his head: ‘Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way,’ Acts 24:25.  Thus many turn their back off God, run as far as they can from those ordinances, that company, or anything else that is likely to grate upon their consciences, and revive the thoughts of their de­plored state, which all their care is to forget.  Such a one I have heard of, that would not be present at any funeral; could not bear the sight of his own gray hairs, and therefore used a black-lead comb to discolour them; lest, by these, the thoughts of death, which he so abhorred, should crowd in upon him.  A poor cow­ardly shift, God knows! yet all that this wretch had, and all that many more have, betwixt them and a hell above ground in their consciences.  Others, their light is so strong, and glares on them so constantly, that this will not do, but wherever they go, though they hear not a sermon in a month, look not on a Bible in a year, and keep far enough from such company as would awake their consciences, yet they are haunted with their own guilt.  And therefore they do not only go ‘from the presence of the Lord,’ as Cain did, Gen. 4:16; but as he also made diversion of those musing thoughts which gathered to his guilty conscience, by employing them another way in ‘building a city,’ ver. 17, so do they labour to give their consciences the slip in a crowd of worldly businesses.  This is the great leviathan that swallows up all the thoughts of heaven and hell in many men’s hearts.  They are so taken up with that project and this, that conscience finds them not at leisure to exchange a few words with them of a long time together.  Conscience is as much hunched at and spited among sinners, as Joseph was among the patriarchs.  That which conscience tells them, likes them no better than Joseph’s dream did his brethren; and this makes many play the merchants with their consciences, as they did with him—which they do by bribing it with the profits of the world.  But this physic is found too weak also; and therefore Saul’s harp, and Nabal’s feast, is thought on by others. With these they hope to drown their cares, and lay their raving consciences asleep, like some ruffian that is under an arrest for debt, and hath no way, but now to prison he must go, except he can make the sergeant drunk in whose hand he is; which he doth, and so makes an escape.  Thus many besot their conscience with the brutish pleasures of sin; and when they have laid it as fast asleep in senseless stupidity as one that is dead drunk, then they may sin without control till it wakes again.  This is the height of that peace which any carnal recipe can help the sinner unto—to give a sleeping potion, that shall bind up the senses of con­science for a while, in which time the wretch may forget his misery, as the condemned man doth when he is asleep; but as soon as it awakes, the horror of his condition is sure again to affright him worse than before.  God keeps you all from such 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 still, and let us be robbed before we have any notice of our danger.

USE OR APPLICATION- A Reproof To Three Sorts Of Persons 3/5

  Every true believer hath peace of conscience in promisso—in the promise.  And that we count as good as ready money in the purse, which we have sure bond for, Ps. 29:11.  ‘The Lord will bless his people with peace.’  He is resolved on it, and then who shall hinder it?  It is worth your reading the whole psalm, to see what weight the Lord gives to this sweet promise, for the encouragement of our faith in expecting the performance thereof; nothing more hard to enter into the heart of a poor creature—when all is in an uproar in his bosom, and his conscience threatening nothing but fire and sword, wrath and vengeance, from God for his sins—than thoughts or hopes of peace and comfort.  Now, the psalm is spent is show­ing what great things God can do, and that with no more trouble to himself than a word speaking.  ‘The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty,’ ver. 4.  ‘It breaketh the cedars; it divi­deth the flames; it shaketh the wilderness; it maketh the hinds to calve.’  This God that doth all this, promiseth to bless his people with peace, outward and inward.  For without this inward peace, though he might give them peace, yet could he never bless them with peace as he here undertakes.  A sad peace, were it not, to have quiet streets, but cutting of throats in our houses? yet infinitely more sad is it to have peace both in our streets and houses, but war and blood in our guilty consciences.  What peace can a poor creature taste or relish, while the sword of God’s wrath lies at the throat of conscience—not peace with God himself?  Therefore Christ purchased peace of pardon, to obtain peace of conscience for his pardoned ones; and accordingly hath bequeathed it in the promise to them.  ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you,’ John 14:27.  There, you see, he is both the testator to leave and the executor of his own will—to give out with his own hands what his love hath left believers; so that there is no fear, but his will shall be performed to the full, seeing himself lives to see it done.

           Every believer hath this inward peace in semine—in the seed.  ‘Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart,’ Ps. 97:11. Where sown, but in the furrows of the believer’s own bosom, when principles of grace and holiness were cast into it by the Spirit of God?  Hence it is called ‘the peaceable fruit of righteousness,’ Heb. 12:11.  It shoots as naturally from holiness as any fruit in its kind doth from the seed proper to it.  It is indeed most true, that this seed runs and ripens into this fruit sooner in some than it doth in others.  This spiritual harvest comes not alike soon to all, no more than the other that is outward doth.  But here is the comfort, whoever hath a seedtime of grace pass over his soul, shall have his harvest-time also of joy.  This law God hath bound himself to, as strongly as for the other; which are 'not to cease while the earth remaineth,’ Gen. 8:22; yea, more strongly, for that was to the world in gen­eral, not to every particular country, town or field in these, which may want a harvest, and yet God keep his word; but God cannot perform his promise, if any one particular saint should everlastingly go without his reaping time.  ‘He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him,’ Ps. 126:6. And therefore you who think so basely of the gospel and the professors of it, because at present their peace and comfort is not come, know it is on the way to them, and comes to stay everlastingly with them; whereas your peace is going from you every moment, and is sure to leave you without any hope of returning to you again.  Look not how the Christian begins, but ends.  The Spirit of God by his convictions comes into the soul with some terrors, but it closeth with peace and joy.  As we say of March, ‘It enters like a lion, but goes out like a lamb.’  ‘Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace,’ Ps. 37:37

USE OR APPLICATION- A Reproof To Three Sorts Of Persons 2/5

  (3.) As for those which do walk close to the rule of the gospel—I mean by a sincere endeavour—and thou seest no such peace and comfort, as we speak of, that they have, I answer,

           (a) They may have it, and thou not know it.  The saint's joy and peace is not such a light giggling joy as the world’s; res severa verum gaudium—true joy is a real thing.  The parlour, wherein the Spirit of Christ entertains the Christian, is an inner room, not next to the street, for every one that goes by to smell the feast.  ‘The stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy,’ Prov. 14:10.  Christ and the soul may be at supper within, and thou not so much as see one dish go in, or hear the music that sounds so sweetly in the Christian’s ears. Perhaps thou thinkest he wants peace, be­cause he doth not hang out a sign in his countenance of the joy and peace he hath within.  Alas, poor wretch! may not the saint have a peaceful conscience with a solemn, yea sad countenance, as well as thou and thy companions have a sorrowful heart, when there is nothing but fair weather in your faces?  ‘In laughter the heart is sorrowful,’ Prov. 14:13.  Sure he means the wicked man’s laughter.  It never looks more like rain with them than when it shines.  Their conscience lowers when their face laughs.  So, on the contrary, there is never more inward peace and com­fort to be found in a saint’s bosom, than sometimes when his face is blubbered with tears.  Shouldst thou come in and hear the Christian bemoaning himself, and complaining with sighs and sobs of his sins against God, thou wouldst go home, and cry out of this melancholy religion, and the sad condition this man was in.  And yet he whom thou so pitiest can de­sire thee to save it for thyself, and not spend it in vain for him; for he would not part with that very sorrow that scares thee so much, for all the joy which the world, with all its gallantry, when best set forth, could afford.  There is a mystery in this sorrow which thou canst not unriddle.  Know therefore that there is a sorrow and anguish of heart which ariseth from the guilt of sin and the fearful apprehensions of God’s wrath due to sin; and another that flows, not from fear of wrath arising from guilt, but from the sense of sin’s inbeing in the soul, provoking the Christian to do that which is dishonourable to that God who hath pardoned his sins to him; and this is the sorrow which sometimes makes the saints go for sad uncomfortable creatures, when all the same time their hearts are as full of comfort from the sense of God’s pardoning mercy as they can hold.  This sorrow is but like a summer shower, melted by the sense of God’s love, as that by the warm sun, and leaves the soul—as that doth a garden of sweet flowers—on which it falls, more fresh and odoriferous.

           (b) Though some precious souls, that have closed with Christ, and embraced the gospel, be not at present brought to rest in their own consciences, but continue for a while under some dissatisfactions and troubles in their own spirits; yet even then they have peace of conscience in a threefold respect.  In precio, in promisso, in semine—in what purchases it, in the promise, and in the germ.

           Every true believer hath peace of conscience in precio —in the price.  The gospel puts that price into his hand which will assuredly purchase it, and that is the blood of Christ.  We say, ‘That is gold which is worth gold’—which we may anywhere exchange for gold.  Such is the blood of Christ.  It is peace of con­science, because the soul that hath it, may exchange it for this.  God himself cannot deny the poor creature that prays on these terms, ‘Lord, give me peace of conscience, here is Christ's blood the price of it.’ That which could pay the debt, surely can procure the receipt.  Peace of conscience is but a discharge under God's hand that the debt due to divine justice is fully paid.  The blood of Christ hath done that the greater for the believer, it shall therefore do this the less.  If there were such a rare potion, that did infallibly procure health to every one that takes it, we might safely say, as soon as the sick man hath drunk it down, that he hath drunk his health; it is in him, though at present he doth not feel himself to have it, in time it will appear.

USE OR APPLICATION- A Reproof To Three Sorts Of Persons 1/5

Use first.  Is peace of conscience the blessing of the gospel?  This reproves three sorts of persons.

1. Sort.  The Papists, who interpretatively deny that peace of conscience is the blessing of the gospel, for they deny that any person can know in this life, unless by an extraordinary revelation, that he is a child of God, and one that shall be saved—which, if true, would stave all to pieces the vessel in which the Christian’s joy and inward peace is kept.  Whence comes the peace we have with our own consciences, but from the knowledge we have of our peace with God?  ‘Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God,’ Rom. 5:1.  If the poor soul be left at uncertainties here, and the gospel cannot resolve to it what its state is for hell or heaven, farewell to all inward peace.  The poor Christian may then say of himself, with a trembling heart, what St, John saith, in another case, of him that hateth his brother, ‘He walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth,’ I John 2:11.  Truly then the gospel might rather be called the gospel of fears and doubts, than the gospel of peace.  But is that the top of the blessing the gospel brings to saints, which was almost the bottom of the curse that the law de­nounced against sinners?—that ‘their life should hang in doubt before them; and they shall fear day and night, and should have no assurance of life,’ Deut. 28:66.  Bold men they are that dare so wretchedly dis­figure the sweet face of the gospel; making Christ in his precious promises speak as doubtfully to his saints, as the devil did in his oracles to his devotees. Because their hypocrisy makes them justly question their own salvation, and will not suffer them to apply the comfort of the promises to themselves, must they therefore seal up these wells of salvation from those that are sincere, and then lay the blame on the gospel which is due only to their own wickedness?  But there is a mystery of iniquity which hath at last been found to be at the root of this uncomfortable doctrine of theirs.  They are a little akin to Judas, who was a thief, and carried the bag.  These have a bag, too, into which they put more gold and silver, that this doctrine brings them in, than ever Judas had in his.  Though the doctrine of gospel-grace to poor sinners’ would bring more peace to others’ consciences —might it be seen in its naked glory among them —yet the superstitious fear which they keep ignorant souls in, brings more money to their purses; and this lies so near the heart of their religion, that gospel, Christ, heaven, and all, must bow unto it.
2. Sort.  Those are to be reproved, who frame very unlovely images in their own foolish imaginations of the gospel—as if there was nothing less than peace of conscience and inward comfort to be found in it—and all, because they see some that profess it, who cannot show that they have got any more peace and comfort since their acquaintance with the gospel than they had before, or than themselves have who are yet strangers to it; yea may be, discover more trouble of spirit.  Such I would desire to take these following particulars, by way of answer, into their seri­ous consideration.

           (1.) Consider all that are not true Christians that hang upon the gospel by profession.  And no blame can be laid on the gospel, though it doth not lavish out this treasure to every one that scrapes acquaintance with it.  The Spirit of God is too wise and faith­ful to set his seal to a blank.  The minister indeed of­fers peace to all that will accept it.  But where the peace of the gospel meets with a false heart, it will not stay there, ‘If the house be not worthy, let your peace return to you,’ Matt. 10:13.  As the dove returned to the ark again, when it found the earth under water, so doth the Spirit of God carry his comfort back with him to heaven from a soul that is yet in the suds of sin, soaking in his abominations.  Where can this heavenly dove find rest for the sole of her foot in such a soul?  And will he speak peace to that soul in which himself can find no rest?

           (2.) As for those that are sincere, true-hearted Christians, there are several considerations which will vindicate the gospel to answer its name, and to be a gospel of peace and consolation.

           (a) Some that are sincere Christians, do not so clearly understand the doctrine of the gospel as oth­ers; and the want of light, of joy, and comfort in their consciences comes from that want of light in their un­derstandings.  The ignorance of the workman doth not disparage the art.  Plus est in arte, quam in arti­fice—there is more in an art than the attainment of the artist.  There is a fulness of comfort in the principles of the gospel, but every Christian hath not at­tained to the ‘riches of the full assurance of under­standing, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ,’ which the apostle directs the Colossians to, as a sovereign means whereby ‘their hearts might be comforted,’ Col. 2:2.

           (b) Some that do understand the doctrine of sal­vation by faith in Christ—the only foundation to build and rear up true comfort and peace of conscience on—yet may, by their negligence in their Christian course—not walking carefully by the rule of the gospel—deprive themselves at present of this sweet peace, which otherwise might flow into their bosoms from the promises of the gospel.  ‘As many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them,’ Gal. 6:16.  And if so, what blame can be laid on the gospel? Be the pen never so good, and the hand never so skil­ful, it will not write on wet paper; yet we do not fault the hand or pen, but the paper.  If the heart—though of a saint never so eminent —be under the defilement of a present lust, not repented of, no promise will speak peace to him; he is a disorderly walker, and the Spirit hath his rod to whip such.  No sweet­meats of joy and peace to entertain them withal in that night.