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2. I am to show the admirable fitness of the Spir­it for this comforting office,which the gospel reveals him to have, for the pacifying and satisfying the con­sciences of poor disconsolate sinners.  You have heard the gospel affords an argument sufficient to sat­isfy the most troubled conscience in the world—to wit, the full satisfaction which Christ by his precious blood hath made to God for sinners—but, if poor man had been left to improve this as well as he could for his comfort, he might have lain long enough roar­ing in the horror of his scorched conscience without ease, for want of one to drop this cooling healing balm into it.  But, as both the wisdom and love of God appeared in providing an able Saviour to purchase eternal redemption for us; so also a meet Comforter, as able to apply this purchased redemption to us.  His consolations are called ‘strong consolations.’  Christ showed his strength, when he unhinged the gates of the grave, and made his way out of that dark prison by his glorious resurrection.  By this he was ‘declared to be the Son of God with power,’ as the apostle hath it, Rom. 1:4.  And truly, it requires no less power to break open the dungeon, wherein the guilty conscience lies shut up, as one free among the dead in his own despairing thoughts.  For, if you ob­serve it well, the same stone and seal are upon the sinner’s conscience to keep him down from a resurrection of comfort, as was on Christ’s grave to keep him down from a resurrection to life.  What was the heaviest stone, the strongest seal, upon dead Jesus to keep him from rising?  Not the stone man rolled upon him, not the seal the Jews thought to fasten the grave with, but the curse of the law for sin, which divine justice rolled upon him.  This pressed heaviest upon Christ without all compare.  The angel himself that rolled away the stone could not have removed the curse.  Now, look in upon the distressed conscience’s grave, where its own guilt hath laid it.  What is that? no other than the lowest hell in its fears and present dismal apprehensions.  I am damned, I am for ever an undone creature, is the language such a one rings continually in his own ears.  But inquire, what is it that keeps him down in this grave? what hinders, but the poor wretch may be helped out of this pit of horror, and receive some comfort?  Alas he will tell you, that it is but in vain to comfort him; this ointment is all wasted to no purpose, which you pour upon his head.  No, he is an undone sinner.  The curse of God sticks like a dagger in his heart; the wrath of God lies like a mountain of lead on his con­science.  Except you can put your hand into his bosom, and pluck out the one, or by main force roll off the other, it is impossible he should be raised to any peace or comfort in his miserable conscience. You see it is the same gravestone on both.  But for thy eternal comfort know, poor heart, that art thus fast laid under the sense of the curse due to thy sins, know that as the weight that keeps thee from comfort is the same which lay on Christ to keep him from life; so the same power and strength is sent to raise thee to comfort, that enabled Christ to rise to life.  That Spir­it, who kept the Lord Jesus from seeing corruption in the grave; that restrained death, when it had Christ in its very mouth, so as it could no more feed on him than the whale could digest Jonah in her belly; yea that quickened his dead body, and raised him with honour, not only to life, but immortality also—is he that Christ sends for his messenger, to come and sat­isfy the trembling consciences of his poor children on earth concerning his love, yea his Father’s love to them for his sake.  This blessed Spirit hath all the properties of a comforter.  He is also pure and holy, he cannot deceive; called therefore ‘the Spirit of truth,’ John 14.  If he tell thee thy sins are pardoned, thou mayest believe him.  He will not flatter.  If thy were not so pardoned he would have brought another message to thee; for he can chide and reprove as well as comfort, convince of sin as well as of righteousness. He is so wise and omniscient, that he cannot be de­ceived.  Never did the Spirit of God knock at the wrong doors, and deliver his letters into a wrong hand, as a man may do, especially where persons are very like.  The Spirit exactly knows the heart of God to the creature, with all his counsels concerning him: ‘The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God,’ I Cor. 2:10.  And what are those ‘deep things of God’ the apostle means, but the counsels of love, which lie deep in his heart, till the Spirit draws them forth and acquaints the creature with them?  That ap­pears by ver. 9.  And he also knows the whole frame of man’s heart.  It were strange indeed if he that made the cabinet should not know every secret box in it.  Some few men have compassed that we call the greater world.  But the little world of man, as we call him, never did any creature encircle with his knowledge, no not the devil himself, who hath made it his work so many thousands of years to make a full dis­covery of it.  But the Spirit of God doth know him, intus est in cute—as we say, thoroughly; and knowing both these, he cannot be deceived.

In a word, he is so unresistible, that none can hinder the efficacy of his comforts.  The pardon brought by Nathan to David did not lie so close as the holy man desired; and therefore away goes he to beg comfort of the Comforter, Ps. 51.  There you find him on his knees praying hard to have his lost joy restored, and his trembling heart established by the free Spirit of God.  Though thou canst baffle man, and through thy own melancholy fancy, and the sophistry of Satan, who coins distinctions for thee, evade the arguments that Christians and ministers bring for thy comfort; yet, when the Spirit comes himself, all dis­putes end.  The devil cannot chop logic with him. No; then the lying spirit vanisheth, and our own fears too, as the darkness flees before the sun.  So sweetly and powerfully doth the comforting Spirit overrun the heart with a flood of joy that the soul can no more see her sins in the guilt of them, than Noah could the mole-hills when the whole earth was under water.

THE POWER REQUIRED-So to Apply This Argument as to Give Peace of Conscience 1/2

Second.  This second demonstration is taken from the strength and power required to press this ar­gument home to the conscience, so as to quiet and fully satisfy it.  Conscience is a lock that goes hard; though the key fit it    (I mean the argument used to comfort it be suitable and strong), yet, if this key be in a weak hand, that cannot turn it in this lock—as it is whenever a mere creature holds it—conscience will not open; its doubts and fears will not be resolved.  No, this must be the work of the Spirit, or else it will never be done.  Conscience is God’s officer; and, though the debt be paid in heaven, yet it will not let the soul go free, till a warrant comes from thence to authorize it.  And who can bring this but the Spirit of God?  Thus as it is not in all their power that are about the poor prisoner to comfort him, till news come from court what the prince means to do with him; so here in this case.  ‘When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble? and when he hideth his face, who then can behold him?’ Job 34:29.  Now two things I shall do for the bringing of this demonstration to a head.  1. I shall show that the gospel alone presents the Spirit of God to us under the notion of a Comforter.  2. I shall show the admirable fitness and sufficiency of the Holy Spirit to pacify and com­fort a guilty troubled con­science.  The first will evince that peace of conscience is nowhere else to be found but from the gospel; the second will show that it is there abundantly to be found.

           1. It is the gospel alone that presents the Spirit of God as a Comforter to poor sinners.  Indeed the comforting office of the Spirit is founded on the satis­faction of Jesus Christ.  When Christ had shed his blood, and in it laid down upon the nail the full price of a sinner’s peace with God; then, at his return to heaven, he prays his Father to send the Comforter. Neither could Christ desire this request of his Father, nor his Father grant it to him, but upon the account of this his death, which secures the justice of God from receiving any damage by the comfort which the Spirit carries into the believing sinner’s bosom. Christ tells his disciples thus much, ‘If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you,’ John 16:7.  Pray, mark the Spirit, as a Comforter, stays till Christ goes to heaven to send him down, and no room for Christ there, till the work was done he came about.  And what was that, but, by his bloody death, to purchase peace with God for poor believing sinners?  

Now let him come when he will.  The Spirit is ready to be sent as a com­forter, as soon as he appears in the heavens with his blood as an intercessor.  But whence then had the Old Testament saints all their peace and comfort, who lived before Christ returned to heaven, yea, be­fore he took his first journey from hea­ven, I mean to earth?  I answer, ‘Upon the same account they had their comfort, that they had their pardon.’  They were pardoned through the blood of Christ, who was vir­tually a lamb slain from the beginning of the world; and they were comforted by the Spirit of Christ, whose comforting office bears the same date with Christ’s mediatorial office.  As all their pardons were issued out upon the credit of Christ, who stood en­gaged in the fulness of time to lay down his life; so all the comfort which the Spirit of Christ issued out into their consciences, was upon the same credit of Christ, who should, as in the fulness of time die on earth for sinners, so appear also in the heavens—by virtue of the satisfaction that his death should make—there to intercede with the Father for a comforter.  Thus you see the first thing.  The Spirit as a comforter hath his office from the gospel covenant, and could never have spoken a word of comfort, but upon this gospel ac­count.  Hence it is, when the Father sends him as a comforter, he sends him in Christ’s name, who hath made up the breach betwixt him and sinners, John 14:26—that is, for his sake and at his entreaty.  

Yea, when the Spirit doth comfort, what is it he saith? The joyful news he brings is gospel intelligence, ‘He shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak,’ John 16:13.  The meaning is [that] when he comes to teach, he shall not bring new light, dif­ferent from what shines in the gospel, but what truth Christ preached in the gospel, that he shall teach.  When he comforts, the ingredients which his soul-reviving cordials shall be made of, are what grow in the gospel garden, as ver. 14: ‘He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you’—that is, my death, my merit, my resurrection, my ascension and intercession, my promises pur­chased and sealed with my blood—these he shall take and make report of to you, for your eternal joy and comfort.  So that, if it had not been for these, the Spirit, who is Christ’s messenger, would have wanted an errand of this comfortable nature to have brought unto poor sinners, yea, instead of a comforter, he would have been an accuser and a tormentor.  He that now bears witness with our spirits for our recon­ciliation, adoption, and salvation, would have joined in a sad testimony with our guilty consciences against us, for our damnation and destruction.