they have been lifted up, the lower readily they are laid, Pfal. li. 8.

Inf. 1. Unjustified and unsanctified persons can have no true afsurance of the Lord's love to them. They may have a false confidence, a delusive hope of heayen; but no afsurance, for that is peculiar to the justified.

2. Doubts and fears are no friends to holiness of heart and life. It is little faith that breeds them in the hearts of the people of God, Matth. xiv. 31. And little faith will always make little holiness.

3. Lastly, Christians may thank themselves for the uncomfortable lives they lead. What fovereignty may do, we know not: but furely it is floth and unbelief that the want of afsurance is ordinarily owing to. Stir up yourselves then to seek it. Be frequent in felf-examination, cry to the Lord for the witness of his Spirit. Believe the word, and be habitually tender in your walk, if ever ye would have afsurance, Pfal. v. ult.

II. Of Peace of Conscience.

PEACE of Confcience is a benefit flowing from juflification.

Here I shall shew,

I. What peace of confcience is.

II. The excellency of it.

III. How it is obtained.

IV. How it is maintained.

V. How it is distinguished from false peace.
VI. Lastly, Deduce an inference or two.

I. I am to shew what peace of confcience is. It is a bleffed inward calmness and confolation arifing from the purging of the conscience from guilt before the Lord. In which description observe these two things.

1. The fubject of this peace. It is a purged confcience, Heb. ix. 14. Peace and purity go together, and make a good confcience, I Tim, i. 5. That peace which is joined with impurity, in an unpurged conscience, is but carnal security, peace in a dream, which will end in a fearful surprise. Now there are two things neceffary to the purging of confcience.

(1.) Removal of guilt, in pardon thereof, which brings the finner into a state of peace with God, Pfal. XXXII. I. Guilt felt or unfelt, is a band on the foul binding it over to God's wrath; it is a disease in the conscience, which will make it a fick confcience at length. But a pardon takes away guilt, loofes the band, removes the deadly force of the difease, and lays a foundation for carrying off the fickness, If. xxxiii. ult.

(2.) Removal of the conscience of guilt, in the sense of pardon, Heb. x. 2. Though a malefactor's pardon be paffed the feals, and he is fecured from death, yet till he know it, he cannot have peace. So the pardoned finner, who knows not his mercy, though he has peace with God, yet wants peace of conscience, Pfal. li. 8. So the confcience is purged, when the sting of felt guilt is drawn out of it.

2. The parts of this peace. These are two. (1.) An inward calm of the foul, and quietness of the mind, wherein it is not disturbed with the fears of God's wrath, nor frighted with the judgements which its fins do in themielves deserve, Prov. i. 33. A troubled confcience is full of fears, of terrible fore-. bodings, and fo torments, I John iv. 18. When peace enters the conscience, the mist clears up, the fears are scattered, and the confcience has a ferenity and quiet within itself.

(2.) Confolation and comfort of heart, 2 Cor. i. 12. If. lvii. 19. Peace of confcience is not a mere negative, or indisturbance, which floth and negligence of foul. matters may procure to the unpardoned: but it is an active chearfulness of spirit, in the foul's looking up towards God, and reflecting how matters stand be. tixt heaven and it, Col. iii. 15.

Conceive the whole thus. Sin entering into the

foul cafts the conscience into a fever, and guilt makes the rage of it. The great Physician gives the proper remedy: and so the confcience gets a cool, the sickness is removed, and the man gathers health, strength, and foundness, Job xxxiii. 22.-26. Heb. ix. 14.

II. I shall shew the excellency of it. It is Abraham's bosom on this fide of heaven, the lower paradife; it is like the shore to the shipwrecked foul; and life from the dead. I will only say three things of it.

1. It is the wine-press of the grapes of heaven, that squeezeth out into the man's mouth the fap of the covenant, Pfal. cxix. 102.103. It was a fad tale of the good Afaph's, Pfal. lxxvii. 3. I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. * Peace of confcience makes a man remember God, and be comforted; to fuck the fap of promises, and all the declarations of God's love and favour in his word, as the fame Afaph did, Pfal. lxxiii. 24. 25. 26.

2. It is fap and foison to all earthly comforts, Prov. xv. 15. A fick man can take no pleasure in the comforts of life, as a healthy man does. An uneafy conscience fucks the fap out of. all. But peace there makes coarse fare, and little of it, very sweet, Prov. xvii. 1. And whatever a man has, it puts an addi tional sweetness in it.

3. It is sweet sauce to all afflictions, 2 Cor. i. 12. John xvi. 33. When there is no peace within, little thing makes people fretful; even a fcratch of a pin is a wound with a sword. But this makes a man, eafy in the middle of the little annoyances of the world, though they be great in themselves, Col. iii. 15. Phil. iv. 7. Compare Heb. x. 34. When a man meets with disquietments and vexations abroad, he is helped to bear ail, when he is comforted and checred coming into his own house. But heavy is their cafe, who come from bitterness abroad, and are met with bitter. neis at home. The former is an emblem of peace of confcience, the latter an emblem of the foul in afflic tions.

III. I am to shew how this peace of confcience is obtained. This peace is peculiar to the faints. Others may have false peace, Luke xi. 21. but only they have or can have true peace, Rom. v. 1.

1. It is obtained for them by Jesus Christ dying and fuffering to procure it, If. liii. 5. Eph. ii. 14. There can be none of this peace without reconciliation with God, and there could be no reconcliation without his blood. The convinced finners could have had no more inward peace than devils have, if Christ had not died to procure it; but their wound had been incu rable, stood open and gaping for ever.

2. It is obtained by them, by these two methods. (1.) By a believing application of the blood of Christ, Rom. xv. 13. Job xxxiii. 23. &c. This is the only medicine that can draw the thorn of guilt out of the confcience, and heal its wounds, I John i. 7. Medicines prepared by men, may cure bodily distempers, and a vitiated fancy, or disordered imagination, among other things. Confefsing, mourning, reforming, watching, &c. may give a palliative cure even to the confcience, fcurfing over its fores. But nothing but a believing application of Christ's blood will give true peace of confcience; and do what ye will, if ye do not that, ye will never get true peace, If. vii. 9.

(2.) By God's speaking peace thereupon to the foul, If. Ivii. 19. The foul resting on Christ by faith, brings it into a state of peace with God; but for peace of confcience, more is required, namely, a fenfe of that peace. And this none but God can give, Pfal. li. 8. He speaks peace in the word; but a work of the Spirit on the confcience is necessary to make the application, as appears from 2 Sam. xii. 13. compared with Pfal. li. And this is a light struck up in the foul, discovering the foul to be at peace with God, an overpowering light that filences doubts and fears, and creates a blessed calm. This also is obtained in the way of believing, in the reflex act of faith. VOL. II.

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IV. I shall shew how this peace is maintained. The apostle tells us it was his exercise to maintain it, Acts xxiv. 16. And if we be not exercised in it, it will foon be loft. Now, it is maintained by,

1. Keeping up a firm and settled purpose of heart to follow the way of duty, and to stand aloof from fin, cost what it will, Acts xi. 23. David kept up his peace that way, Phil. xvii. 3. This is the breast-plate of righteoufness, Eph. vi. 14. the which if it fall by, one may quickly be wounded to the heart. Unfettledness of heart, one's being at every turn unrefolved what to do, cannot miss to leave him in the mire.

2. Living a life of dependence on the Lord, for light and life, direction and throughbearing, Prov. ii. 6. Gal. ii. 20. And this will keep a man from presumption, and doing any thing with a doubting confcience, which will foon mar one's peace.

3. Watchfulness against fin, snares, and temptations, 1 Cor. x. 12. One that would maintain his peace, must be upon his guard, otherwise it will foon be disturbed, in this evil world.

4. A ftrict, holy, gospel walk, in all known du. ties, towards God, and towards man, Gal. vi. 16. He that will adventure to balk any of them, shall foon lofe it.

5. Lastly, Frequent renewing of our faith and repentance, for purging away the fins we fall into, 1 Pet ii. 4.

V. I proceed to shew how peace of confcience is diftinguished from false peace. A godly man may have a false peace, Cant. v. 2. Such had David before Nathan came to him after his fall. An unregenerate man can have no peace but what is false, lf. Ivii. ult.

1. True peace, built on the ground of God's word, is establistred by the word, however fearching; the other is weakened by it. For God's word is a friend to God's peace, but an enemy to delufion, I John iii.