Heaven upon earth in the serene tranquillity and calm composure, in the sweet peace…

The 1. Use of this serves to teach us, how we ought on the one hand to loath the state of Nature, and how on the other hand we ought to love and long after a state of faith in Christ Jesus, by whom only our natural state can be changed: Is it not a wonder, that so many rational men and women can live and lie still in their Natural state without minding or looking after a change? Considering that this stands recorded of, and against them, That their very mind and conscience is defiled, and that with dead works; and that all who are not in Christ are so defiled, vile and abominable, that the most stinking dunghill is not so loathsome, as the Consciences of such persons are; O! What heaps and dunghills of Lusts, what puddles and mires, what kennels and sinks of pollution, and noisome, and poisonable filthiness are there? What noisome and poisonable sins are drunk down with pleasure as so much sweet Wine? all which are kept in retentis by the Conscience, never one of them is forgotten, though for the time, the Conscience by its silence, is supposed to have forgotten them; yet it will set them all in order, marshal them all (as it were) in rank and file against the persons who shall be found out of Christ, in a most formidable manner; it will not suffer one sin, nor so much as one aggravating circumstance of any sin to be forgot. It will bring forth all, and charge them home furiously and irresistibly; This in Gods holy Justice will be the use of Conscience to all such persons; Its not like a Conduit or Pipe, that takes in at the one end, and lets out at the other, but like a standing sink, that ⟨p. 331⟩still retains all that comes into it; O! then what a foul and filthy bag (to speak •o) is the Conscience of many a man and woman? So that no Botch. Boll, or Imposthume, hath such vile▪ filthy and abominable matter in it, as it hath▪ O! what a noisome and vilely stinking smell will that putrid matter send forth, when God pricks it? This should make you all to loath living in your natural state, and to long without lingering to be out of it: Its like that many take it ill •o have such things said or thought of them, but I assure you all that are out of Christ, whether ye have a more full or empty purse about you, you have this filthy bag full of sin within you;