A second volume of discourses or sermons on several scriptures

¹Thirdly, Pardon of Sin lays a good Foundation for the Souls near Acquaintance and Communion with God. Guilt is the only thing that breeds Alienation. Your Iniquities, says the Prophet, have separated betwixt you and your God, Isa. 59.2. Nor indeed is it possible that a guilty Sinner should any more delight in Conversing with God, than a guilty Malefactor delights in the presence of his Judge. And therefore we see when Adam had contracted guilt upon himself by eating the Forbidden Fruit, how childishly and foolishly doth he behave himself? God calls him, and he runs ⟨p. 73⟩behind a Tree to hide himself; what a sudden change was here? Adam, who but a little before was his Creator's Familiar, now dreads and shuns him; his guilt makes him apprehend God's Call to be no other than a Summons to the Bar. Nor indeed can it be otherwise, but that guilt should produce Alienation betwixt God and the Soul; for look how distance grows between two familiar Friends, so doth it here: If a Man be Conscious to himself, that he hath done his Friend an Injury; what Influence hath this upon him? why, presently it makes him more shy and reserved to him than before. So is it here, Consciousness of guilt fills us with a troublesome ill-natured shame; we are ashamed to look God in the Face, whom we have so much wronged by our sins. And Secondly this shame is always joined with a slavish and base fear of God, lest he should Revenge himself upon us, for the Injuries that we have done to him; and both this Shame and Fear, takes off from that holy freedom and boldness, which reverently to use towards God, is the gust and Spirit of our Communion ⟨p. 74⟩and Fellowship with him; and all these lessen that sweet Delight in God, that formerly we relished in the Intimacy of this Heavenly Fellowship: And what can be the final product of all this, but a most sad Alienation, and Estrangement between God and the Soul? But now Pardon of Sin removes these Obstructions, and causeth the intercourse betwixt God and the Soul to pass free, because it gives the Soul a Holy, and yet Awful Boldness in Conversing with the Great and Terrible Majesty of God. So much sense of Pardon and Reconciliation as we have, so much boldness shall we have ordinarily in our Addresses to God. What's the Reason the Consciences of Wicked Men drag them before God, and they come with so much Diffidence, Dejectedness, and Jealousy?