A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 231and reigning, will ruin a soul for ever ; but to assure ofmercy enough, how great or many soever the sins havebeen, if the heart be now truly humbled for them all, andwholly turned heavenward.2. The invaluableness of Christ's meritorious blood , whichis called " the blood of God," and therefore of inestimableprice. Understand me aright : it was " the blood of God ;"not of the Godhead, but of him who was both God and man.For the manhood of Christ was received into the union ofthe Second Person, and so it may be called " the blood ofGod," for so speaks St. Paul ( Acts xx, 28), "God purchasedhis church with his own blood ;" that is, Christ, God incarnate.Our divines express it thus ": It was the Son of Godand Lord of life that died for us upon the cross ; but it wasthe nature of man, not of God, wherein he died ; and it wasthe nature of God, and infinite excellency of the same,whence the price, value, and worth of his passion grew."This blessed blood then is of infinite efficacy ; and therefore,if thou be now turning to the Lord, assure thyself, whatsoeverthy sins have been, they have not outgone the pricethat hath been paid for them. This blood, upon repentance,did take oflf the transcendant scarlet guilt from the soulseven of those that shed it. (Acts ii, &c.)3. The riches of the word, in affording precedents of thesaints, and of the Son of God himself, who have surpassedthee, and that perhaps very far, in any kind of misery thoucanst name.(1.) Thou art perhaps consulting with the prodigal tocome in, but there comes terribly into thy mind the extraordinaryheinousness of thy former sins, and that hinders.Cast thine eye then upon Manasseh, a man of prodigiousimpiety and matchless villany. He " shed innocent bloodvery much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end toanother. He did that which was evil in the sight of theLord, like unto the abominations of the heathen, whom theLord had cast out before the children of Israel. He causedhis children to pass through the fire in the valley of the sonof Hinnom. Also he observed times, and used enchantments,and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit,and with wizards. He wrought much evil in the sight of theLord, to provoke him to anger," &c. (2 Kings xxi, 16;2 Chron. xxxiii, 2 — b.) And yet this great sinner, " humblinghimself greatly before the God of his fathers," wasreceived to mercy (ver. 12, 13).(2.) Suppose (which yet were a horrible thing) that afterconversion, by extraordinary violence of temptation, strongensnarement of some sudden sensual offer and opportunity.