The first step to the cure of a wounded conscience is for thee to
know the grace of God, especially the grace of God as to
justification.
Grace can pardon our ungodliness and justify us with Christ's
righteousness; it can put the Spirit of Jesus Christ within us; it
can help us when we are down; it can heal us when we are wounded; it
can multiply pardons, as we through frailty multiply transgressions.
GRACE ABUSED.
A self-righteous man, a man of the law, takes grace and mercy for
his greatest enemy.
The best of things that are of this world are some way hurtful.
Honey is hurtful, wine is hurtful, silver and gold are hurtful; but
grace is not hurtful. Never did man yet catch harm by the enjoyment
and fulness of the grace of God. There is no fear of excess or
surfeiting here. Grace makes no man proud, no man wanton, no man
haughty, no man careless or negligent as to his duty that is
incumbent upon him, towards either God or man. No; grace keeps a man
low in his own eyes, humble, self-denying, penitent, watchful,
savory in good things, charitable: and makes him kindly affectioned
to the brethren, pitiful and courteous to all men.
True, there are men in the world that abuse the grace of God, as
some are said to turn it into wantonness and into lasciviousness.
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