God only can relieve a guilty conscience
the other merits and obedience of Christ. And David, when he would raise up his soul to praise God, describes him to be a God 'forgiving sin and healing infirmities,' Ps. 103:3; and therefore we should, when our consciences are burdened, go as Joab did and catch hold on the horns of the altar, to the mercy of God. There live and there die. And though the conflict be never so great, we shall at length find that, as Jacob, we shall be children of Israel, and such as shall prevail with God, and that for our depth of misery, he hath a depth also of mercy; and this mercy will appear either in preserving us from sin, before we are fallen into it, or rescuing us from it if once we be fallen into it.
God only can relieve a guilty conscience Quest. But how comes it, may some say, that God forgives? Doth he it without satisfactions?
Ans. I answer, No.
Quest. How then is it done, seeing he hath decreed that without blood shall be no remission? Heb. 9:22.
Ans. I answer, This is done in Christ.
Quest. But why is he not mentioned here, nor in the Old Testament neither?
Ans. I answer, He was laid down to us in the Old Testament, in types and promises; for what other was the paschal lamb but 'the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world,' by sprinkling our hearts with his blood? He was the priest that, before he could open an entrance into the holy of holies for us, must first shed blood and offer sacrifice.
What signified the ark with the law covered within it, the mercy-seat