7. But this is confirmed, not only by the experience of the children of God, thousands of whom can declare, that they never did know themselves to be in the favour of God, ’till it was directly witnessed to them by his Spirit: but by all those who are convinced of sin, who feel the wrath of God abiding on them. These cannot be satisfied with any thing less than a direct testimony from his Spirit, that he is _merciful to their unrighteousness, and remembers their sins and iniquities no more_. Tell any of these, “You are to know you are a child, by reflecting on what he has wrought in you, on your love, joy and peace:” and will he not immediately reply, by all this I know, I am a child of the devil. I have no more love to God than the devil has: my carnal mind is enmity against God. I have no joy in the Holy Ghost: my soul is sorrowful even unto death. I have no peace: my heart is a troubled sea: I am all storm and tempest. And which way can these souls possibly be comforted, but by a divine testimony, (not that they are good, or sincere, or conformable to the scripture in heart and life, but) that God _justifieth the ungodly_: him that ’till the moment he is justified, is all ungodly, void of all true holiness? _Him that worketh not_, that worketh nothing that is truly good, ’till he is conscious that he is accepted, _not for_ any _works of righteousness which he hath done_, but by the mere, free mercy of God? Wholly and solely for what the Son of God hath done and suffered for him? And can it be any otherwise, if _a man is justified by faith, without the works of the law_? If so, what inward or outward goodness can he be conscious of, antecedent to his justification? Nay, is not the _having nothing to pay_, that is, the being conscious that _there dwelleth in us no good thing_, neither inward nor outward goodness, essentially, indispensably necessary, before we can be _justified freely, thro’ the redemption that is in Jesus Christ_? Was ever any man justified since his coming into the world, or can any man ever be justified, ’till he is brought to that point, “I give up every plea, beside Lord, I am damned――But thou hast died!” 8. Every one therefore who denies the existence of such a testimony, does in effect deny justification by faith. It follows, that either he never experienced this, either he never was justified, or that he has forgotten, (as St. _Peter_ speaks,) τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ τῶν πάλαι ἁμαρτιῶν, _the purification from his former sins_, the experience he then had himself, the manner wherein God wrought in his own soul, when his former sins were blotted out.