3.  To press believers more earnestly into Christ, that they may get a new extract of their pardon, and their souls washed in the blood of Jesus.

4.  To teach them to walk more circumspectly afterwards, and to guard more watchfully against Satan’s temptations, and to employ Christ more as their strength, light, and guide.

5.  To cause them see their great obligation to Jesus Christ, for delivering them from that state of wrath, wherein they were by nature, as well as others, and would have lain in to all eternity, had he not redeemed them.

6.  To exercise their faith, patience, and hope; to see if in hope they will believe against hope, and lay hold on the strength of the Lord, that they make peace with him, Isaiah xxvii. 5.

7.  To give a fresh proof of his wonderful mercy, grace, love, and compassion, upholding the soul in the mean time, and at length pardoning them, and speaking peace to their souls through the blood of Jesus.

But as to the third particular, we may look on Christ as the Life to the soul in this case, upon those accounts,

1.  He hath satisfied justice, and so hath borne the pure wrath of God due for their sins.  “He hath trodden the wine press alone,” Isaiah lxiii. 5.  “He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our sins,” Isaiah liii. 5, 10; and therefore they drink not of this cup which would make them drunk, and to stagger, and fall, and never rise again.

2.  Yea, he hath procured that mercy and love shall accompany all those sharp dispensations, and that they shall flow from mercy; yea, and that they shall be as a covenanted blessing promised in the covenant, Psalm lxxxix. 30, &c.

3.  And sometimes he is pleased to let them see this clear difference betwixt the strokes they lie under, and the judgments of pure wrath which attend the wicked; and this supporteth the soul; for then he seeth that those dispensations, how sharp soever they be, shall work together for good to him, and come from the hand of a gracious loving Father, reconciled in the blood of Christ.

4.  “He is a Prince, exalted to give repentance and remission of sins to Israel,” Acts v. 31.  Yea, he hath procured such a clause in the covenant, which is well ordered in all things and sure, that upon their renewing of faith and repentance, their after sins shall be pardoned; and besides the promises of faith and repentance in the covenant, his being a Prince exalted to give both, giveth assurance of their receiving of both.

5.  He cleareth to them their interest in the covenant, and their right to the promises of the covenant; and through their closing with Christ by faith, he raiseth up their heart in hope, and causeth them to expect an outgate, even remission of their sins, and turning away the displeasure in due time through him.  And this is a great part of their life.