Quote by Stevenson A. Blackwood, from The Shadow & The Substance

“it was the blood of Christ which had purged their conscience "from dead works to serve the living God." They had believed in Jesus, and now their consciences were purged by that blood. That shows us, that however religious a man may be, though he may even act up to the Word of God as far as he knows it, short of believing in Jesus; yet it is all" dead works," unless his conscience has been purged. May every one of us understand the truth, that unless the blood be on the conscience, and unless there is simple and single trust in it, the conscience is still unpurged. and all the works of religiousness are works, if I may so say, done in Egypt in the darkness of death, and are not accepted of God. There must be the coming out of Egypt, and this is what the pilgrims were dressed for. God called them to come out of Egypt, and here they were, ready to start: they were to go and serve God under another sky, in another land, altogether upon another footing. So it is with believers: they must begin by obeying the command, "Come out and be ye separate.”

Quote by Stevenson A. Blackwood, from The Shadow & The Substance