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by the sins of the wicked. It is not so strange to see a godly man, misguided and seduced by the errors of others like himself, the estimation of whose persons may overrule the opinion of their actions, and so make a man take them upon trust from them. But that a holy man should catch infection from the example of another who is in the gall of bitterness, is a thing that wonderfully sets forth the corruption of our nature, and the contagion of sin. The sons of God saw the daughters of men, and were polluted; the people of Israel saw the Midianitish women, and were ensnared. A holy man's conversing with loose, carnal, and formal men, diswonts him from the ways of God, brings a deadness of spirit and insensible decay of grace upon him secretly; and therefore the more dangerously conveys a mediocrity and compliancy of spirit, with forms only of godliness and pharisaical outsides, begets much dispensation and allowance in many errors, that he may keep pace, and not seem too austere, censorious, and ill-conceited of the men whom he walks with. Therefore David would not suffer a wicked man to be in his presence, nor any wicked thing to be before his eyes, 'lest it should cleave unto him.'"Take heed," saith the apostle, "lest any root of bitterness, springing up, trouble you, and thereby many be defiled." Fourthly, It spreads not only upon men, but defiles and curses the good creatures of God about us; it puts a leprosy into the stone in the wall, and the beam' in the house, barrenness into the earth, mourning into the elements, consumption into the beasts" and birds, bondage", vanity, grief, and, at last, combustion and dissolution upon the whole frame of nature.

Fourthly, It is a mortal and poisonous pollution, the pollution of deadly sores and putrefactions. "I said unto thee in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee in thy blood, Live." It notes that that estate wherein they were in their sins, was so deadly, that the cure of them was very difficult; it required the repetition of God's power and mercy. If a child, new born, should lie exposed in its blood to the injury of a cold air, nor have the navel cut, nor the body

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wrapped, or washed, or tended at all,-how quickly would it be, that, from the womb of the mother, it would drop into the womb of the earth! The state of sin is an estate of nakedness, blood, impotency, obnoxiousness to all the temptations and suares of Satan, to all the darts of Death and Hell. The ancients compare it to falling into a pit full of dirt and stones; a man is not only polluted, but he is bruised and wounded by it. To conclude; there is no deformity nor filthiness extant, which did not rise from sin. It is sin which puts bondage into the creature, which brings discords and deformities upon the face of nature. It is sin, which put devilishness into the angels of Heaven, and hurried them down from their first habitation. It is sin, which put a sting into death, without which, though it kill, yet it cannot curse. It is sin, which puts fire into Hell, and supplies, unto all eternity, the fuel and material for those unextinguishable flames. It is sin, which puts Hell into the conscience, and arms a man with terrors and amazements against himself. It is sin, which puts rottenness and dishonour into the grave; he that died without sin, rose up without corruption. It is sin, which wrings out those clamours and groans of brute creatures, which wrestle under the curse of Adam's fall. It is sin, which enrageth and maddeth one beast against another, and one man against another, and one nation against another. It is sin, which brought shame and dishonour upon that nakedness, unto which all the creatures in paradise did owe awe and reverence. It is sin, which turned Sodom into a stinking lake,-and Jerusalem, the glory of the earth, into a desolation and haunt for owls and bitterns. It is sin, which so often staineth Heaven and earth with the marks of God's vengeance, and which will one day roll up in darkness, and devour with fire, and reduce to its primitive confusion, the whole frame of Nature. It is sin, which put horror into the law, and makes that which was at first a law of life and liberty, to be a law of bondage and death, full of weakness, unprofitablenesses, hideousnesses, and curses. It is sin, which puts malignity and venom into the very Gospel, making it a savour of death unto death,' that is, of another deeper death and sorer condemnation, which, by trampling upon the blood of Christ, we draw upon ourselves, unto that death under which we lay before by the maledic

tion of the law. And lastly, (which is the highest that can be spoken of the venom of sin) it is sin which, in a sort, and to speak after the manner of men, hath put hatred into God himself, hath moved the most merciful, gracious, and compassionate Creator to hate the things which he made, and not to take pity upon the works of his hands. If God had looked round about his own works, he could have found nothing but goodness in them, and therefore nothing but love in himself. But when sin came into the world, it made the Lord repent, and grieve, and hate, and destroy his own workmanship.

And the consideration hereof should drive us all, like lepers and polluted wretches, to that fountain in Israel which is opened for sin and for uncleanness, to buy of him 'white raiment that we may be clothed,' and the shame of our nakedness may not appear. For which purpose, we must first find out the pollution of sin in ourselves; and that is, by using the glass of the law, which was published of purpose to make sin appear exceeding sinful. For as rectum' is 'sui judex et obliqui,' so 'purum' is 'sui judex et impuri;' That which is right and pure, is the measure and discovery of that which is crooked and impure. Now the law is right, pure, holy, just, good, lovely, honourable, clean;" and therefore very apt to discover the contrary affections and properties in sin. And having gotten, by the law, acquaintance with ourselves, there is then fit place for the apostle's precept, "To cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of spirit." First, the Lord discovered the preposterousness of Israel's services unto him, when they came before him in their uncleanness, and lifted up hands full of blood; and then comes the like precept to the apostle's here, "Wash ye; make ye clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes,' &c.

But can an unclean thing cleanse itself? Can that which is intrinsecally, naturally, inherently unclean, purify itself? It may pollute any thing which toucheth it; but how can it cease from that which belongs to its nature, or wipe out that which hath eaten in, and is marked in its very substance? It is true, 'of ourselves we cannot cleanse our

q Isa. i. 15, 18.

selves;' it is Christ's office to sanctify his church, and it is his comeliness' with which we are adorned; without him we can do nothing: but yet having him, we must wash ourselves. For God worketh not upon men as a carvers upon a stone, when he would induce the shape and proportions of a man, but yet leaves it a stone still and no more; but as himself did work upon earth in paradise, when he breathed into it the soul of man, and so made it a living creature. It is true, a natural man is as dead to grace, as a stone is to natural life; and therefore if only man should work upon him, he would continue as dead still: but he who of dead earth made a living man, is able "of stones to raise up children unto Abraham;" and the work of conversion is a work of vivification. Now then being quickened, we must walk and work ourselves. "I will take away, saith the Lord, the stony heart out of their flesh, and I will give them an heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes,""&c. So then God commands us to cleanse ourselves, when yet it is his own work. First, to teach us what he doth, is not out of duty or debt, but of grace and favour; for when he doth that which he commands, it is manifest that ours was the duty; and therefore his the greater mercy, to give us money wherewith to pay him the debt we owed. "Thou workest all our works for us," saith the prophet. The work, as it is a duty, is ours; but as a performance, it is thine. Secondly, he doth it to shew, that though he be the author and finisher of our faith, though he who beginneth our good works, doth also perform them until the day of Christ'; yet he will not have us abide always under his hand as dead stones,-but being quickened and healed by his spirit, and having our impotencies removed, we likewise must cooperate and move to the same end with him; for he doth not so work for us, but he withal gives us a will and a deed to concur with him to the same actions: As we have received Christ, so we must walk in him."-Thirdly, to shew us where we must fetch our cure,-to teach us that he will be sought unto by us, and that we must rely upon

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and promises. Therefore "He commandeth us the things which we cannot do, that we might know of whom to beg them" for it is faith alone which obtaineth by prayer that which the law requireth only, but cannot effect, by reason of the weakness of it. In one place, the Lord commandeth, "Cast away from you all your transgressions, and make you a new heart and a new spirit." In another place, he promiseth, "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols, will I cleanse you: a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh." How can these things consist together? He commands us to do that which he promiseth to do himself; but only to shew that God gives what he requires. things which he bids us do, (as if they were to be the works of our own will, and being, indeed, the duties which we owe) yet he promiseth to do in us, to shew that they are the works of his grace, and that his promises are the foundation of all our performances. For we, by working, do not cause him to fulfil his promises; but he, by promising, doth enable us to perform our works. So then we cleanse ourselves by the strength of his promises; they are the principles of our purification. This the apostle expresseth in the text; "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves."

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This, then, is the next thing we must enquire into, wherein the strength of this argument lies,—and how a man ought to make use of the promises, to infer and press upon his conscience this duty of cleansing himself. Here then, first, we must note, that promises do contain the matter of rewards, and are, for the most part, so proposed unto us. Abating only the first promise of calling unto the obedience of faith, which, I conceive, is rather made unto Christ in our behalf ("Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession,") than unto us formally, be

b Ideo jubet, quæ non possumus, ut noverimus quid ab illo petere debeamus. Ipsa enim est fides, quæ orando impetrat, quod lex imperat. Aug. de Gra. et Lib. Arb. cap. 15. c Ezek. xviii. 30. d Nos non facimus, ut ille faciat, quæ promisit; sed ille facit, ut nos faciamus, quæ præcepit. Aug.

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