THE POLLUTION OF SIN, AND USE OF THE PROMISES. 2 COR. VII. 1. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. HAVING set forth the state, guilt, and power of sin, I shall now, in the last place, for the further opening of the exceeding sinfulness thereof, discover the pollution and filthiness, which therefrom both the flesh and spirit, the body and soul, do contract. The apostle, in the former chapter, had exhorted the Corinthians to abstain from all communion with idolaters, and from all fellowship in their evil courses. Several arguments he useth to enforce his exhortation. First, from the inequality of Christians and unbelievers, "Be not ye unequally yoked together with unbelievers," ver. 14. It hath a relation to the law of Moses, which prohibited to plough with an ox and an ass, or to put into one yoke things disproportionable. Secondly, from their contrariety, and, by consequence, uncommunicableness to each other: there is as everlasting and irreconcileable an hatred between "Christ and Belial, righteousness and unrighteousness, as between light and darkness," ver. 14, 15.-Thirdly, from those precious and excellent promises, which are made to Christians; they are "the temples of God, his people, and peculiar inheritance; he is their Father, and they his sons and daughters," ver. 16, 17, 18.-And there are many reasons in this one argument drawn from the promises, to infer the apostle's conclusion. First, By that unction and consecration, whereby they are made temples unto God,'-they are separated from profane uses, designed to divine and more noble employments, sealed and set apart for God himself; and therefore they must not be profaned by the unclean touch of evil society. Secondly, By being God's temples, they are lifted to a new station ; the eyes of men and angels are upon them; they offend the weak, they blemish and deface their Christian reputation; they justify, comfort, encourage, settle the wicked in their sinful courses, by a deep policy of the deceitful heart of man, apt to build ungrounded presumptions of safety to itself, by the fellowship of such whom it conceives to be in a good condition. Thirdly, They involve themselves in the common calamities with those, with whom they communicate. If Israel had not separated themselves from Egypt by the blood of the Paschal Lamb, but had communicated with them in their idolatry, they should have felt the sword of the destroying angels in their houses, as well as the Egyptians. If, upon hostility between nations, warning be given by an adversary to all strangers, to avoid the place which he cometh against, and they take not the summons,-though of themselves they be no way engaged upon the quarrel, yet, being promiscuously mingled with the conquered people, they also shall share in the common calamity, and become captives with the rest: so good men, by communion with the wicked, are involved in the general miseries of those, with whom they communicate. Fourthly, They betray the safety and tranquillity of the church and state wherein they live: for they under Christ are the foundations of the commonwealth; their prayers establish the prince's throne; their cries hold God fast, and will not let him alone to destroy a people. If the salt be infatuated, every thing must be unsavoury: if the foundations fail, what can the people do? b Now lastly, in the words of the text, the apostle shews the aptness of the promises to cleanse and purify; and that therefore they to whom they are made, do misemploy and neglect them, if they purify not themselves from all that filthiness of flesh and spirit, which, by communion with the wicked, they are apt easily to contract. a Discamus ex hac parte sanctam superbiam; sciamus nos esse, illis meliores. Hieron. Ep. Psal. iv. 3. b Greg. Tholos. de Repub. lib. 11. I shall not trouble you with any division of the words, but observe out of them the point I have proposed, touching the pollution and filthiness of sin, and infer other things in the text by way of corollary, and application unto that. The Wise Man saith, that "God made all things beautiful in their time;" and then much more man, whom he created after his own image in righteousness and holiness, with an universal harmony and rectitude in soul and body. He never said of any of the creatures, "Let us make it after our own image," as he did of man and yet the creatures have no more beauty in them, than they have footsteps of the power, wisdom, and goodness of him that made them. How much more beautiful then was the soul of man, for whose service this whole glorious frame was erected, and who was filled with the knowledge and love of all God's revealed will! Now sin brought confusion, vanity, disorder, both upon the whole creation, and upon the image of God. in men and angels. What thing more glorious than an angel? what more hideous than a devil? and it was nothing but sin which made an angel a devil. What thing more beautiful and benign than Heaven? what more horrid and merciless than Hell? and yet it was sin, which drew a 'Hell out of Heaven,'- even fire and brimstone upon God's enemies. What more excellent and befitting the hands of such a workman, than an universal fulness and goodness in the whole frame of nature? what more base and unserviceable, than emptiness and disorder? And it is sin which hath put chinks into all the creatures to let out their virtue, and hath brought vanity and vexation of spirit upon all things under the sun. In one word, what more honourable, than to obtain the end for which a thing is made? what more abhorred than to subsist in a condition infinitely more woful, than not to be? and it is sin only, which shall, one time or other, make all impenitent sinners wish rather to be hurried into that fearful gulf of annihilation, and to be swallowed up in everlasting forgetfulness, than live with those marks of vengeance, under those mountainous and insupportable pressures, which their sins will bring upon them. When we look into the Scriptures, to find out there the e Gehenna de Cœlo. Salvian. Εννόησον ἡλίκον ἐστι τὸ ἁμάρτημα, ὥστε βιάσασθαι καὶ πρὸ καιρὸ τὴν γεένναν φανῆναι. Chrysost. in Rom. 1. Hom. iv. VOL. 1. U resemblances of sin, we find it compared to the most loathsome of things-to the blood and pollution of a new born. child,' before it be cut, washed, salted, or swaddledd: to the rottenness of a man in his grave; "The whole world lieth in mischief and sin," even as a dead man in the slime and rottenness of his grave: to that noisome steam and poisonous exhalation, which breathes from the mouth of an open sepulchre; "Their throat is an open sepulchre f," that is, out of their throat proceedeth nothing but stinking and 'rotten communication,' as the apostle calls it: to the nature of vipers, swine, and dogsh: to the dung or garbage, the poison*, sting, excrements, vomit of these filthy creatures to a root of bitterness which defileth many1: to thorns and briars, which bring forth no other fruit but curses' to the excrements of metals, 'dross, and reprobate silver": to the excrements of a boiling pot, a great scum' to the worst of all diseases, 'sores ',' 'rottenness',' gangrenes' or leprosies', 'plague and pestilence ;' the 'menstruousness of a removed woman':' to a vessel in which there is no pleasure,' which is but the modest expression of that draught into which nature emptieth itself". And which is the sum of all uncleanness, sin in the heart is compared to the fire of Hell.' So that the 'pure eyes of God do loathe to see, and his nostrils to smell it.' It makes all those that have eyes open, and judgments rectified, to abhor it in others. "The wicked is an abomination to the righteous"." When desperate wretches pour out their oaths and execrations against Heaven, scorn and persecute the Word of Grace, count it baseness and cowardice not to dare to be desperately wicked,-then every true heart mourns for their pride, compassionates their misery, defies their solicitations,-declines their companies and courses, even as most infectious, serpentine, and hellish exhalations, which poison the air, and putrify the earth upon which they tread. And when God gives a man eyes to look inward, unridgeth the conscience, unbowelleth the heart, d Ezek. xvi. 6. el Joh. v. 19. f Rom. iii. 13. g Ephes. iv. 29. h Luke iii. 7. 2 Pet. ii. 20. i Phil. iii. 8. k Rom. iii. 13. Jam. iii. 8. xii. 15. m Heb. vi. 8. I Cor. xv. 56. Jam. i. 21. 2 Pet. ii. 20. 1 Heb, a Jer vi. 28. Ezek. xxii. 18. P Isai. i. 6. 92 Tim. u Hosea • Ezek. xxiv. 11, 12. y Zach. xi. 8. Amos v. 21. z Prov. xxix. 27. stirreth up, by his Word, the sink which is in every man's bosom, makes him smell the carrion of his own dead works, the uncleanness of his evil conscience, the filthiness of his nature, every man is then constrained to abhor himself, to be loathsome in his own sight, and to stop his nose at the poison of his own sores*. truth, let us first Though we say culpable, as our For the more particular discovery of this look upon the best works of the best men. not that they are sins, and 'in natura rei' adversaries charge us; yet so much evil doth adhere unto them by the mixture of our corruptions, by passing through our hands, as when sweet water passeth through a sink, as that God might justly turn away his eyes from his own graces in us, not as his graces, but as in us. It is true, the spiritual offerings and sacrifice of the saints, as they come from God's grace, are clean and pure, a sweet savour, acceptable, well-pleasing and delightful unto God. But yet, as they come from us, they have iniquity in them, as not being done with that thorough and most exact conformity to God's will, as his justice requires; and therefore, if he should enter into judgment, and mark what is done amiss, he might reject our prayers, and throw back the dung of our sacrifices into our faces, for abusing and defiling his grace; "For cursed is every one, that continueth not in every thing that is written in the law, to do it." Clean then and acceptable they are; First, comparatively, in regard of wicked men's offerings, which are altogether unclean. Secondly, by favour and acceptance f; because God spareth us, as a father his son, that desires to please him. Thirdly, (which is the ground of all) by participation with Christ, being perfumed with his incense, being strained through his blood, being sanctified upon his altar. "When he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of gold to purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, then shall they offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness, then shall the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord." But, in itself, our best righteousness is as a menstruous rag. If God should lay righteousness to the line, and judgment to the plummet, should take |