such exceptions as he justly might, at the most holy action that any saint can offer to him; if he should shew the conscience, how short it falls of that total perfection which his pure eye requires,-how many loose thoughts, how much deadness, weariness, irreverence, diffidence, vitiateth our purest prayers how many by-ends, corrupt respects, ignorances, oversights, forgetfulness, worldly intermixtures deface and blemish our brightest actions; how much unbelief consists with the strongest faith; how many thorns, stones, birds, do haunt and cover the best ground, the most honest and good heart, to stifle and steal away the Word from it; how many weeds do mingle with the purest corn; how much ignorance in the sublimest judgments; how much vanity in the severest and exactest minds; how much looseness, and digressions in the most sad and composed thoughts; how many impertinences and irregularities in the most bridled and restrained tongue; how much mispense of the seasons and opportunities of grace in the most thrifty redemption of our time; how much want of compassion and melting affections in our greatest alms; of love to the truth, and right acceptation of the beautiful tidings of peace in our largest contributions; how much self-allowance and dispensation to iterate and reiterate our smaller errors; if, in these and a world of the like advantages, God should be exact to mark what is done amiss, who were able to stand in his presence, or abide his coming? Say the Papists what they will, of merit of condignity, commensurate to eternal life, and proportionable to the justest and severest scrutiny of the most pure and jealous God; yet let the conscience of the holiest of them all be summoned to single out the most pure and meritorious work which he ever did, and with that to join issue with God's justice, to perish or be saved, according as that most perfect of all his works shall appear righteous or impure; and I dare presume none of them would let their salvation run a hazard upon that trial. So then there is pollution by way of adherency of contract, in the best works of the best men. How much more then in the best works of unregenerate men! Their sacrifices unclean' and abominable before God, being offered upon the altar of a defiled conscience': i Prov. xv. 8. Tit. i. 15. "Their prayers and solemn meetings hateful," loathsome, impious.k For either they are but the 'howlings of afflicted men,' that cry out for pain, but not out of love'; or the 'babbling of careless and secure men,' that cry Lord, Lord,' and mumble a few words without further notice, like Balaam's ass"; or the wishings and wouldings of inordinate men, that pray for their lusts, and not for their souls"; or lastly, the bold and unwarranted intrusions of presumptuous men, who, without respect to the Word, promises, or conditions of God, would have mercy from him without grace, and forgiveness of sin without forsaking of sin. mercies are 'cruel mercies;' their profession of religion but 'a form of godliness.' All, as I said before, but the embalming of a carcase, which abates nothing of the hideousness of it in the sight of God. Their And now if the best works of wicked men are so unclean and full of filthiness in God's eyes, where then shall appear their confessed sins? If their prayers and devotions stink, how much more their oaths and execrations! If their sacrifices and that which they offer to God, is unclean, how unclean is their sacrilege and that which they steal from him! If their mercies be cruel, how cruel their malice, murders, briberies, oppressions! If there be so much filthiness in their profession, how much more in their persecution, in their reviling and scorning of the ways of God! If their fastings and maceration be sinful, and 'not unto the Lord,'P what is their drunkenness, their spewing and staggering, their clamours and uncleanness, all their cursed compliments and ceremonies of damnation! O consider this, all ye that have hitherto forgotten God! Remember that His eyes are purer than always to behold iniquity. Remember that his Spirit will not always strive with flesh! Admire his bottomless patience, which hath thus long suffered thee, an unclean vessel, to pollute thyself and others, and forborne thee with more patience than thou couldest have done a toad, or serpent, than which notwithstanding in his sight thou art far more unclean. And remember that his patience is salvation, and should lead * Isai. i. 13, 14, 15. iv. 3. • 2 Tim. iii. 5. 1 Hos. vii. 14. m Mat. vii. 21. n Jam. P Zech. vii. 5. thee to repentance! Consider that the law of the Lord is pure, and his fear clean, and his holiness beautiful; the garments with which he clothed his priests, garments of comeliness and praise, made for glory and beauty; he comes with fire and soap, with water and blood to heal our sores, to purge our uncleanness. But now if there be lewdness in our filthiness, obstinacy in our evil ways; if it suffice us not to have thus long wrought the will of the Gentiles, let us with fear consider those woful denunciations: "Let him that is filthy, be filthy still: Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone: Because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy sins any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee." We have considered the 'quod sit,' that sin is full of filthiness and pollution; I will but name the 'quid sit,' what this filthiness is. It hath two things belonging to the nature of it. First, A privation of the beauty, which the image of God brought into the soul with it. A deformity to the holiness and brightness of the law. The law was both holy and good; not only the rule, but the beauty, of our life and nature. So that as evil is a declination and swerving from the law as a rule, so it is sin; and as it is a swerving from the law as our beauty, so it is the stain and pollution of the soul. Secondly, It notes a positive foulness, an habitual (both natural and contracted) defiledness of mind and conscience, an introducing of the image of Satan, hideous marks of hellishness and deformity in the soul, body, and conversation every desire, motion, and figment of the heart being nothing but the exhalations of an open sepulchre, the damp and steam of a rotten soul. Now, in the last place, let us see the quale sit,' those evil properties which accompany this pollution; four woful qualities belong unto it. First, It is a deep pollution of a crimson dye, of a scarlet tincture that will not wear out." 'Like the spots of a leopard, or the blackness of an Ethiopian,' which is not by way of accidental or external adherency, not innate and contempered, belonging to the constitution. It is engraven upon the heart, written with an 1 Rev. xxii. 11. 1. 2 æ. qu. 16. artic. 1. Hosea iv. 13. • Ezek. xxiv. 13. t Aquin. iron pen, and the claw of a diamond, and so fashioned even in the very substance of the soul. It is an iniquity marked, which cannot be washed away with nitre and much soap, no more than marks imprinted and incorporated in the substance of a vessel. The whole inundation and deluge of Noah could not wash it off from the earth, but it returned again. A shower of fire and brimstone from Heaven hath not so cleansed it out of the country of Sodom, but that the venom and plague of it doth still there appear in a poisonous and stinking lake. The plague which came amongst the Israelites for the abominations of Baal Peor, had not cleansed the filthiness all away, but many years after the stain remained "; nay the very flames of Hell shall not in all eternity be able to eat out the print, or to fetch away the stains of the smallest sins from the nature of man. Nay, which is yet stronger than all this, though grace be of itself apt to wipe out, and conquer sin, yet that measure and proportion of grace which here the best receive, though it may shorten, weaken, abate, yet it doth not utterly root it "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am free from my sins?" The best of us have yet our sores running upon us, and stand in need of a garment to cover our pollutions. out. Secondly, It is an universal pollution. "I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live."-We are, by nature, all overdrowned and plunged in the filthiness of sin. The apostle here calls it 'filthiness of flesh and spirit,' to note the compass of the stain of sin. For notwithstanding some sins belong principally to the spirit, as pride, heresy, idolatry, superstition, &c. and others to the flesh, as drunkenness, gluttony, uncleanness, &c. yet certain it is, that every sin defiles both flesh and spirit, by the reason of their mutual dependance in being and working, and of the contagious quality of sin. Sins of the flesh soak and sink, and eat into the bottom of the spirit, to drown that with hardness, insensibility, error, security, inconsiderateness, contempt of God, &c.; and the sins of the spirit break out like 2 Jer. ii. 22. a Josh. xxii. 17. y Jer. xvii. 1. b Adeo non sola anima transigit vitam, ut nec cogitatus, licet non ad effectus per carnem deductos, auferamus à collegio carnis—sine opere, et sine effectu, cogitatus carnis est Actus. Tert. de Resurrect. carnis, cap. 14. plague-sores into the flesh, pride into the eye, malice into the hand, heresy into the tongue, superstition and idolatry into the knee, &c. The soul and body have so near communion, that one can no more sin alone without the contagion of the other, than one wheel in an engine move without the motion of the other. Thirdly, It is a spreading pollution. A leprosy, a gangrene, a plague, that diffuseth poison and infection upon others. First, It spreads in a man's self. An evil lust will infect the thoughts; and they, the desires; and they, the words and actions; and they grow into habits, and reflect back again upon the heart and conscience, to harden and defile them. Secondly, This infection stays not in a man's self only, but runs forth upon others, to lead and misguide them; We will certainly do as we have done, "we and our kings, our princes, and our fathers, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem."-To drive and compel them; "Why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?"d-To comfort and hearten them; "Thou hast justified, and art a comfort to thy sisters Sodom and Samaria.”—To exasperate and enrage them; "Thou hast given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme." "f_To deceive and seduce them; as the old prophet of Bethels did the prophet of the Lord by his lie.-To teach and instruct them; the Israelites, by their idolatry, taught their children to walk after Baalim." And by how much the more authority over the persons of men, or eminency of place, or reputation of piety any man hath, by so much the more spreading and infectious are his sins, being taken with the more trust and assurance. If a minister be loose and scandalous, a magistrate, careless and rusty,-a gentleman, rude and unclean, a man that professeth the power of godliness, unjust and worldly,-strange it is how the lower and more ignorant rank of men, who believe that such men as these are not by their places so far from, or by their learning and studies so unacquainted with God, will be hereby strengthened in their deadly and formal courses. Thirdly, (which is yet worse) the very godly are apt to be infected Jer. xliv. 17. d Gal. ii. 14. xii. 14. 81 Kings xiii. 18. |