he has loft his habit and dexterity of finning through grace; and therefore it is faid he cannot fin: He that is born of God cannot commit fin.

5. Gofpel purity inclines a man to make advances in religion? he forgets the things that are behind, and preffeth forward; he can never be pure enough: he goes from ftrength to ftrength; The path of the just is as the Jhining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. It is true, there are ebbings and flowings of grace; the perfon may be going fometimes backward, at other times forward: but his ordinary courfe is like the fun; it may be under a cloud, and out of view, as if there was no fun at all; but then it breaks out from under the cloud again, and always makes farther advances in his race. So, the child of God may be under a cloud; grace may be under a cloud and disappear, as if it was no grace at all: but then it breaks out again further advanced; for, the man grows in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord Jefus Chrift; hath more experience of the Lord's pity and favour; more infight into the myfteries of the gospel.

6. Gofpel purity makes a man fee and lament his own impurity and unholiness: he is afflicted with his want of purity, and with his own vilenefs and defilement, faying, with Job, Behold, I am vile; and with Afaph, So foolish was I and ignorant; and with Abraham, I am dust and afbes; and with Agur, I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man; and with Paul, I am the chief of finners. The man is humbled under a fenfe of his own vilenefs, and of the plagues of his own heart. Tears, instead of gems and pearls, were the ornaments of David's bed, when he was fallen from his purity.

7. This purity makes a man to be afflicted even for the impurity of others: this was the cafe with David; I beheld tranfgreffurs, and was grieved: Rivers of water run down mine eyes, because the wicked keep not thy law, Pfalm cxix. 136, 158. It had the fame effect upon Jeremiah; Ob that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the flain of the daughter of my people! Jer. ix. 1. And the Lord VOL. I.

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Jaid unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Ferufalem, and fet a mark upon the fore heads of the men that figh and cry for all the abominations that be done in the midft thereof, Ezek. ix. 4. Why, the godly man, in other mens fins, fees the badnefs of his own heart and by mourning for the fins of others, he comes to be pure, even from the fins of other men; whereas people are guilty of other mens fins, while they do not mourn for them, but rather approve of them.

8. This purity is evidenced by a confcientious and diligent ufe of the means of purity. The Lord works out, and carries on this work of fanctification; makes it go on by the means which he hath appointed us to ufe: and when we ufe his appointed means, though the effect do not presently and difcernably follow and appear; yet we may conclude that the work is going on. Even as when the children of Ifrael were compaffing the walls of Jericho seven days, and feven times upon the feventh day; fome of them might poffibly be difpofed to fay, What means our compaffing the walls; they do not fall by our compaffing them, or using this mean? However, every compaffing of the walls was a bringing down of the walls, though they fell not till after the feventh times compaffing on the feventh day, Jofh. vi. Even fo, the diligent use of means, in the way that the Lord hath appointed, is our indifpenfible duty: for, though it is not always evident, that the means hath any fuccefs, for bringing down the walls and high towers of fin; yet every compaffing of the walls, at God's command, is a fign the work is going on; and at laft the walls hall fall flat to the ground.

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SERMON

PROV. XXX. 12.

XII.

There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes; and yet is not washed from their filthiness.

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[The fifth Sermon on this text.]

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ANY, by a fair profeffion, a false conviction, and a baftard converfion, feem half way to heaven, who yet will lodge for ever in hell. He who fits down at half-way, and refts there, will never come to the end of his journey, but is ftill afar off. O Sirs, it is to be feared, that the moft part of you, that even come fo near to Chrift, in approaching to his house and ordinances yet you are as far from him as light is from darkness, or darkness from light and we need not go far to prove the charge; for, if you be not washed, you are far from God and Chrift; yea, you have no part in him: If 1 wafh thee not, thou hast no part in me, faid our bleffed Lord to Peter. If you be not washed from the guilt of fin in juftification, and from the filth of fin in fanctification, you have no part in Chrift, and fo are far enough from him and this is the state, not of a few, but of a multitude; There is a geueration that are pure in their own eyes ¿ and yet is not washed from their filthiness.

Having finished the doctrinal part of the subject, discuffed fo much of the application, we are now profecuting an ufe of trial; but in regard we have treated the negative part of this ufe more largely than the positive, we shall offer fome things farther upon the last of these; not with a view fo much to multiply particular marks, as for offering general rules, by which you may examine this matter. As it hath already been tried by the root and by the fruit of it; it may be further examined Ccc 2

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by the parts of it, by the perfection of it, by the means, of it, and by the end of it.

3dly, We proceed then, in the third place, to try this gofpel purity by the parts of it. This purity, holinefs, or fanctification is twofold, either habitual or actual.

1. There is habitual purity, which lies in the infusion of all the habits of grace. And this habitual holinefs may be tried by these two special parts of it, viz. the illumination of the mind, and the renovation of the will.

(1.) There is here the illumination of the mind: this is a fpecial part of purity and fanctification; Te have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created him, Col. iii. 10. The mere natural man, that lies in his natural state, he neither doth nor can perceive the things of God, 1 Cor. ii. 14. Here then is purity to clear the understanding. The pure and fanctified man is renewed in the fpirit of his mind. We are a mass of darkness by nature; We know nothing as we ought to know. We are blind as moles, and can give no fubjection of understanding to divine revelation; nor give a full affent to the truths of God, having no fubjective persuasion thereof: yea, we know nothing as we ought to know. Though we may have a form of knowledge, yet, in feeing we fee not, while we want the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God. Sin, entering into the world, hath blindfolded us all the devil, having got the victory over us, doth even throw glamor over our eyes, or beguil us with a falfe deception; and we are become fools: folly is bound up in the heart of every natural man. And however fome may feem to be exempted from this character, fuch as these who are called ftatefmen, and great wits, and politicians; yet, while in a natural state, their wifdom is but foolishness in God's fight, 1 Cor. i. 20. The profound philofopher, and high pretender to reason, is but a fool in the fight of God: profeffing themselves to be wife, they became fools.

Now, when the Lord purifies a man, he takes this

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poor man, who is fo ignorant of God, even as blind as a mole in the things of God, and as dark as a dungeon, and makes him light in the Lord: the light of the gofpel fhines in with evidence upon the man's foul, fo as he is made to give full credit to the truths of God, and to the God of truth. The high reasoning that was in his mind, against the gospel of Chrift, even his vain imaginations, whereby he exalted himself against the knowledge of Chrift, these are brought down by the weapons of the gofpel warfare, the fword of the Spirit, in the hand of Christ. These reasonings that he had before are filenced: the man fees a glory in God's perfections, in the face of Jefus Chrift, that he saw not before he fees a beauty in God's difpenfations, which he faw not before: he fees a majesty in God's ordinances, which he did not fee before, and could not perceive: he fees a lovelinefs in the precepts of God; nothing whereof could be perceived before: he fees a sweetness in the promises, which he thought very little of before: he fees an excellency in the faints, whom he contemned before he fees a reality in what is divinely revealed, which was but fancies to him before: he fees alfo a certainty in a life to come, and in a death and a wrath to come, which he never gave full credit to before: he knows now there is a God, whom before he only thought he knew, but was really ignorant of; he fees him to be a just and holy God, a good and gracious God, a God in Chrift reconciling the world to himself.

Now, all fanctification and purity enters in at this door of illumination; and therefore you may try by this for the grand difference between the faint and the hypocrite lies in this, the one is darkness, the other is light in the Lord. Let the hypocrite do what he will, profess what he will, he is ftill but a mass of darkness, and knows nothing of God. Whereas, let the faint, the believer, be at never fuch a low ebb, yet he is a person whofe eyes God hath opend: though fometimes, indeed, he may be afleep, and fo not actually beholding the light; yet this habitual change is wrought, the eyes of his understanding is enlightened. (2.) Another special part of this habitual purity and

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