obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away for ever. O thou most blessed God and Saviour, thou art the Lord our righteousness and our strength. I believe that the whole Israel of God shall be justified ONLY by thee, and in thee ONLY shall they glory. O let thy Spirit abide with me to increase in me this faith, that by fresh supplies of his grace I may be kept from going about to establish my own righteousness, and may constantly submit myself to the righteousness of God. And by the same grace help me to bring forth the fruits of righteousness abundantly unto the glory and praise of God; magnifying thine atonement in the peace of my conscience, exalting thy righteousness in the love of my heart, and in my walk and warfare glorifying thy fulness; so that out of it I may be receiving a sufficiency of grace, by which I am now enabled to bless thee for the hope of glory. To thee, almighty Jesus, for the work of righteousness, which is peace; and for the effect of righteousness, which is qui etness and assurance for ever; to thee, be everlasting praise. Amen, and Amen. CHAP. IV. The believer's triumph in Jesus, under a sense of the defilement of sin. This IT is in virtue of this fellowship with Jesus, that believers are freely forgiven all their iniquities. His atonement was the work of our great High Priest, who was made sin for us, although he knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. God is of purer eyes than to look upon the least iniquity: and there is a defilement in sin, which makes it exceeding filthy and abominable in his sight. He showed his utter abhorrence of it by establishing in the Old Testament such an abundance of legal pollutions, as might exhibit to sense the defiling nature of sin, and might keep it ever before their eyes, and fresh upon their minds. And by making it necessary that the worshippers should be purified from these pollutions, and by establishing the means of their purification, and by forbidding every other, he would lead them to ex ercise faith in the great purifier, whose office it was to purge their consciences, before they could offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. And it was a fixed law, that if any one, legally unclean, neglected or refused the appointed means of being cleansed, he was to bear his iniquity for an unpardoned sinner can have no communion with a most holy God. Unto the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled. The mind is the fountain from whence all the streams flow. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, &c. these are the things which defile the man. An enlightened conscience is made sensible of this, and feels the necessity of being purified from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, in order to approach God, and to have boldness and access with confidence to the throne of grace. His meditations at such times are like these : The more I know of myself, the more I am led to loath myself, and to repent in dust F and ashes: for I am a sinner, filthy and abominable altogether. By nature as vile as sin can render a fallen creature, and daily polluting myself in heart and life with fresh impurities. I have no means of cleansing myself: no hope, that any thing in the creation can do it for me. Deep in my very constitution the stain remains. And I am forced to be crying out-Unclean, unclean. My case would be quite desperate, if God himself had not provided a remedy, the report of which has come to mine ears in the gospel. O! it is blessed news. I welcome it to my heart: that God has opened a fountain, which cleanseth from all sin. He has recommended it to me, as having infinite virtue and everlasting efficacy to cleanse. And I have a command from heaven, vile and filthy as I am, to make use of it for thus it is written-" In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness." When the Holy Spirit enables the sinner to believe the report, and to mix faith with it, then he has a war rant thus to pray-" Purge me with hysop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow-Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities-Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." and the Lord hears and answers the prayer in these words-" I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye 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 I will give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them I will also save you from all your uncleannesses." The sacrifices, from the beginning, preached this blessed doctrine; Their blood could sanctify, by divine appointment, to the purifying of the flesh : how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purify the conscience from dead works to serve the living |