ota Heb.a5.i 333 óbvioufly nothing ê All filch works are but empty (hews, counterfeits,and very cheats; they have no foul nor life in them, being uterly deflirute of any fpiritual principle or end, however the world of profeffors of religion do, to their own ruin, place all their religion in them. If we confider the influencing effe& of thefe dead works on the Confcience, we find it here to be, that they pollute and defile it : As a clear fpring is mudded and defiled by the foul feet of beafs going thorow it; even fo is this divine thing, the Confcience, defiled by fin-: ful lulls in it, which make it to become as it were a cage for every unclean and hateful bird, or rather as a hold of every foul fpirit ; thefe lulls, as fo may foul fpirits, fwarming in it, pollute and defile it, whereby it becomes quite another thing. Whence we may draw thefe two olfervations ; the ift whereof is, That dead works, or or fins continued in, do pollute and defile a man's Con- fcience : They make (as I juff now laid) a clean and clear Confcience to become polluted and filthy, fo that ye ne- ver law a face more full of foul (pots, more deformed 'by them, than the Confcience is polluted by thefe dead works, defiling fins : Therefore is this word, to purge theConf ience, ufed there ; which is rendered to cleanfe, Eph. 5. z6. cÏhat he might fanFti fy and cleanfe his Church. And, as fin pollutes the man in all his powers and fa- culties, fo proportionably it pollutes him in his Confoi- ence, which isdeeply polluted before.it be purged and cleanfed by the blood of Chriff. For clearing of it, Confider, that there is a threefold pollution that follows fin in the Confcience ; i. In refpe& of man's Rate of jollification before God ; it makes him legally unclean. As we ufe to fay of a murderer, or a thief, or any other malefa &or, when found guilty by an aflize, that filch a perfon is filed; fo a man by committing of fin is found guiity, obnoxious ro punifhment, liable to wrath, even the eternal wrath of God, becauIe of it. This is a legal. pollution or defilement. z.. In refpe& of a man's prefent peace and tranquillity of Confcience ; for, tho' he be in a juflified and clean ffate, and hath it may be) win at clearnefs of his intereft in God, and to peace and tranquillity in his Confcience, fo that his peace hacla
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