one day will dearly and convincingly make difcovery of the truth of it, O how much hypocrify and prefump- tion will be found to be among you, inffead of true and loud peace, with which ye have nothing to do, fo long as thefe whoredoms and wtrchcrafts (to fay fo) of filthy fins are with you, unpurged away by the blood of Chriff ! The 3d ufe ferves to demonffrate, and clearly to hold forth, the abfolute neceffity of Jefus Chrift, and the tran- fcendant worth and matchlefs excellency that is in him, that,even when a man is thus defiled and polluted by fins, thefe dead works, there is accefs by his blood to get the Confcience purged. And this is the thing that we would mainly point at from thefe words (and which we intend, God willing, afterward more largely to infiff in) not only the neceffity of coming to Chriít, but of knowing certain- ly that ye are got out of black nature into him, and have gotten your Confciences purged by his blood. Think ye it a fmall or little concerning matter, to be lying in a peff- houfe, where thoufands die at your right and left -hand, and not to know if ye be cleanfed ? to have the plague in your boforn, and not to know whether ye be cured of it or not ? and yet, fuch is the ffate and condition of all of you, while ye are in corrupt nature : And if ye would (as ye are mightily concerned) have fome evidences where - by ye may be helped to know if you be as yet purged from this total pollution, there are fome things that may be gathered from this verle to that purpofe : And, if, Did ye ever know and acknowledge your Confcience to be defiled ? It can hardly be expeéted, that a man, ha.. wing fuch a botch and plague running on him, can think ferioufly of, 1er be ferioufly fèek after, wafhing, before , he know that he is thus defiled, and thereby in fuck, a deplorable ftate. I fpeak not now of what gracious change may be wrought in fome perfons more early, and in their younger years, nor how fecrerly and little difcernibly the -work of converfion may be wrought in fame that are come io age ; but I fpeak of God's more ordinary way of dea- lug and reclaiming and converting of finners : When l'aul fpeaks of himfeif, Rom. 7. he tells us, that be well '4iive once without the law ; he was a clean man as he thought, and in his own eyes, before the Lord diftcovered
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