TILE DEFILEMENT OF SIN, WHEREI,/ IT CONSISTS, SS'C. keep themselves from being humbled for them before God. For, although it do not so naturally and physi- cally, yet it doth so morally, so that the constitution itself shall be no more such a forces and incentive unto disorderly passions, as it bath been. Ifgrace bath not cured that passion, pride, causeless anger, inveterate wrath, intemperance, which mens constitutions peculi- arly incline unto, I know not, for my part, what it 249 hath ,done, nor what a number of outward duties do signify. The Spirit and grace of Christ causeth the wolf to dwell with the lamb, and the leopard to lie down with the kid, Isa. xi. G. It will change the most wild and savage natures into meekness, gentleness, and kindness; examples whereof have been multiplied in the world. THE DEFILEMENT OF SIN, WHEREIN iT CONSISTS, WITH ITS PUI;IFICATION.. CHAP. IV. (1.) Pa,Jication the first proper notion ofsabctifi:cation. (2.) Institution of baptism confirming the same appre- hension. (3.) A spiritual dement and pollution in sin. (4.) The'natureof that defilement, or wherein it Both consist. (5.) Depravations ofnature, and acts with respect unto God's holiness, how andwhy calledfilth and pollution.(6.) Twofold pavity and dfilement of sin. Its aggravations. We cannot purge it of our., selves;` nor could it be done by the law, nor by any ways invented by menfor that end. THESE things being premised, we proceed to the consideration of sanctification itself, in a further expli- cation of the description before given. And the first thing we ascribe unto the Spirit of God herein, which constitutes the first part of it, is thepurifying andcleans- ing ofoar naturesfrom the pollution ofsin. Purification is the first proper notion of internal real sanctification. And although, in order of time, it do not precede the other acts and parts of this work, yet, in order of na- ture, it is first proposed and apprehended. To be unclean absolutely, and to be holy, are universally op- posed. Not to be purged from sin, is an expression of an unholy person, as to be cleansed, is of him that is holy. And this purification, or the effecting of this work of cleansing, is ascribed unto all the causes and means of sanctification: As, (I.) Unto the Spirit, who is the principal efficient cause of the whole. Not that sanctification consists wholly herein, but firstly and ne- cessarily it is required thereunto, Prov. xxx. 12. Ezek. xxxvi. 25. " I will sprinkle clean,water upon you, and " you shall be clean, from all your filthiness, and from " all your idols, will I cleanse you." That this sprink- ling of clean water upon us, is the communication of the Spirit unto us for the end designed, I have before. evinced. It bath also been declared, 'wherefore he is . called water, or compared thereunto. And the next verse shews expressly, that it is. the Spirit of trod which is intended .1will pat my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. And that which he is thus, in the first place, promised for, is the cleansingof us from the pollution of sin, which in order of nature, is presupposed unto his enabling us to walk in God's sta- tutes, or to yield holy obedience unto him. To the same purpose, among many others, is that promise, lsa. iv. 4. ". When the Lord shall have wash-. " ed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall " have .purged the blood of Jerusalem, by the Spirit of " judgment, and. the Spirit of burning." Upon what ground. the Spirit is, compared to fire, and thence here called a Spiritof burning, hath been also declared. In brief fire and water were the means whereby all things . were purified and cleansed typically in the law, Numb. xxxi. 28. And the Holy Spirit being the principal ef- ficient cause of all spiritual cleansing, is compared to . them both, by which his work was signified, and called by their names, See Mal. iii. 2, 5. And judgment i5
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