The Mystery of Sanctification by Christ, Opened Up

Thomas Boston, 1676–1732

Several Sermons, Preached at Ettrick, in the Year 1728.

John 13:8 "If I wash you not, you have no part with me."

THESE words are Christ's answer to Peter refusing to let Christ wash his feet. No doubt it was a kind of modesty, reverence, and humility, that put Peter on this peremptory refusal of Christ's astonishing kind offer. But all is not gold that glitters. There is much of this bastard humility in the world, whereby people refuse Christ's offers, and put them away from them, with a very good grace, and great respect to the Lord Christ, as they think. Christ comes to sinners in the gospel, and offers to wash them from their pollution: But will they offer a foul defiled soul to God Almighty, the infinitely holy Savior, to be washed by him? No; they think they know more of their own sinfulness and unworthiness, and of Christ's greatness and holiness, than that comes to. And so they affront him, under a pretense of honoring him.

There are three characters of this false humility.

1. It condemns the generation of the righteous, who came all to Christ, at his command, to be washed by him, receiving it with admiration of his condescension. The other disciples, no doubt, were struck with amazement at Christ's coming to wash their feet: but true humility took Christ's will for law and right, and makes them silently yield themselves to the Lord. But Peter's behavior condemns them, as rude and disrespectful, verses 5, 6, "After that, he pours water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. Then comes he to Simon Peter: and Peter says unto him, Lord, do you wash my feet?

2. It keeps Christ at a distance, and so proceeds not from faith, but unbelief, verse 6. No doubt, when Christ stretched out his hand to wash Peter's feet, he drew them in quickly to him; and showed by his deeds, as well as his words, that he had no mind that Christ's fair hand should come on them. So folk, under a sense of sinfulness, may flee from Christ, while he follows them.

3. It argues a heart not duly humbled; and so it is but accursed pride under the veil of a show of humility.

(1.) Carnal wisdom and reason has the ascendant, and will not bow to divine revelation: verses 7, 8, "Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do you I know not now; but you shall know hereafter. Peter says unto him, You shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, "If I wash you not, you have no part with me." Let the gospel of God's grace be delivered never so plain, they will not give over measuring divine mysteries by their carnal reason.

(2.) Insensibleness and self-conceit prevails. Peter doubtless thought either that his feet needed no washing, but that they might be borne with even in Christ's presence, as they were; or, if they did, he would wash them himself. So he is peremptory in his refusal. And this lies at bottom in that false humility: either they think they are not so very polluted, but that they may be borne with; or else, that they will wash themselves clean before they come to Christ.

In the text our Lord gives Peter a word that brings him down in a moment from all his heights, and makes him not only content, but earnest to be washed all over by Christ, without pretending to wipe off one spot off himself by himself: "If I wash you not, you have no part with me. Verse 9, Simon Peter says unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." This word strikes Peter to the heart, "If I wash you not, you have no part with me." Peter, no washing by me, no part with me to salvation. Washing by me, and part with me, you nor no man shall ever be able to separate in your cases. Have the one, have the other; want the one, and upon heaven's truth you want the other."

I think it is an insipid question here, why so severe a threatening for refusing so small a thing? For Christ says not, if I wash not your feet, you shall have no part with me; but simply, "If I wash you not, you have no part with me," in the present time. Neither could it be drawn to the washing of the feet, if the questionists did not first suppose a change of the tense the Holy Spirit uses, which is not at least without necessity to be admitted. (Gr.) If I washed you not, or, if I have not washed you, you have no part with me. Peter, if you belong to me, I have done more for you, than to wash your feet with water; I have washed you with my blood: if you have taken that vastly costlier washing off my hand, why refuse you this? If I have not so washed you, you have no part with me; for none have part with me, but those whom I so wash."

The words then bear an inseparable connection between two things in the case of sinners, standing and falling together.

(1.) The washing of them by Christ. Revelation 1:5.

(2.) Their having part with him, partaking of his saving benefits, being joint heirs of Heaven with him. Compare Deuteronomy 14:27, "And the Levite that is within your gates, you shall not forsake him: for he has no part nor inheritance with you." The Scripture knows no part sinners can have of salvation or of Heaven, but with Christ: Acts 4:12, "Neither is their salvation in any other: for there is none other name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." They that miss their part with Christ, there is but another side where their part will fall: Revelation 21:8, "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." Now, if a sinner either be not washed at all, or be washed only with the nitre and soap of his own faithless endeavors and reformation; if he be not washed by Christ; he has no part with him, he is none of his; he is in a state of death and destruction lying ready to be cast out as an abominable thing, into the unclean place, the stinking lake.

The relation between these two, is, the former is a necessary consequent of the latter; and therefore is held forth as a necessary evidence of it. All that have saving part with Christ are washed by him: therefore, if Christ has not washed you, you have no saving part with him.

The doctrine deducible from the words is as follows.

DOCTRINE A sinner's having any saving part with Christ, and his being washed by Christ, from his sin, are simply and absolutely inseparable.

In discoursing from this doctrine shortly at the time, I shall,

I. Consider a sinner's having part with Christ.

II. His being washed by Christ.

III. The inseparableness of the two.

IV. Improve the doctrine.

I. The first thing to be spoken to, is, A sinner's having part with Christ. And this we take in two things.

1. His being of Christ's mystical body, through union with him: 1 Corinthians 12:12, 13, "For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." There are but two general corporations of mankind on earth, Heaven, and Hell: the corporation of the first and fallen Adam, who has diffused all manner of pollution and defilement over those that are his, not to be washed off by human are; and of this society we are all by nature members: the corporation of the Second Adam, Christ, who cleanses and purifies all that are his, from that pollution and defilement; for the latter is raised out of the former. See the two, 1 John 5:19, "And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in wickedness." 2 Corinthians 6:17, Wherefore come out from among them, and be you separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." Now, if you are not washed by Christ, you belong not to the Second Adam's corporation; you belong not to Christ.

2. The sinner's having communion with Christ in his saving benefits, partaking of them in fellowship with him: 1 John 1:3, "That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his son Jesus Christ." All salvation is in Christ; so that they who have part with him, are complete in him, Colossians 2:9, 10. And salvation is in him exclusively to all other, Acts 4:12. Now, if you are not washed by Christ, you have no communion with him in his saving benefits, no part in his salvation, and so none in salvation at all. Christ has a righteousness fully answering the law's demands; it is so broad a white clothing, that it covers all his people, partaking with him in it, Romans 3:22. But if he wash you not, you have no part in it. He has taken out a new right to God, as his God, and all his people partake with him in it: Romans 8:17, "And if children then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ." John 20:17, "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God." But if Christ wash you not you have no part, he is not your God.

II. The next thing to be spoken to, is, The sinner's being washed by Christ. This is inseparable from his having part with Christ, and is the privilege of all, and only those who have part with him. Concerning this washing I offer these particulars.

1. There is a filthiness in sin, whereby the soul is polluted and defiled before the Lord. This is supposed in the washing from it: Ezekiel 36:25, "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you." Sin does not only make the sinner guilty, but filthy and abominable. It is the abominable thing that God hates, Jeremiah 44:4. filth itself, Isaiah 4:4. This filthiness of sin lies in its contrariety to the holiness of God expressed in his law. Holiness is the glory of God, and the beauty of the soul, Exodus 15:11; sin the deformity and filthiness of it. Hence,

1st, It makes the sinner loathsome before God, that he cannot look on him, but with abhorrence; and with such abhorrence as one looks upon a thing he has a natural antipathy at, Zechariah 11:8, "My soul loathed them." Habakkuk 1:13, "You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and can not look on iniquity." Psalm 5:4, "For you are not a God that has pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with you."

2dly, It fills the soul with shame before God. I mean not that holy shame that proceeds from a joint view of sin's loathsomeness, and God's pardoning grace in Christ; that is a fruit of the Spirit, Ezekiel 16:60, 61, "I will establish unto you an everlasting covenant. Then you shall remember your ways, and be ashamed." But I mean a natural shame, whereby the sinner, obliged to fix his eyes on God's holiness, and seeing his own unlikeness to him, his countenance falls, he is damped, and filled with dread and horror, and therefore labors to make away out of his presence; as Adam did, Genesis 3:10, "I heard your voice," said he to the Lord, "in the garden: and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hidden myself." Now, unwashed sinners are filthy all over.

(1.) Their nature is filthy, Psalm 14:3, "They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy: there is none that does good, no not one." Sin has spread its defilement over all the faculties of their souls, and over all the members of their bodies: Titus 1:15, "Unto them that are defiled, and unbelieving, is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled." Their very bodies, however perfumed and adorned, are filthy before God with spiritual filth cleaving to them, Hebrews 10:22.

(2.) Their life and conversation is filthy, 2 Peter 2:7. Their daily walk is a heaping new filth upon their already filthy souls. Their habitual filthiness produces still actual filthiness, as the poisoned spring sends forth poisonous streams, Psalm 14:1.

2. Christ has them all to wash who get part in him. Hence the redeemed church sings praises to him that loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood, Revelation 1:5. They come to him in their pollution, and are washed by him; they come to him defiled all over, in the defilement of their nature, and of their life, that they may be washed; and coming to him by faith, it is done, Ezekiel 16:8, 9; Romans 4:5; 2 Corinthians 5:17. How can it be otherwise? for they cannot wash themselves before they come. Is it possible for people to wash, before they come to the waters? or to bathe before they come into the laver?

3. All those who take part with him by faith, he washes with his blood from their sin, Hebrews 12:24; Revelation 1:5. He offered himself a sacrifice to God for sin, and the blood of the slain sacrifice is sprinkled on the sinners in him, for their cleansing: 1 John 1:7, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin." The stain of sin was so deep, that nothing else could wash it out: and had he not provided the laver of his own blood, Abraham, Paul, and all the saints now in glory, since they were once filthy, would have been filthy still, with Cain, Judas, and other filthy vessels of wrath.

There are two things in his blood, that make it to wash out this stain, as deep as it is.

1st, An infinite value and dignity; for it is the blood of an infinite person, the blood of God, Acts 20:28, the Son of God, 1 John 1:7, the Father's equal, the Most High.

2dly, An infinite efficacy, power, and energy; for the Spirit is in it, the infinite Spirit of holiness, John 6:53. with 63. The blood was given for atonement, because the life of the flesh, or the animal spirits, are in the blood, Leviticus 17:11. And therefore it was to be sprinkled while it was yet warm with the spirits in it. Now, Christ's blood is always warm and fresh, with the spirits of life and holiness in it, Hebrews 10:20; Revelation 3:1.

4. There is a twofold washing by the blood of Christ; one that makes clean in the eye of the law, leaving not the least mark of a spot on the soul; peculiar to the saints in Heaven, Hebrews 12:23. Another, making clean in the eye of the gospel, though not absolutely: John 15:3, "Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." Canticles 4:7, "You are all fair, my love, there is no spot in you." It is this last our text means only. Only observe, that they are not different kinds, but different degrees of the same washing by Christ's blood. It is the same laver of Christ's blood, that we are washed in before death to fit us for communion with God here, and that same laver that we are washed in at death, to fit us for communion with God in Heaven. Only that efficacy of Christ's blood now exerted on us in part, is put forth on us in full measure to the utter abolition of sin, Ephesians 5:25, 26, 27; Revelation 7:14, 15.

5. As washing is properly the purging away of filthiness, spots, and stains from the object washed; so the washing from sin is formally and directly the sanctification of the sinner, Ephesians 5:26; Titus 3:5. So if Christ sanctify us not, we have no part in him. Howbeit, it supposes or implies more than that wherein it formally consists.

In all washing there are two things to be distinguished: the loosing of the filth sticking to the object; for if it do not stick, it cannot defile: and the removing of it being once loosed, which is the washing properly. Accordingly in washing a soul from sin, there are two things.

1st, The loosing of the filth of sin sticking to the soul. Sin sticks to our souls, as pitch or tar to a man's fingers: and there is no removing of it, until once it be loosed by an application of Christ's blood. Now, it is by guilt that it sticks to our soul, 1 Corinthians 15:56. And that is done away in our justification; which must needs go before our sanctification, as the loosing of sticking filth, before the washing it away; as the Holy Spirit teaches, Romans 7:6, "But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." Hence the apostle says of the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 6:11, "And such were some of you: but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."

2dly, The removing and purging away the filth of sin, being once loosed: and the same blood that looses it, purges it away in sanctification, as the same water that loosens the filth, carries it away off the cloth; and so the pardoned sinner is made holy: Hebrews 9:14, "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Revelation 7:14, "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." And this purging away of the filth of sin off the sinner, lies in three things.

(1.) The putting away of his former loathsomeness before God. The blood of Christ having come over the soul, it is now washed, and God can look on it with delight, Revelation 1:5, 6. He calls her beloved, that was not beloved.

(2.) Making of the soul fair and clean before the Lord: Canticles 4:7, "You are all fair, my love, there is no spot in you." The Spirit in the blood leaves his own image on the soul, and carries it all over the man, 2 Corinthians 3:18; Titus 1:14. Life, eternal life, is in that blood, and wherever it comes; and it goes over the whole man, seeds of life are left in the soul that shall never die out. The Spirit in the blood takes of the fullness of grace in Christ, and communicates to them grace for grace, John 1:16, so transforming them into his image.

(3.) Removing the legal shame out of the soul before God, and causing it, with child-like kindly blushes, to come before him, and press near him, crying, Abba, Father, with the boldness of faith in greater or lesser measure: Romans 8:15, "For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." Ezra 9:6, "O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to you, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens."

6. Faith is the instrumental cause of this washing. Hence the apostle, Acts 15:9, speaks of "purifying the heart by faith." It lays hold upon, and applies the blood of Christ: Romans 3:25, "Whom God has set forth to be a atoning sacrifice , through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins."

7. Lastly, Afflictions are the occasional causes of this washing: Isaiah 27:9, "By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away his sin."

III. The next thing to be considered, is the inseparableness of the two. They are so,

1. In respect of their subject, which is necessarily one. He who has the one, has the other; and no man can have either of them singly. If you have part in Christ, you are washed by him; if you are washed by him, you have part with him.

2. In respect of time. That moment one gets part with Christ, he washes him from his sins. In order of nature indeed, part with Christ goes before washing, and justification before sanctification. But in respect of time they come together and at once. That they are so inseparable, appears,

1st, From the end and design of Christ's death, which cannot be frustrated. He died for that end, that sinners taking part with him by faith, might be washed by him from their sins, Ephesians 5:25, etc; Titus 2:14.

2dly, From the nature of the thing. There is a lively efficacy in Christ's blood to wash away sin: so that the soul come to Christ, and having part in him, must needs be washed; or that precious blood must be counted as dead water, that has lost its virtue, Hebrews 10:20. Can a foul garment be laid in a pure running stream, and the washing of it not be begun the moment that it is laid in? And can an unholy soul be united by faith to Christ, and the washing of it not begun that moment by virtue from his blood?

USE I. Of trial. You may hereby know whether you have any part with Christ or not, and consequently whether you have a right to the Lord's table or not? Are you washed by Christ from your sin, or not? If you are unsanctified, unholy souls, yet living in the filth of your sins, I declare you have no part with Christ; since where there is no true holiness, there is no true faith.

QUESTION. How may I know that I am washed by Christ?

MARK 1. If you are washed by Christ, though you are not washed perfectly, you are washed universally: washed in every part, though not perfectly clean in any part: 2. Corinthians 5:17. "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are past away, behold all things are become new." You are washed from the gross pollutions of the outward man, from the reigning pollutions of the inner man: Psalm 24:3. 4, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? and who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands, and a pure heart; who has not lift up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully." There is a new set in you for purity, darting to all the points of the Christian compass, though you fall short of degrees in every point. That compass you find, 1 John 3:3. "And every man that has this hope in him, purifies himself, even as he is pure."

2. You lay the stress of your acceptance with God, not upon your inherent cleanness, the effect of your washing; but on the blood of Christ, the cause of it: Philippians 3:3. "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." Close hypocrites never fail to split on this rock. That, Matthew 5:3. "Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven," is set first, for it must be carried through all;" and verse 8. "Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God."

3. Your hearts are loosed from sin, though it cleaves to you. It lies not like mud in a pool, where there is nothing to wear it out; but like mud in a spring, where the spring-water tends to work it out. So you will be groaning under the remains of your impurity, saying, with the Apostle, Romans 7:24. "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" You will be content to see every spot, Psalm 139:23, 24, that it may be washed off; and really desirous to be made perfectly clean; as was the Apostle, Philip. 3:13, 14, "I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

USE 2. Of instruction and direction to unwashed souls yet lying in their blood. Sinners, will you be made clean?

For MOTIVE: To be left lying in the filth of sin, is formally one half of the punishment of the damned, and virtually the whole of it. See the form of Christ's giving up with a sinner, and dropping him forever, Revelation 22:11. "He who is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still." There is the punishment of loss. And in that filth will be bred and fed the worm that never dies; out of it will arise the fire that is never quenched. And that is the punishment of sense.

Now, the DIRECTION is, If you would be washed by Christ, get part with Christ. Say not, Will ever I get part with Christ being so unclean, not purified and meet for him? But no impurity of yours can hinder your getting part with Christ, if you will but take it. See the case of the Corinthians, 1. Corinthians 6:11. "And such were some of you: but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." And you shall rot and pine away in your filth, wash otherwise as well as you will, if you will not take it: Psalm 81:11, 12, "But my people would not hearken to my voice: and Israel would none of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels."

QUESTION. What access have I to get part with Christ?

ANSWER. Christ and his salvation are a common good 1. John 4:14. "We have seen, and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world." Jude verse 3. this salvation is called "the common salvation." I proclaim to every one to come and take their part with Christ, assuring them of welcome: Revelation 22:17. "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hears, say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come: And whoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

QUESTION. How may I be possessed of part with Christ?

ANSWER. By faith, crediting the promise of the gospel, and accordingly trusting on Christ as your Savior, for his whole salvation; for salvation from sin as well as from wrath; for that holiness and purity of heart and life, which are absolutely necessary to make you meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, as well as for that righteousness by which you can only be accepted in the sight of God, and by which alone you can have a sure and indefeasible title to Heaven and glory.

Lastly, Let the saints consider, that the more part they have with Christ, the more they will be washed; and that faith is the only way to have part with Christ in all his saying benefits, and that it is a mean, of God's appointment, for washing and purification. Hence be exercising faith daily upon Christ, and particularly in the view of going to a communion table, in order to your being washed and sanctified; remembering, that unless Christ wash you, you can have no part with him.

 

Part 2

John 13:8, "If I wash you not, you have no part with me."

I ENTERED on these words last Lord's day, on occasion of the sacramental solemnity which was then celebrated among us; observed a doctrine, proposed a method, which was briefly prosecuted, and I made some practical improvement of the subject. But as this text opens a large field of discourse, and contains ample matter for directing faith and practice, I shall now endeavor to prosecute the design of the words more fully, in a series of discourses. For this end I observe the following doctrine, namely,

DOCTRINE. Such an inseparable connection there is between a sinner's having part with Christ, and being washed from his sins by Christ in a work of sanctification, that if a sinner is not washed from his sins by Christ, he has no part with Christ, while he is so.

Briefly, If a sinner is not washed from his sins by Christ, he has no part with Christ.

In handling this important subject, I shall consider,

I. What it is to be washed from our sins by Christ, namely, unto a cleanness in the eye of the gospel.

II. The unwashed or unsanctified sinner's having no part with Christ.

III. Conclude with some practical inferences.

I. I shall consider what it is to be washed from our sins by Christ, namely, unto a cleanness in the eye of the gospel. And upon this head, I shall show,

1. What this washing supposes.

2. Wherein it consists.

3. How it is done and brought about.

First, I shall show what our being washed from our sins by Christ supposes.

1. It supposes in the sinner, a conviction of the filthiness of sin, and his loathsomeness by it. Hence the church says, Isaiah 64:6, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." They that never saw the vileness and abominable nature of sin, are not washed from it; Proverbs 30:12, "There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness." The man cries not only, with the criminal, Guilty, guilty; but, with the leper, Unclean, unclean. Sin is not only frightful, but hateful and loathsome to him, as the vilest filth. Now, if you have not been convinced of the filthiness of sin, you have no part with Christ.

1st, This conviction is got by looking into the glass of the law, representing the spotless holiness of God: Romans 7:12, 13, 14, "The law is holy; and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin." The glaring beauty of God's holiness expressed in the law, striking the sinner, he sees himself filthy and loathsome before the holy God, as most unlike him.

2dly, It fixes an impression of shame on the sinner. He is ashamed of himself, of what he is, what he has done, and what he has neglected to do; as the publican did, Luke 18:13. who "standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto Heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner." He is like a child, that having got a clean white frock on him, has fallen into the mire, and stands ashamed before his mother in that pickle.

2. It supposes a willingness to be made clean: Psalm 19:12, "Who can understand his errors? cleanse you me from secret faults." It is not easy to bring a sinner that length: Jeremiah 13:27, "Woe unto you, O Jerusalem, will you not be made clean? when shall it once be?" Sin is so woven into our nature, and so strengthened by custom in sin, which is a second nature, that it is harder to make a sinner willing to be made clean, than to bring a swine away from the mire and dirt it loves to nestle and wallow in. But in the day of the washing of a sinner, he is made as willing to be washed as ever child ashamed of his nastying himself is. So if you have not been made willing to be clean, you have no part with Christ.

3. It supposes a conviction that we cannot wash ourselves clean, by anything we can do or suffer: Romans 7:24, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" What mars the washing by Christ with many, is, that they think they can wash themselves clean enough by themselves. They see not how fast the filth of sin sticks to them, and so they think their praying, confessing, reforming, and tears, will do it. But hear what Job says, chapter 9:30, 31, "If I wash myself with snow-water, and make my hand never so clean; yet shall you plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." This every soul that is sanctified is brought to. Therefore if you have not been convinced, that you cannot wash yourselves clean, by anything you can do, you have no part with Christ.

4. It supposes a hearty consent of the soul to be washed by Christ. Christ washes none against their will: Jeremiah 13:27, "Woe unto you, O Jerusalem, will you not be made clean? when shall it once be?" They that will needs lie still in their filthiness, shall lie and rot in it forever for him: Revelation 22:11, "He who is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still." Hosea 4:17, "Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone." Christ makes all his elect willing to be holy, but he forces holiness on none. Therefore if you have not given a hearty consent of your soul to be washed, you have no part with Christ.

5. Lastly, It supposes a presenting of our defiled souls to Christ to be washed by him. This is the work of faith, by which the soul comes to the waters: Isaiah 55:1, "Ho, every one that thirsts, come you to the waters, and he who has no money; come you, buy and eat, yes, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price." The soul comes to Christ, as the leper to the priest to be cleansed: Psalm 51:7, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." Compared with Leviticus 14:6, "As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar-wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them, and the living bird, in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water." It eyes him as a Savior from the filth, as well as the guilt of sin; as a sanctifier of the unclean, as well as a justifier of the ungodly. Therefore, if you have not presented your defiled souls to Christ, to be washed by him, you have no part with Christ.

Secondly, I shall show wherein our being washed from our sins by Christ consists. As washing in the general consists in removing filthiness, and making clean; so does the washing of a soul by Christ, lie in removing the filth of sin from off the sinner, and making him clean in likeness to God. Now,

1. Christ washes sinners in the inner man: Psalm 45:13, "The King's daughter is all glorious within." Pharisaical washings reach the outer man only: but Christ's washing goes to the hidden man of the heart. Adam left us in the mire of sin, with a nature corrupt and filthy, the very reverse of the nature of God; all the faculties of our souls defiled, Titus 1:15. But Christ washes our nature and faculties. And this lies in two things.

1st, Removing and washing off that filth of sin, that either cleave to them from our birth, or has been added to them since: Titus 3:5. "Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit." We came into the world with such corruption cleaving to our nature and faculties, as not only disabled us for all good, but made us prone to all evil, and averse to all good. This is strengthened and increased during the time one lives unregenerate. And the corruption of nature spreads itself, and takes many roots in the soul, in diverse particular lusts, Romans 6:12. Now, Christ washing this filth off the soul,

(1.) Purges our whole nature and faculties, from that corruption, so far that it does not reign there: Romans 6:14, "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace." The total blindness as to the receiving of the things of God, is purged out of the mind; that reiguing aversion to good, out of the will; and the reigning carnality, out of the affections. The natural corrupt bent of the heart is taken away, removed, and broken; the stony heart is taken away, and a heart of flesh is given, Ezekiel 36:26.

(2.) He purges the soul from its old lusts, loosing them at the root: Galatians 5:24, "They that are Christ's, have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts." As in the deluge of waters coming over the earth, trees deeply rooted were washed away by the roots, and lay floating here and there, and so might give some disturbance to the ark: so Christ's efficacious blood coming over the soul, looses old lusts by the roots, though they are not quite taken away, but give disturbance to the believer. They are in him as a broken tooth, they hang at him as a leg out of joint.

2dly, It lies in introducing the beauty of habitual holiness into our souls, in conforming us to the image of Christ: Titus 3:5, forfeited. 2 Corinthians 3:18, "But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." As the vessel of brass or silver, being overlaid with nastiness, has nothing of its primitive luster; yet when it is washed and scoured, it recovers some-what of its former brightness: so the unwashed sinner has lost all his primitive spiritual glory: but Christ washing him in the day of grace, he recovers it somewhat; and the washing being perfected in glory, he will be brighter and more glorious than ever. Now, Christ introducing this into our soul,

(1.) Implants in us a new nature, which goes over all the faculties of the soul. It is a divine nature, 2 Peter 1:4, as coming from God, and making the soul like God, John 3:6, "That which is born of the Spirit, is spirit." Hence the man is a new creature; all his faculties are renewed, mind, will, and conscience: 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are past away, behold, all things are become new." This nature has a bent and propensity to good, and an aversion to evil, and cannot lose it as long as it is in being: and it will be ever, for it is an immortal nature. Hence the combat, Galatians 5:17, "The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other; so that you cannot do the things that you would."

(2.) This new nature has in it the seeds of all saving graces: 1 John 3:9, "Whoever is born of God, does not commit sin; for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." Compared with Deuteronomy 30:6, "The Lord your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live." We have a swatch of them, Galatians 5:22, 23, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." And they are taken out of that fullness of grace that is in Christ the head, and communicated to the sinner as a member: John 1:16. "And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace." And thus they bear the image of Christ, that as he was meek, lowly, etc. so are they in a measure. And hereby they are enabled for all acts of holy obedience, as a principle of life gives power for motion.

This is the washing of the sinner in the inner man: and if you are not so washed by Christ, you have no part with him.

2. Christ washes sinners in the outward man too: Psalm 45:13. "The King's daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold." These two go together, the latter issuing from the former: Psalm 24:3. 4. "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? and who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart; who has not lift up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully." James 4:8. "Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded." As the candle within shines through the lantern, so grace in the heart appears in the outward conversation: Matthew 6:22. "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye be single, your whole body shall be full of light." As the corruption of nature reigning, vents itself in abominable works, Psalm 14:1; so the cleansing and purifying of our nature, vents itself in good works, Titus 2:14. "Christ gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works." "For as the tree is, so will the fruit be."

Now, Christ washing sinners in the outward man.

1st, Removes the filth that before cleave to their life and conversation, Ephesians 4:22. It is no more a vile conversation, nay, nor a vain conversation, 1 Peter 1:18; not a disorderly, but a well-ordered conversation, Psalm 50:23. They that go back to their former conversation, whether in vanity or vileness, show themselves but Satan's washed swine, not Christ's washed saints, 2 Peter 2:22. It reaches,

(1.) Their words, and purifies them from corrupt communication. If the heart be circumcised, so will the lips be too: James 1:26. "If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridles not his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is vain." If grace rule in the heart, the tongue will not be allowed to go at random. The liberty that some take with their tongues in obscenity, lying, swearing, mocking and jesting at serious religion, etc. proclaims them to be unwashed by Christ. See Psalm 15.

(2.) It reaches the course of their actions, and purifies it: Hebrews 9:14. "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" It purifies their course from impiety against God, and injustice against man; teaching them to walk, as Titus 2:12. "Soberly, righteously, and godly." Their hands are washed, as well as their hearts: and their feet are washed, that they go not in the way of sinners as before.

2dly, He beautifies them in their life and conversation: Canticles 7:1. "How beautiful are your feet with shoes, O prince's daughter? the joints of your thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a running workman." Compared with Ephesians 6:15. "And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." He makes them "shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation;" and helps them to a conversation becoming the gospel. And this also reaches,

(1.) Their words. Their tongue is made their glory whereby they glorify God. Instead of corrupt communication, they produce something for the use of edifying. Being translated from the power of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son, they learn the language of it.

(2.) The course of their works. They not only cease to do evil but learn to do well, Isaiah 1:16. 17. They become "zealous of good works," Titus 2:14. As it is but half washing that takes away only the gross filth, but makes not clean: so it is but half Christianity, where people satisfy themselves with not doing evil, but set not themselves to do good.

Thirdly, I shall show how our being washed from our sins by Christ is done and brought about. Christ washes sinners, making use of several things to that blessed purpose.

First, Christ washes sinners, using some things more immediately for that purpose towards them. And,

First, Christ washes sinners with his blood, as the most immediate cause of their cleansing. Hence the church ascribes praise to Christ, "who loved them and washed them from their sins in his own blood," Revelation 1:5. The blood of Christ has that place in washing of defiled souls, that water has in washing defiled bodies: so it is the holy water with which we are washed from our sins. Therefore it is called a fountain, and that not only to drink at, but to wash at: Zechariah 13:1, "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity." Compared with 1 John 1:7, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin." This blood being applied to the soul polluted with sin, it effectually removes the filth of sin from the soul.

For understanding this, these things are to be noted.

1. The defilement or impurity sin leaves on the soul, is not a bodily and visible thing, as nastiness on our bodies or clothes, which may be taken away with hands: but it is a moral and spiritual uncleaness, namely, an unlikenness or contrariety to the holiness of God expressed in his law; so that the washing of a soul from it is the rendering of that soul like unto God in his imitable perfections, expressed in the ten commandments, which express his image unto us, that appeared perfectly in the man Christ, being and walking exactly in every point according to these ten commands, in all their spirituality and extent.

2. By the blood of Christ in this matter, is not meant simply the blood that ran out of his veins in his circumcision, the sufferings of his life, and crucifixion; but Christ himself sacrificed for us; which sacrifice was begun from the moment of his incarnation, was continued all his life long, was perfected on the cross and in the grave, and received its actual purifying efficacy in his resurrection, as a sacrifice fully offered, and accepted for the ends it was offered for: Titus 2:14, "He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. Romans 4:23, "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." 1 Corinthians 6:11, "And such were some of you: but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." Hence we owe our sanctification to the holiness of his nature, and the righteousness of his life, as well as to his death; the former being as essentially requisite to make him an effectual sacrifice for us, as the latter; since no sacrifice could atone, but what was without natural and accidental blemish. But his blood is particularly named in the case,

1st, For that the life going away with the blood in all living creatures, and so in the man Christ, the shedding of his blood was the perfecting stroke in his sacrificing himself for us: so that we are said to be washed with his blood, as the prisoner is said to be delivered by his cautioner's paying the utmost farthing of his debt. See Romans 1:17, "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith." Compared with Romans 3:25, "Whom God has set forth to be a atoning sacrifice , through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins."

2dly, For decency of expression, the term blood being most agreeable to the term washing, which relates to some liquid. Agreeable hereto was it, that after Christ being born holy, had lived holy, and died on the cross, his side was pierced, and there came forth blood and water fitted to wash: the Holy Spirit thereby teaching, that the washing or sanctifying of sinners was to proceed from Christ, in his holy birth, life, and death; thence was the spring of purifying virtue from sin.

3. As it is by applying water to the unclean thing, that it is washed: so it is by applying to our souls, Christ sacrificed for us, that we are sanctified and washed from sin. A man may stand at a river side bedaubed with mire and dirt, until he die; and yet be never a whit the cleaner if the water of that river, be not brought close upon him: so Christ, in the purifying virtue of his blood, may be within reach of the sinner's hand all his days, and yet he may die in his filth of sin, and lie in it in Hell forever, if Christ and he never come close together in a spiritual union. The blood of sacrifices was first offered to God for atonement, and then it was sprinkled on persons or things for their purification: Hebrews 9:19, "For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people." Compared with Exodus 24:5–8, "And Moses sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt-offerings, and sacrificed peace-offerings of oxen unto the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord has said, will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you concerning all these words." The offering of the blood of Christ to God is over, near seventeen hundred years ago: but the sprinkling or application of it is still going on: Hebrews 12:22, 24, "But you are come—to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel." Where it is sprinkled, they are cleansed; where not, they lie still in their filth, having no more cleansing from sin by it, than if it had never been shed.

4. It is not every water that will wash clean; but there is a cleansing virtue in some water, that is not in other water. I am not to inquire into the cause of that difference; but into the cause of the cleansing virtue of the blood of Christ, whereby we are washed from sin, that is not in any other thing, though men have multiplied things for that end. If we inquire into the spring of the cleansing virtue that is in Christ sacrificed for us, and in no other things, we find these two.

1st, There is a real and proper merit of sinners' sanctification in him. By his sacrifice of himself he has merited at the hand of God the sanctification of us, and washing us from our sin: Ephesians 5:25, 26, "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it: that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." Christ as really merited our personal holiness, and every good work we do, at the hand of God, as he merited the pardon of atheism and blasphemy to us: so absurd is the merit of our works: Titus 2:14, "He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." 1 Peter 1:18, 19, "You know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." Now, there is no such merit in anything else, that they should wash.

Hence Christ being applied to the soul, or his blood sprinkled on it, has a loosing efficacy, that the filth of sin is loosed from the soul it stuck close to before: even as the payment of the ransom applied to the captive, actually looses the bond of his captivity; so as a just judge can no more suffer him to be a captive, a prisoner. I showed before, that it is guilt that is that bond. Wherefore, for persons to pretend part with Christ, while yet their filth of sin sticks as close to them, and they to it, as ever, is to blaspheme the justice of the Father, or the merit of the Son; as if either the one did receive the ransom, and yet not set the captive free; or else the other's merit was defective, and therefore ineffectual.

2dly, There is a fullness of the Spirit of holiness in him, or in his blood. Hence he is said, Revelation 3:1, to have "the seven Spirits of God." Christ sacrificed for us, is the receptacle of the Spirit of sanctification, as the animal spirits are in the blood while fresh and warm, as Christ's blood always is: that is, Christ himself as sacrificed, Hebrews 10:20. And that Spirit of sanctification is not in other things, not in Popish penances, not in the legal performances of prayers, tears, confessions, resolutions, etc. which many Protestants use for washing themselves. All these in this case are but dead water, congealed blood without spirits, that defile, but cannot wash.

Hence Christ being applied to, or his blood sprinkled on a soul, has a cleansing efficacy, removing the filth of sin, and cleansing and brightening the soul in likeness to God: 2 Corinthians 3:18, "But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Thus Christ speaking of that application of himself to sinners, as by eating and drinking, which are most close even to the incorporating the meat and drink with the feeder, John 6:53, 54, "Then Jesus said unto the Jews, Truly truly I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day;" gives this as the reason of the efficacy, verse 63, "It is the spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." As filthy sores are washed and cleansed with spirituous liquors, filthy souls are washed and cleansed with the blood of Christ, full of the Spirit of holiness.

Wherefore to pretend to part with Christ, and yet still to live in your sins, without repentance, or reformation and amendment, is to blaspheme either the blood of Christ, or his Spirit; as if either there were no Spirit of holiness in his blood, or else that that Spirit of holiness has no efficacy to purge away the filth of sin, and make holy.

5. Washing off of filth and making clean, is according to the degree of the application of the water with its cleansing virtue. It is a very slight spot that will be quite washed off at the very first brush. There is virtue enough in the river, at once to wash clean a filthy object; but the washer applies it but by degrees, so that it may be long before it be got perfectly clean: so there is virtue enough in Christ to wash all whom he washes at all, perfectly clean at once; but that virtue is applied but by degrees, 2 Corinthians 3:18, forfeited. Proverbs 4:18, "The path of the just is as a shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day."

There is a threefold washing of sinners, according to a threefold application of Christ's blood to them.

1st, A begun washing by a begun application thereof. This is done in the work of conversion. Titus 3:5, it is called the washing of regeneration. Here the soul that before all along was lying in wickedness together with the unclean world, being taken out from among them by effectual calling, and united to Christ by faith, and so having part with him, is washed from his filthiness, by an application of the blood of Christ, that never touched him before, but now streams over him in union with Christ: Ezekiel 16:8, 9, "Now when I passed by you, and looked upon you, behold, your time was the time of love, and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness: yes, I swore unto you, and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine. Then washed I you with water; yes, I thoroughly washed away your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil."

Concerning the washing, the effect of this application, observe,

(1.) It is a washing all over; a washing of every part, though not quite clean in any part: 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are past away, behold, all things are become new." Therefore it is called a new birth: Titus 3:5, "Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit." John 3:5, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." We do not say a child is born, when his head, or feet, or an arm are born; but when the whole child is brought forth. Some show a head, that, with notions of the principles of religion in it, and a tongue to talk of them, seems to be washed; others show feet, that, by going in the road of outward reformation, and some external duties, seem to be washed. But it is not the washing of regeneration; for it goes not all over them: they are new in some things, but they are just what they were in other things. Trace them to their walk in their employments and relations, to the entertainment given to the beloved lust, to the inner man, and set of their heart with respect to the purity of the holy law; and they are just the same with the world lying in wickedness. That is an evidence, that their washing is with their own nitre and soap, not with the blood of Christ.

(2.) It is a washing that puts one in a state of cleanness, bringing him out of a state of filthiness: John 13:10, "He who is washed needs not, save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." There is a difference between one lying in a mire, and another that has defiled his feet; though both need washing, the latter needs but to wash his feet. Such is the case of the unregenerate and regenerate: Canticles 6:10, "Who is she that looks forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?" When the dawning is come, it is true it is not broad day-light; but yet it is day, not night. The moon has her spots, yet she is not filthy, but fair.

(3.) That state of cleanness can never be lost, John 13:10, forfeited. Many seem to be brought to a state of cleanness, but at length they turn apostates: that says, they were never out of the state of filthiness, and the church of God was but beguiled with them, when they took them for persons in a state of cleanness. They that are once washed, will never apostatize, nor go back again to wallow in the mire: 1 John 2:19, "They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest, that they were not all of us."

2dly, A continued and progressive washing, by a continued progressive application of Christ's blood to the soul. This is done and carried on all along from the first conversion of a sinner, until his death. Therefore though the elders were about the throne in white, yet there was a sea of glass before it, Revelation 4:4, 6. And the fountain stands opened for the house of David, as well as for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Zechariah 13:1; for saints as well as for sinners. They that, deeming themselves once washed, find no need of washing more, proclaim themselves not washed by Christ, as do they who betake themselves for it to another laver. They that are come to Christ for washing, are still coming, 1 Peter 2:4.

Two things make this continued washing necessary.

(1.) Continued imperfection in the washing of the soul during this life, Philip. 3:12. Believers are in no moment of time perfectly clean; in their most shining moments they are still but as the moon, not without their spots. So that they never want matter of exercise, in purging that they may arrive at a perfect purity: 1 John 3:3, "Every man that has this hope in him, purifies himself, even as he is pure."

(2.) New defilements contracted continually. Though they never lose the state of cleanness, yet they are always needing to wash their feet: John 13:10, "He who is washed, needs not, save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." An allusion to the priests in the temple service. They are all priests to God, and so washed: but while they go about, such is the defiled world they walk in, the remains of defilement in them, that in everything they contract some spot: James 3:2, "For in many things we offend all." Their heart and life have so many remaining seeds of corruption, that they never want occasion to pluck up weeds.

Now, this continued washing is by the continued application of Christ's blood, and no other way: 1. John 1:7, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin." For,

[1.] This is the way the saints have looked for it; as David, Psalm 51:2. "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." Verse 7, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." As the lepers could, by no are of their own, be so purified as to be admitted to society, but by the priests sprinkling them; so sinners, by no are or endeavors of their own, can be purified so as to be admitted to fellowship with God, but by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ upon them. Therefore the sea of glass, which is the blood of Christ, stands before the throne, that whoever would have communion with God, may wash there, and so be fitted for it.

[2.] There is no merit of holiness, nor fullness of the Spirit in anything else. The doings and sufferings of saints are as free of merit, as those of sinners: Luke 17:10, "So likewise you, when you shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do." Neither is there anything of the Spirit in them, but so far as the blood of Christ is sprinkled on them, rendering them acceptable, Revelation 7:14; 2 Corinthians 2:16. But in the blood of Christ there is a never-failing merit, a constant fullness of the Spirit, to which the soul may have continual recourse for washing, as to a fountain never dry.

3dly, A perfect washing, by a full application of the blood of Christ. And this takes place at death, Hebrews 12:23—"To the spirits of just men, made perfect." Then believers washed in conversion, and who have been all along washed in the blood of Christ, are by the same means made quite clean and without spot: Ephesians 5:25, 26, 27, "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it: that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy, and without blemish." This lies in two things.

(1.) The doing away the remains of sin wholly. The reigning power of sin being broken by the first application, it is gradually removed by further application, and quite carried off by the full application at death. Not the least stain, nor mark of it, will then be left on the believing soul. But the filth of sin now carried off in part from the whole man, will then be wholly carried off from every part.

(2.) The perfecting of the image of God: 1 John 3:2, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know, that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." The several lineaments of it are indeed drawn now upon the believer, but mixed with corruption in every part: but then it shall be without mixture, every part getting the finishing stroke in that image, 1 Corinthians 13:10. "But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." So shall they "shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars forever and ever," Daniel 12:3. "The righteous shall shine forth as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father," Matthew 13:43.

Now, it is by a full application of the blood of Christ, that is, by a full participation of Christ crucified in his purifying virtue, that this washing is made: Revelation 7:14, 15, "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he who sits on the throne shall dwell among them." The cleansing virtue going out from him to the soul in some measure now, will then go out in full measure, as when a sluice is opened, and carries all away before it: 2 Corinthians 3:18, "But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Compared with 1 John 3:2, forfeited. The soul putting off the body, unites more closely with Christ than ever, and so partakes of his merit, and fullness of Spirit, to a pitch of perfection: Ephesians 4:13, "Until we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the Stature of the fullness of Christ."

Secondly, Christ washes sinners by his Spirit: Titus 3:5, "Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit." 2 Thessalonians 2:13, "God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth." And the Spirit of Christ has that place in washing defiled souls, that the hand of the washer has in washing the defiled body of another. The hand being the instrument of action with men, the Spirit of Christ is held forth under that notion, the whole work of the application of Christ's redemption to us being done by him: Acts 11:21, "And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord." Isaiah 53:1, "Who has believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" Matthew 12:28, "But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." Compared with Luke 11:20, "But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you." So Christ washes sinners with his blood, by his Spirit: John 3:5, "Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." 1 John 5:8, "And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." This the apostle very plainly teaches, 1 Corinthians 6:11, "And such were some of you: but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." So Christ's hand has never come on that soul for washing, which is destitute of the Spirit of Christ: Romans 8:9, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."

Now, of the work of the Spirit of Christ in the washing of a sinner, we may take a view in the following particulars.

1. The Spirit of Christ discovers to the sinner his pollution and defilement of soul: John 16:8, "And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." He brightens the glass of the holy commandments of the word, and he opens the sinner's eyes, and determines him to look into that glass: and so the sinner, getting a new sight of the holiness and purity of God, Habakkuk 1:13, gets a new sight of himself, that he cries out, with the leper, Unclean, unclean; and says, with the church, Isaiah 64:6, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." Then he sees that loathsomeness in sin that he saw not before; the loathsomeness of his nature, heart, and life; not excepting those sins he looked on formerly as beautyspots, glorying in them, Philippians 3:19. And he is filled with shame and confusion before the Lord; like those, Jeremiah 3:22, "Behold, we come unto you, for you are the Lord our God." Verse 25, "We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covers us: for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God." And if you have no experience of this, you have no part with Christ.

2. He discovers to the sinner the laver wherein he may be washed from that spiritual pollution, the fountain wherein he may be purified, namely, the blood of Christ, or Christ himself as crucified and sacrificed for us: 1 Corinthians 2:12, "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." Here is the only effectual mean for purification, the only true purgatory, Jesus Christ in the purifying virtue of his blood, Hebrews 1:3. And the Spirit points it out to the sinner. This is called "revealing of the Son," Galatians 1:16; in our Catechism, "enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ." Concerning which you may note,

1st, That it is natural to men under a sense of their filthiness, to look to and run to lavers of their own for washing themselves, however ineffectual they are: Hosea 5:13, "When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb: yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound." Hence the first question, "What shall we do to be saved?" They have neither eyes to see, nor hearts for the blood of Christ, as the alone mean of washing from sin. The whole ceremonial law pointed the Israelites to Christ as the only remedy for soul pollution, yet they are as great strangers to it, as if they had never heard of it. Hence we have these questions, with the Lord's answer, Micah 6:6, 7, 8, "With which shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"

2dly It is the work of the Spirit alone to discover it, so as to bring the unclean soul to it. As Hagar saw not the well though it was near her, until the Lord opened her eyes; so the sinner sees not the opened fountain for sin and impurity, until the Spirit enlighten the mind: John 16:14, "He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you." And he shows it effectually to the sinner, together with the ineffectualness of all things else for that purpose. And,

(1.) The Spirit shows the ineffectualness of all other, in the glass of the law in its spirituality and extent. There the sinner beholds all that he can do or suffer needs itself to be washed, being polluted and defiled, and so that it can defile him, but not wash him. Hence says the church, Isaiah 64:6, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."

(2.) In the glass of the promise of the gospel, he shows the true laver, Christ Jesus: John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." The Spirit brings home the promise of the gospel, and demonstrates it to the sinner, 1 Corinthians 2:4. And he demonstrates,

[1.] The infallible efficacy of it to cleanse from sin: 1 Thessalonians 1:5, "For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance." Notwithstanding all that the word says of the efficacy of Christ's blood to wash from sin, that mystery is but folly to carnal men, until the demonstration of the Spirit come: 1 Corinthians 1:23, 24, "But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." Then the soul says, as Matthew 9:21, "If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole."

[2.] The sinner's access to it in particular; that the fountain is not only open, but open for him, 1 Corinthians 2:4, 5. If this be not, the sinner can never apply it to himself by faith. And this the Spirit does by opening the general warrant of the word, and applying it particularly to the sinner.

3. He brings the sinner into the laver, puts him into the water as it were. We are naturally in the case of that man at the pool, who said, John 5:7, "I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool." Though the laver of Christ's blood be near by us, we cannot put in ourselves for washing. Now, the Spirit does the sinner this good office: and he does it by uniting him to Christ, whereby the unclean soul is plunged into the fountain opened for sin: 1 Corinthians 12:13, "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." And the Spirit brings the sinner into the laver.

1st, Passively, entering into the dead and defiled soul whereby the soul is quickened: Ezekiel 36:27, "And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them." Romans 8:9, "But you are not is the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, be is none of his." Christ communicates the Spirit, which is his own Spirit dwelling in him, to the dead and defiled soul; and so the soul is passively united to Christ, and quickened. Thus Christ draws the sinner to him for washing, by the Spirit.

2dly, Actively, working faith in the sinner, whereby he comes to Christ, and unites with him: Colossians 2:12, "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised him from the dead." Compared with 2 Corinthians 4:13, "We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken: we also believe, and therefore speak." Ephesians 3:17, "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." The soul being drawn, runs; being united to Christ, unites with him; being put into the opened fountain, dips himself over head and ears in it, Romans 3:25. This actual believing the Spirit produces in the sinner immediately out of the spiritual life given by the communication of himself to him: Philip 2:13, "For it is God which works in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure." John 5:25, "Truly, truly, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live." Compared with chapter 1:12, 13, "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

Now, the unclean sinner thus brought to Christ, and united to him is in the fountain, and cannot miss to be washed from his sins with the blood of Christ: and the only hand that brings him there is the Spirit of Christ. Now, he has part with Christ, communion necessarily following upon the union.

4. Lastly, The Spirit washes the unclean soul in the laver, applying Christ to it in the purifying virtue of his blood; as one washes an unclean person in water, applying the water to him; 1 Peter 1:2, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." And according to the degree of that application of Christ to the sinner, in the purifying virtue of his blood, made by the Spirit, such is the degree of the sanctification or washing of the sinner. For understanding this mystery, Consider,

1st, The soul being united to Christ, is clothed with his merit, as for justification, so for sanctification also: Revelation 3:18, "I counsel you to buy of me white clothing, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness do not appear." Sanctification is a great privilege and costly, bought with the Redeemer's blood: 1 Peter 1:18, 19, "You know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." Titus 2:14, "Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." And the merit or righteousness of Christ being on a man, by union with Christ, is the ground in law for his partaking of the benefit of sanctification, as a benefit purchased for him: even as the guilt of Adam's first sin on us, is the ground in law for God's denying us the sanctification of our nature in our birth, upon which the corruption of nature is conveyed to us from Adam.

2dly, Sinners united to Jesus Christ, have communion with him in his death and resurrection; I. e., they have a common interest with him therein, they are in law reckoning their death and resurrection too: Colossians 2:12, "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised him from the dead." The reason is, because Christ died and rose again as a public person, their head, in their name: Romans 6:4, "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." And this communion with Christ in his death and resurrection, is the spring of their sanctification; it is that which sets all the wheels in motion, that concur to the washing them from their sins: Romans 6:3–6, "Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death: we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin."

3dly, Christ dying put off from himself the whole body of all our sins, which before were upon him by imputation; and rose again without sin imputed, as he was ever without sin inherent: Romans 6:10, "For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he lives, he lives unto God." For he by his death having fully satisfied for sins, the guilt of them whereby they cleave to him, was dissolved of course, and he shook them all off as Paul did the viper into the fire, having no more power to cleave to him or hurt him. Which death and resurrection being of a public person, their head, has, by the merit thereof, a power of conforming all his members thereto, in dying to sin, and rising to newness of life; even as there was a contrary power in Adam's sin and death: Philip. 3:10, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made comformable unto his death." Compared with Romans 6:5, 6, above-cited.

4thly, Sinners having communion with Christ in this his death and resurrection, are in him legally dead to sin, freed from it in point of right, and alive spiritually to God: Romans 6:10, 11, "For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he lives, he lives unto God. Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin; but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The body of the sins of the flesh is legally put off them, and they are clean: even as the captive or prisoner to whom is legally applied the paying of the ransom or debt by the cautioner, is, in the moment of that application, legally free, and no more a captive or prisoner in point of right; though it may take some time before he be brought freely out of the dungeon, and his prison garments be got all of them off, and his irons be all knocked off.

5thly, Upon this ground the Spirit applies Christ's death and resurrection really to them, conforming them in their own persons thereto: even as when the judge has legally applied the payment of the ransom to the captive, by sustaining it as paid for him; a messenger applies it really by opening the prison-doors, knocking off the chains, and bringing him out: Galatians 6:14, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Philip. 3:10, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death." Compared with 1 Peter 1:2, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." So that by the Spirit they are changed into the image of Christ dead and risen again: 2 Corinthians 3:18, "But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord," Romans 6:5, "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death; we shall he also in the likeness of his resurrection."

6thly, The Spirit applies Christ's blood, death, and resurrection, to sinners, really, by conveying from Christ the head, unto them as his members, a certain measure and degree of that all-fullness of grace that is lodged in him, which he died to purchase, and rose again to apply: Colossians 1:19, "For it pleased the Father, that in him should all fullness dwell, John 1:16, "And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace." Compared with John 16:14, 15, "He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father has, are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." All the grace that is in the saints in Heaven or earth, or ever shall be, comes from the fullness of grace in the man Christ; as all the light of the world from the sun: and the Spirit communicates it to them from him. Now, all graces are in Christ, and the Spirit communicates to his members of them all, John 1:16, forfeited.

7thly, Thus the blood of Christ applied by the Spirit, penetrates or seeks in to the unclean soul, to the washing it from its filthiness; Ezekiel 36:25, "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." For wherever that grace comes, it must needs have a twofold effect:

(1.) To remove sin according to its measure, and so to carry off spiritual filthiness. Where humility comes, pride goes; where heavenliness of mind takes place, there sensuality and worldliness are dislodged; and so of other graces. For grace and sin are two contraries; whereof as the one gains, the other must needs lose.

(2.) To beautify and brighten the soul. Hence she is, like "the king's daughter, all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold," Psalm 45:13. For the more grace one has, the more he is like God. And this grace is immediately derived to us from Christ; who is the image of the invisible God, and therefore fairer than the children of men, Psalm 45:2; that we being thereby rendered like Christ, may be rendered like God, in his imitable perfections.

8thly, This communication of grace, by the Spirit, from Christ, to us being united to Christ, is the Spirit's applying Christ's blood to us; inasmuch as the blood of Christ is as it were the vehicle of his grace, as the water is of the soap, that cleansing thing, Malachi 3:2, Christ is like fuller's soap. In this view is that prayer for sanctification, Psalm 51:2, "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." Wash me, namely, as a fuller does. In vain is the soap used without the water for washing; and in vain will we look for sanctification by the grace of Christ, without the merit of his blood on us. It is in the stream of his blood going over our souls, that his grace is brought into and left in them, to the beautifying of them in holiness. By the merit of it, it has a double effect. One relative, and immediate, to our justification. Hence the apostle, Hebrews 12:24, speaks of "coming to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel." Another effect it has, real, and mediate, to our sanctification. Hence the apostle describes Christians as, 1 Peter 1:2, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." And this is effected through the grace of Christ that it brings down with it. It is the bruising of the bread-corn that fits it to be bread; the dying of the corn of wheat, that brings forth more wheat: so it is the crucifying of Christ, that fitted him to be a fountain of grace, whereof sinners might drink; it is the blood or death of Christ that makes Christians, that is, men after his image, John 12:24. Thus the Spirit's conveying of grace from Christ to us, is his sprinkling us with the blood of Christ for our sanctification, 1 Peter 1:2; to be distinguished, though not divided, from the sprinkling for our justification, Hebrews 12:24.

Lastly, According to the measure of the former sprinkling or application of the blood of Christ, so is the measure of our sanctification, purification, and cleansing from sin. The other having only a relative and immediate effect, is not capable of degrees: so it is alike in all believers. But this having a real and mediate effect through the grace conveyed in it, is made in very different degrees and measures, as a spring or fountain running into a vessel. And there are three degrees of this application of Christ's blood by the Spirit, as before observed.

1st, A begun application of it, in the soul's union with Christ at first in effectual calling. That moment the sinner becomes a member of Christ, the Spirit begins the application of Christ's blood to him for his sanctification, conveying real inherent grace to him from Christ his head, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, compared with John 16:14, and 1:16. The sluice of grace in Christ that was quite stopped before as to the sinner, is then opened in a measure to run over him for his washing from sin. And as to this measure,

1. It is some measure of all saving grace that is then communicated to the believer from Christ, his head, by the Spirit: John 1:16, "And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace." As the wax receives every point in the seal, so the believer receives every grace in the man Christ. Hence the apostle, Ephesians 1:13, speaks of believers being "sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. As all saving graces are lodged in Christ without measure, John. 3:34, so a seed of them all is communicated to his members, 1 John 3:9, of faith, love, repentance, or a set of heart turning God-ward, humility, meekness, etc. And though some graces may be more apparent and topping in a believer, than others; yet he wants none of them altogether, Hebrews 8:10. The effect of this is the habitual sanctification of the believer, whereby the dominion of sin is broken; the pollution and defilement by sin is begun to be removed, and the soul is made habitually holy. More particularly, hereby,

1st, The believer's nature is renewed, Ephesians 4:23, 24. He is renewed in the whole man, his whole person, soul and body, 1 Thessalonians 5:23. There are quite new qualities derived from Christ, into his mind, will, and affections; habits of grace infused into them by the Spirit from Christ, which habits of grace are the immediate principle of gracious actings, distinct from the new vital powers that go before faith. The body is renewed in communion with the renewed soul. Hence the apostle exhorts the Romans, Romans 6:13, "Neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead; and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." So sanctification is quite another thing than the bare amending of our lives; and holiness quite another thing than moral virtue, which can never give us this new nature.

2dly, He becomes a new creature, 2 Corinthians 5:17; not only a spiritually living creature, as in the quickening of the dead soul, John 5:25, before faith in effectual calling, called the first regeneration, John 1:12, 13, answering to the conception in natural generation; but a new creature in all its parts, by the work of sanctification; a second regeneration, following after faith, and answering to the forming of the conception into the distinct members in the womb, however small, Titus 3:5; Ephesians 2:10; 1:13. Hence there is not only a new head, feet, or life, in the case; but a new man, where all saving graces concur, as all the several members in a human body.

3dly, He is made over again in the image of God, bearing his image as a child of the father, Colossians 3:10. And this comes to pass, in that the new creature being entirely sprung of Christ, being made by receiving from him grace for grace in him, must needs be his image, Galatians 4:19. And he is the image of God; therefore it must be the image of God too. Thus Eve was made after God's image, but mediately, being made after Adam's image, who was made immediately after God's, Genesis 2:18, margin, compared with 1 Corinthians 11:7, 8.

4thly, He becomes one spirit with Christ, which is the oneness with Christ that is the result of our uniting with him, 1 Corinthians 6:17, "He who is joined unto the Lord, is one spirit." The Spirit is the principal cause, faith the instrumental cause, joining or uniting us to Christ; but this is it whereby Christ and the believer formally coalesce or go together into one, namely, one spirit, that is, one spiritual nature, Hebrews 2:11: even as Eve was one flesh with Adam, being made of him, of his flesh and bones; to which the Apostle alludes, Ephesians 5:30. "For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." Suppose a tree had a virtue of changing the graft into its own nature, as Christ has; the gardener ingrafts, the engraft by his are unites close with the stock: then the stock conveys of its juice into the engraft, whereby the nature of the engraft is changed; here is the oneness arising from the uniting, they are one tree, of one nature. So the Spirit puts the soul to Christ, by faith it unites close with him: then Christ by his Spirit conveys of his graces to the soul, which change its nature into his own, and so they go into one, namely, one spiritual or divine nature, 2 Peter 1:4, partaking of it with him, and that from him. So they are his seed, Isaiah 53:10.

Lastly, He is put in a near capacity for all acts of holy obedience, whether in doing or suffering, Deuteronomy 30:6; Hebrews 8:10; the seed of the several saving graces derived from Christ, and implanted in him, tending of their own nature to spring according to their several kinds. If the seed of any grace were wanting in him, then he would be in no near capacity for acting that grace wanting. Like as a dead man, who is not only quickened by a miracle, but is risen and come out of the grave, is in an immediate disposition for the common actions of life; so in this case of sanctification, the soul is not only quickened, as it is in effectual calling, but is in the nearest capacity to walk what way the Lord calls: Romans 6:4, "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." In effectual calling, Christ says to the sinner, Arise; in sanctification he says, Loose him, and let him go.

2. But it is not a full measure of any grace that is then communicated from Christ by his Spirit to the believer: "For we know but in part," says the apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 13:9. And says the same apostle, Romans 7:23, "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members." The believer has derived to him from Christ, the graces of faith, love, etc. but none of them in perfection: even as when the child is perfectly formed in the womb, there is head, eyes, hands, feet, etc. but all of them very small, none of them come to perfection. Now, so far as they go, they do remove sin with its pollution off the soul: but they cannot fill up the room in any part; therefore there are remains of corruption in every part, mind, will, and affections, and the body in communion with the corrupt part, Romans 7:14.

Now, the consequent of this is an imperfection of sanctification: the believer is sanctified, but not perfectly sanctified. More particularly, hence,

1st, There two contrary principles in believers; the flesh and spirit, the new and old man, the new nature derived to them from the second Adam, the old unrenewed nature from the first Adam: the one the old inhabitant, the other the new incomer upon it; like the house of Saul, and the house of David, in Israel. Hence believers are a mystery to the world, yes to themselves: Can. 6:13, "Return, return, O Shulamite, return, return, that we may look upon you: what will you see in the Shulamite? as it were the company of two armies." Romans 7:16, 17, "If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law, that it is good. Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.

2dly, There is a continual combat in them, between these two contrary principles, being together side for side, as it were, in every part: Galatians 5:17, "For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other; so that you cannot do the things that you would." Thus the believer is like Rebekah, Genesis 25:22, 23, who had the children struggling together within her; and who was told by the Lord, upon her inquiring into the affair, that two nations were in her womb, and two manner of people should be separated from her affections. The two armies war in the Shulamite, Canticles 6:13. So that the believer's heart by that means is often like a field of battle, where there is much confusion and struggle. There is something like this found sometimes in the unregenerate; but in them the struggle is between the flesh in one part lusting, and the flesh in another part fearing, 2 Peter 2:15, compared with Numbers 22:18. In the saints it is between the flesh and the spirit in one and the same part, receiving and refusing the same spiritual truth or falsehood, willing and nilling the same good or evil, of its own proper motion, Romans 7:15, 16, forfeited.

3dly, Neither their good nor ill actions are carried to perfection, Galatians 5:17, forfeited. For the two contrary principles being thus yoked, neither of them gets its full swing. When grace prevails to carry the good point, yet corruption clogs it in some measure: and when corruption prevails, grace clogs it in some measure; Cant 4:2, "Your teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing: whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them." Saints in Heaven in good, and unregenerate men in evil, are like strong men traveling in a calm day; saints on earth, in good or ill, are like men traveling with a strong wind blowing in their face, that cannot make the way that otherwise they would.

3. Howbeit, it is a predominant measure of grace that is then conveyed by the Spirit from Christ to the soul: Romans 6:14, "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace." Grace is put in the heart to rule, though in midst of its enemies, which makes it difficult to maintain its superiority. Not that it is predominant in every particular event and encounter; experience testifies the contrary. Hence, says the apostle, Romans 7:23, "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members." But it is fundamentally and habitually predominant; that is, it is more firmly rooted as an immortal seed against a mortal one, and generally speaking it prevails. Hence,

1st, The dominion and reigning power of sin is broken, Romans 6:14, forfeited. It is turned off the throne it had before, and is put under the check of a superior principle. Hence the apostle says, 1 John 3:9, "Whoever is born of God, does not commit sin; for his seed remains in him: and lie cannot sin, because he is born of God." Thus Christ delivers the soul from that enemy, to serve him. Hence is that of the prophet, Isaiah 9:4, "You have broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian." Indwelling it may be for a time, and, as a troublesome guest, breed much disturbance in the house: but it is no more master of the house. This was typified by the remains of the Canaanites in the land, which Israel could not drive out, but yet brought them under tribute, Jude. 1:19, etc.

2dly, It shall be quite expelled at length: Romans 16:20, "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." Whatever particular battles it won, the wars shall end in its ruin: 1 John 5:4, "Whatever is born of God, overcomes the world." When the true Israelite comes to the Red Sea of death, these Egyptians shall be swallowed up there, and he shall see them all dead on the shore. Sin is crucified by the incoming of grace, and though the thief being on the cross may rage and blaspheme, yet shall he never come down until he breath out his last.

2dly, There is a continued application of the blood of Christ made to the believer by the Spirit, during his after continuing in the world. For the soul once united to Christ, his Spirit dwells in it ever after, never quits his dwelling. Hence Christ said to his disciples, John 14:16, 17, "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but you know him, for he dwells with you, and shall be in you." And the Spirit continues that application to it from time to time until death, conveying fresh supplies of grace to it from Christ the head. Hence the grace of Christ conveyed to believers is held forth under the notion of a spring-well; John 4:14, "But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst: but the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life;" which is still affording new water. The fullness of grace in Christ is the spring-head, Colossians 2:19. The receivers into which it runs, are believers, his members, that receive supplies of grace from him, as the branches supplies of juice from the stock: John 15:5, "I am the vine, you are the branches: he who abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit." And the conveyer of these supplies from the head to the members, Philip 1:18, with verse 11, is the Spirit. For clearing this purpose, consider,

1. Though one is renewed, and has the seed of all grace planted in him, in the begun application issuing in habitual sanctification; yet he is not able of himself to exercise one grace, to wash off one remaining spot, or add to himself one stroke of purity: but thereto is necessary a new supply by the Spirit, 2 Corinthians 3:4, 5. Even of our gracious selves we can do nothing; can bring forth no fruit of grace, John 15:5, even when furnished with gracious qualities. This is not so very strange, if we consider, that though we have the power of natural motion, yet we cannot move a finger without a common providential influence of the Spirit, Acts 17:28, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being." Though fresh seed be cast into the earth, if the influence of the sun and rain is withheld, it springs not.

2. Hence every gracious act of ours is a fruit of the Spirit produced by him in us, through these supplies of grace; as the springing of the seed is by the warmth and moisture it gets from the heavens, Galatians 5:22, 23; Ephesians 5:8. Hence the Spirit is said to lust against the flesh, Galatians 5:17, as producing these lustings in us; even as he is said to groan, Romans 8:26. So every act of mortification is by the Spirit, Romans 8:13, "If you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live." And so also is every act of obedience, Philippians 2:13, "For it is God which works in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure." So that take away the Spirit, and you take away all true holiness.

3. These supplies of grace are given in such a measure only, in the continued application, as in the begun application. There is some measure of every grace supplied, Colossians 2:19. Hence, (Ephesians 5:9.), "The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth." But there is not a full measure of any grace: 1 Corinthians 13:9, "For we know but in part." Yet there is a predominant measure, 2 Corinthians 12:9. Hence the imperfection of actual sanctification; there are still some spots to wash off while here. Washing of foul clothes will take time; there is much work for the hands there. But the washing of foul souls ordinarily takes more than the longest work of that kind. The Spirit could wash us perfectly clean in an instant, by a full application of the blood; but it is otherwise ordered. The thief on the cross was washed clean in a moment: but ordinarily the washing is gradual.

4. Lastly, These continued supplies of grace continue the washing of the soul; inasmuch as thereby,

1st, Inherent grace is preserved, that it die not out, amidst so many snares and temptations. It is but a created quality, and of itself would wither away and die out, and so leave the soul overwhelmed anew with the filth of sin, if it were not fed. Hence the Lord says, Isaiah 27:3, "I the Lord do keep it, I will water it every moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." John 15:5, 6, "I am the vine, you are the branches: He who abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. But the continued supplies from Christ by the Spirit, render it an abiding immortal seed, 1 Corinthians 1:8, 9, compared with John 14:19; Jude verse 1.

2dly, Inherent grace is excited, that it lie not idle, Canticles 5:4. Sometimes it lies like fire under the ashes; new supplies coming in by the Spirit, it is stirred up, and casts abroad its light in the soul. Hence the Spirit is compared to the wind, Canticles 4:16. Being excited to action, it removes sin; as the stopped spring loosed, works out the mud. And,

3dly, It is increased and strengthened, that it may act more vigorously towards the expulsion of its enemy, Colossians 1:10; Ephesians 3:16; Isaiah 40:29. As an addition of soap makes the washing go on more thoroughly, so the fresh supplies of grace from Christ by the Spirit carry on the washing of the soul, causing the stream run higher to the carrying off more of the filth of sin, and beautifying the soul more.

3dly, There is a full application of the blood of Christ to the soul made by the Spirit at death. That moment the soul and body are separated, the Spirit brings in a full stream of grace from Christ into the soul, Ephesians 3:19. with 1 Corinthians 13:8, 9, 10. The communication of grace which was before but in part, is then made perfect. For clearing of this purpose, note, that,

1. The perfection of grace taking place in the souls of believers at death, comes from the same spring as at conversion, and after, until death. It is all communicated to them from Christ their head, with this difference only, that the stream of it that ran small and scanty before, is then made to run full, as when a sluice is fully opened. As, out of his fullness, they got grace for grace in Christ, in some measure, before; so then, out of the same fullness, they get a fullness of grace for grace in him. For they grow to their perfection in him, as members of him, and therefore by communication from him, Ephesians 4:13. The new creature is both formed and perfected the same way.

2. It is the same Spirit who conveys the perfection of grace from Christ to believers at death, that conveyed the first grace, and the supplies thereof: the same Spirit who forms, and nourishes the new creature, in the time of this life, brings it to its perfection and full growth at death, Philip. 1:6; Psalm 138:8. And as to the measure he then communicates.

1st, It is a full measure, such as wholly renews them in every part, perfecting the image of Christ, and so of God, on them, and utterly abolishes all remains of sin in them, 2 Corinthians 4:16, with Hebrews 12:23; Revelation 7:14, 15. Thus they are washed perfectly clean, no spot is left in them, all being carried off by the full flood of grace conveyed then from Christ to them. And thus they are enabled to serve the Lord in perfection forever, Revelation 22:3, with 1 Corinthians 13:10.

2dly, Yet is it not such a measure, as that they never need more: no, but they will always be kept full, by the Spirit's communicating eternally to them full supplies of grace from Christ their head: Revelation 7:17, "For the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Compared with John 16:14, "He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you." There will be nothing any more to stop or retard the flowing of grace from Christ into them; but the fountain will empty of its fullness into them without interruption. That there shall be such an eternal communication to them from Christ by the Spirit, is evident, in that they continue forever members of Christ; and members cannot act but by continued communications of influences from their head: John 14:16, 17, "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but you know him, for he dwells with you, and shall be in you." John 15:4, 5, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches: He who abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing."

From what is said on this head, we draw these inferences.

1. They are not washed from their filthiness, that have never had a discovery of the filth of sin made to them by the Spirit. Men may get a sight of the guilt of sin, that will fill them with fear and terror; that yet get no kindly sight of the filth of sin, filling them with shame and self-loathing before the Lord. But without this last, there is no sanctification: Ezekiel 36:31, "Then shall you remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities, and for your abominations." Therefore never think you have seen sin aright, until you see it in the monstrous filthiness of it, as opposite to the holiness of God: it is that only will turn one's stomach on it, and cause them to vomit it up by true repentance.

2. The filthiness of the soul by sin, is never duly seen, until it appear so ingrained as nothing but the blood of Christ can wash it off. They evidence but slight thoughts of the filth of sin, that think it can be carried off by prayers, confessions, tears, and outward reformation: therefore the Spirit carries the elect beyond all these to the laver of Christ's blood. Hence David prayed, Psalm 51:2, "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." There only is there merit and efficacy sufficient to wash out the pollution.

3. Whoever truly come to Christ by faith, they come to him for sanctification, as well as justification; that they may be washed from the filth of sin by him, as well as freed from the guilt of sin through him. Hence faith is a coming to the waters, Isaiah 55:1, and that to be washed in them, Zechariah 13:1. It is but false faith that looks to Christ for freedom from guilt and the wrath of God, and not for conformity to God in holiness

4. For to stand off from Christ, and uniting with him by believing on him, until one has made himself clean and fit for Christ, is the work of a false heart, marring the soul's washing; not the work of the Spirit, carrying on the washing of the soul. For it is the work of the Spirit to put the unclean soul in the laver, uniting it to Christ, that it may be made clean. Therefore let no pollution of sin whatever keep you back from Christ; but let the consideration of your pollution drive you forward to him; and the greater it is, you have the more need to make speed, and unite the more closely with Christ.

5. Whoever are united to Christ by the Spirit, are sanctified persons, truly regenerate, new creatures: 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new." In vain do men pretend to be members of Christ, while they remain unsanctified in their nature and life. Can one be united to Christ in whom the fullness of grace is lodged, and yet there be no communication of grace from him to them? or can there be such a communication, and yet they not be renewed after his image? and if a new nature, must there not be a new life?

6. Lastly, True Christianity is in its own nature a progressive thing, going towards perfection. Hence says the apostle, Philip 3:12, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." It is a most dismal sign, where a person having, as he thinks, embraced Christ for salvation, and so secured himself for eternity, is no further careful to advance in practical religion, but continues easy, being at a stand; seeing "the path of the just is as the shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day," Proverbs 4:18. It is true, a real believer may not only be at a stand for a while, but may be going back: but it is of the nature of grace, as of a seed, or the morning light, to go forward and increase until it come to perfection, John 4:14; Ephesians 4:13. This is the result of the continued application of the blood of Christ to the believer by the Spirit. Therefore observe whether you grow or not.

Thirdly, Christ washes sinners through faith. Hence the apostle, Acts 15:9, speaks of "purifying the heart by faith;" and 26:18, of being sent to open men's eyes, "and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Christ." And faith has that place in the washing of defiled souls, that the hand of the party washed has in the washing of himself, under the management of the principal washer. For faith is the hand of the soul, John 1:12. And in the spiritual washing it is active. The soul being first passively washed by the Spirit, washes itself by faith; being put into the laver by the Spirit, it applies the water by faith, 2 Corinthians 7:1. Yet Christ by his Spirit is still the principal cause of the washing; forasmuch as he both works faith in the soul, and then by new influences puts it in exercise: Philip. 2:13, "For it is God which works in us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure." And so faith is the instrumental cause of our washing from sin, Acts 15:9, forfeited.

Now, the efficacy of faith in the washing of the soul lies in these following things, under these two heads.

1. It is the eye of the soul in that matter, and so it is an impulsive cause moving the sinner to wash away his sin, Galatians 2:16; and is supposed in such calls, as that Isaiah 1:16, "Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well." Now, by the eye of faith,

1st, The man discerns his pollution, that he is all over defiled, and unlike God: Isaiah 64:6, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." He looks into the glass of the word, which is a representation of God's holiness, and so represents the sinner as vile and loathsome. The man believes the representation to be true, and so cries out, as Job 40:4, "Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer you? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth." This glass is held to the eyes of others; but, notwithstanding being unbelievers, they see not their universal pollution. But thus the believer sees the need of washing.

2dly, He discerns the depth of the stain, that it can be washed out by no human are. Faith brings, from the testimony of the word, that report into the soul, Jeremiah 2:22, "For though you wash you with nitre, and take you much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before me, says the Lord God." Unbelievers are ruined in their pollution for want of this; they see not how deep their defilement lies; so they think their own nitre and soap will do their business, that Abana and Pharpar may cleanse the leper, as well as any other water, Hosea 5:13. But faith sees them all physicians of no value: and so the believer sees the need of another laver even the blood of Christ.

3dly, He discerns the ill of his pollution on the one hand, and the good of the washing on the other. By faith the man is persuaded of the destructive nature of sin, and its contrariety to God's nature and will: and he is persuaded too of the beauty and excellency of holiness, or purification from sin. The one he sees in the glass of the law, its threatenings and commands; the other in the glass of the gospel, in the face of Jesus. And these are a spur to incite him to seek to be washed, Luke 15:17, 18.

4thly, He discerns the laver, Christ crucified, Isaiah 45:22. By the help of the glass of the gospel, he takes up the sea of Christ's blood, as the only laver for unclean souls, Matthew 9:20, 21. And by faith the unclean soul discerns Christ the laver,

(1.) As an efficacious laver in all cases, 1 John 1:7, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin." The man believes that Christ is able to wash out the deepest stain, to make the filthiest soul clean, according to the word, Isaiah 1:18, "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." This is necessary, as appears in the case of the blind men, Matthew 9:28, 29, "Jesus says unto them, Believe you that I am able to do this? they said unto him, Yes, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith, be it unto you."

(2.) As an open laver in its own case, Zechariah 13:1, "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin, and for impurity." Compared with Hebrews 11:6, "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he who comes to God, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." This is believing the gospel, one's warrant to come to Christ, without which none can come. For if one should look on the fountain as open to all the world, but only sealed to him, this will effectually mar his access to it, Jeremiah 2:25, "You said, There is no hope. No, for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go." But faith says, Psalm 65:3, "Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, you shall purge them away."

2. Faith is the hand of the soul in that matter, and so it is an instrumental cause of washing away sin. And by the hand of faith,

1st, The soul embraces Christ, and unites with him: John 1:12, "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." Compared with Ephesians 3:17, "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." The soul, at its first union with Christ, being plunged into the laver by the Spirit, does by faith spread out itself therein; as one who haying jumped into the water to swim, does immediately spread out his body in it, and embrace the water as it were. Christ having apprehended the unclean soul by his Spirit, and united it passively to himself; the soul again apprehends him by faith, and actively unites with him. And hereby faith brings in the first application of his blood, the effect of which is habitual sanctification.

2dly, The soul cleaves to Christ, and abides in him, all along until death: Hebrews 10:39, "But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe, to the saving of the soul." It is never extinguished again in the soul; though its gripe may be sometime slacked, yet it never lets it quite go: Luke 22:32, "But I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not." Hereby it brings in the continued application, for progressive sanctification, John 15:5. And the stronger its gripes are at any time, the more plentiful application is there of the blood of Christ to the soul; as the stronger the child sucks, he draws out the more milk, Isaiah 66:11. Hence he who has the strongest faith, has the holiest heart and life.

3dly, The soul cleaves to Christ in death. When the body is falling down, the man still cleaves to and abides in Christ, and so dying in faith, dies in the Lord, Hebrews 11:13; Revelation 14:13. Faith keeps the gripe of Christ, while the soul is losing gripe of the body; and as the body drops off, it brings in a full application of Christ's blood, which perfects sanctification. So the soul drops the remains of sin together with the body.

Now, the instrumental efficacy of faith for the washing of the soul, lies in trust: and as it trusts, it purifies; for therein lies its nature, and therefore its efficacy comes that way, Psalm 31:19; Psalm 37:40. And the object of that trust is twofold.

(1.) The object of this trust is real, namely, the word. Faith trusts or believes the word as firm and infallible truth. Hence the apostle, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, speaks of the belief of the truth. Faith trusts or believes particularly the word of the promise of the gospel, holding out to sinners the benefit of sanctification as well as other benefits, 2 Corinthians 7:1; such as that promise, Ezekiel 36:25, "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." This trust of the word of the gospel is our original obedience to the truth, 1 Peter 1:22, wherein the soul subjects itself wholly to the truth of God in his word, believing it over the belly of all objections in this point, saying, as Micah 7:19, "He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us: he will subdue our iniquities: and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."

(2.) The object of this trust is personal, namely, Christ himself. The soul trusts on Christ for the washing of it. Hence is that invitation, Isaiah 45:22, "Look unto me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." And hence is the language of faith, Psalm 65:3, "Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, you shall purge them away." It is the very nature of faith to renounce all confidence in other things, and to trust in him alone for the washing of the soul. Hence Paul says, Philip 3:3, "We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." In the word of promise he is held forth as "the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world," as made sanctification to us: and faith is a trust or reliance on him as such to us, John 1:12. But more particularly,

Faith's trust on Christ is on him as crucified. Hence the apostle says, 1 Corinthians 2:2, "I determined not to know anything, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." While we look on him simply as God, we see his justice flaming against sin, and barring all sanctifying influences: Hebrews 12:29, "For our God is a consuming fire." But looking on him as God-man, by his obedience and death making satisfaction for sin, we have a fit object of trust for our sanctification; for there we see a fullness of merit for purging away sin, Romans 6:6, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should hot serve sin."

Hence faith has a particular eye to the blood of Christ, in the point of sanctification, as well as justification. Hence the apostle says, Romans 3:25, "God has set him forth to be a atoning sacrifice , through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins." And again, Hebrews 9:14, "The blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, shall purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God: that being the immediate cause of our washing, as the blood of his sacrifice offered to God for atonement, and sprinkled on us for our purification, Hebrews 12:24.

Now, this trust for washing, placed oh Christ crucified held forth to us in the word of promise, which is that wherein the efficacy of faith for sanctifying us instrumentally lies, may be taken up in these four things.

[1.] The soul's turning its eye of expectation of purification, from off all things else, and fixing it on Christ crucified. Hence is the gospel invitation, Isaiah 45:22, "Look unto me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." (Hebrews) Face unto me. Secure sinners, being indifferent about holiness, look no where for it; they desire it not. Awakened sinners look for it to physicians of no value, such as their own endeavors, resolutions, etc. But faith looks off from all creatures, means, &c., unto Christ alone, for it, as the woman with the bloody issue did, Mark 5:25–28, that virtue may come from him for purifying.

[2.] Applying the promise of spiritual washing to itself: 2 Corinthians 7:1, "Having these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." The word holds forth the promise of cleansing from sin, to sinners indefinitely, saying, as Ezekiel 36:25, "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." Faith catches hold of it, and brings it home, saying, as Psalm 65:3, "Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, you shall purge them away." Micah 7:19, "He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us: he will subdue our iniquities: and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." It pleads the promise, and hangs by it. Particularly, it appropriates the privilege of legal freedom, Romans 6:10, 11, "For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he lives, he lives unto God. Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin; but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord:" so that thereby the soul looks on itself as dead in point of right and privilege to sin, Romans 6:2, "How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?"

[3.] Relying on the merit of Christ for the out-making of the promise of sanctification, saying, as Psalm 51:7, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." Compared with 1 John 1:7, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin." The soul sees it is a great privilege as well as a duty, and believes that God will make it holy, for Christ's sake, forasmuch as he died for that very end, Titus 2:14. For true faith has the same reliance on Christ for sanctification as for justification, knowing that the one is the purchase of the Redeemer's blood, even as the other.

[4.] Lastly, Acquiescing in the faithfulness of God in his word, for that effect. Faith receives the word of promise for sanctification; and says, with Mary, Luke 1:38, "Be it unto me according to your word." The purification of the soul from sin has so many difficulties about it, that the sinner truly sensible accounts it impossible in respect of all created power: but since God has said, that he will do it, the soul acquiesces in his word, judging him faithful who has promised, Romans 4:24; Hebrews 11:11.

This faith or trust purifies from sin, according to the scripture, and the experience of the saints: Acts 15:9, "Purifying their hearts by faith." Hereto agrees the Psalmist's experience, Psalm 28:7, "The Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song will I praise him." And so does that of those to whom Peter wrote, and of whom he says, 1 Peter 1:22, "You have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit." Yes, by this trust, joy is brought into the soul, as verses 8, 9, "Whom having not seen, you love; in whom though now you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory; receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." Romans 15:13, "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit." And that pre-supposes the purging of the soul from sin, Isaiah 33:24, "The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity."

QUESTION. How has that trust that efficacy?

ANSWER. By the appointment of God. How had the looking to the brazen serpent such efficacy as to cure the stung Israelites, but by God's appointment? So is the case here: John 3:14, 15, 16, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whoever believes in him, should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." The nature and efficacy of saving faith may be learned in part from that of the faith of miracles, they agreeing in one general kind. Matthew 9:28, 29, 30, "Jesus says unto the blind men, Believe you that I am able to do this? they said unto him, Yes, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith, be it unto you. And their eyes were opened." God has made choice of faith or trust for that end, and given it a word of appointment, Mark 16:16, "He who believes shall be saved." And the appointment is, that on the soul's so trusting in Christ, the soul shall be sanctified by the Spirit with the blood, Galatians 3:2. And there is a fitness in the appointment of this as a mean for,

(1.) Faith trusts the Word of God, and the faithfulness of God requires that it be accomplished to them that trust it. So it is secured, Romans 9:33, "Whoever believes on him, shall not be ashamed." If you would have a benefit from an honest man, you cannot take a more effectual way to obtain it, than, having got his word for it, to trust it, plead it, and hold him to it.

(2.) Christ himself with all his benefits, comes to us in the word. Hence the apostle says, Romans 10:6, 7, 8, "The righteousness which is of faith, speaks on this wise, Say not in your heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above); or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead): but what says it? The word is near you, even in your mouth, and in your heart: that is the word of faith which we preach." Trusting the word is the only effectual way of receiving it farther than into the ears, at least as it is a promise. So receiving the word by faith, we receive Christ, and consequently the purifying virtue of his blood that is in it, with himself. Hence the apostle says of the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because when you received the Word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the word of men, but (as it is in truth) the Word of God, which effectually works also in you that believe." And then,

(3.) There is nothing so adapted to the end of glorifying free grace, as this trust of faith is; and that is the great end of the gospel: Romans 4:16, "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed."

I shall shut up this branch with a few inferences.

INFERENCE 1. That is not true faith that leaves the soul still unholy, lying in the filth of sin. Unwashed sinners are unbelievers certainly: Titus 1:15, "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." In vain will you please yourselves with a conceit of your believing in Christ, while your pretended faith brings in no sanctifying influences into your souls: James 2:14, "What does it profit, though a man say he has faith, and have not works? can faith save him?" True faith, according to the scripture, has a double effect.

1st, Within, faith purifies the heart, Acts 15:9, and makes it evangelically clean, Psalm 24:3, 4. It breaks the reigning power of lusts within, maintains a combat against their broken forces, sets the soul to approve itself to God in the inner man, where no eye sees, and longs for and presses toward perfection.

2dly, Without, faith works by love, in all duties of piety towards God, and justice and mercy towards our neighbor: Galatians 5:6, "For in Jesus Christ, neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which works by love." It is a principle within, that casts abroad its cleansing efficacy into the life, purifying men's words and actions.

INFERENCE 2. Then whoever are really washed from their sins, as they will be sure to use all means of holiness, yet they will be carried beyond them all to Christ for it. They will be conscientious in the practice of holy duties, and so go beyond the profane and careless; and yet they will not rest in them, but quit them all in point of confidence when they have done, and so go beyond hypocrites: "For," says the apostle, Philippians 3:3, "we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." This is the little further that the spouse went, Canticles 3:4. and so found her beloved.

INFERENCE 3. Lastly, The only true way to be holy, is to believe in Christ. This is the way that all the members of Christ are sanctified; they are sanctified in him, 1 Corinthians 1:2, through faith, Acts 26:18. And there is no true holiness in subjects capable of faith, without it: for says Christ, John 15:5, "Without me you can do nothing." So if the soul be brought to faith in Christ, it will undoubtedly be made holy: if it be not, all other means of washing of a person will be but washing a black man, who will never become white for them all.

Thus far of those things which Christ uses more immediately for washing sinners.

Secondly, There are other means which Christ uses for that purpose, more mediately: of which briefly.

First, Christ washes sinners by the word, Ephesians 5:26. Hence Christ says of his disciples, John 15:3, "Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." And hence he prays to his Father, John 17:17, "Sanctify them through your truth: your word is truth." The word written, read, and preached, is the great external mean of washing sinners; and is effectual for that end by the energy of the Spirit, being received by faith. The use of the word to the washing of the sinner lies in these things following.

1. It is the glass wherein the filthy sinner discerns his spots and filthiness. The word of the law particularly is that glass: Romans 3:20, "For by the law is the knowledge of sin." It represents to men the sinfulness of their nature, hearts, and lives: and when Christ comes to wash a sinner, he holds that glass to his eyes to convince him of sin, by the Spirit. Therefore the Psalmist recommends it to young men, Psalm 119:9, "With which shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to your word." And they that look not into the word for this end, care not for washing.

2. It is a spur to washing, an external impulsive cause, by the strong motives whereby it presses the sinner to wash. Here the law presses him by its threatenings and curses against the unclean; the gospel presses with the possibility, excellency, and unspeakable advantage of washing.

3. It is the key that sets open the fountain for washing in, Zechariah 13:1, "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin, and for impurity." It is opened by the preaching of the gospel; which shows sinners, that whatever be their pollution, they are welcome to it. The voice of Christ in the gospel is, "Behold me," Isaiah 65:1, that is, "Here I am." Thereby our Lord unlocks his treasures, laying them open to the view of sinners.

4. It is the vehicle of the blood and Spirit of Christ, whereby sinners may be washed, receiving the word by faith, Romans 10:6, 7, 8, forfeited. John 6:63, "It is the spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." The gospel is therefore called "the ministration of the Spirit, and righteousness," 2 Corinthians 3 inasmuch as thereby Christ communicates his Spirit to sinners, and brings righteousness to them. Hence receiving the word by faith, the soul is cast into the mold of it, Romans 6:17; for it is able to save the soul, James 1:21, and works effectually in it, 1 Thessalonians 2:13. to the cleansing of the soul, John 15:3, "Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you."

I shall shut up this branch also with a few inferences.

INFERENCE 1. Saints and sinners need the word; forasmuch as they are both defiled, and need washing; the one washing to be begun on them, and the other to be carried on. And they that can live contented without it, are content to lie still in their filthiness; and will need no more to ruin them, but to get their will.

INFERENCE 2. They have an enmity at the word, appearing in their aversion to dip into it, and neglect of it, are neither washed, nor desire to be washed: Job 21:14, "Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of your ways." The reason of their enmity against it is, their love to their lusts, to which it is an enemy: as, on the contrary, they whose hearts are turned against sin, are turned towards the word, as a mean for purging it away: John 3:20, 21, "For every one that does evil, hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he who does truth, comes to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God."

INFERENCE 3. Their soul's case is very hopeless, who get no good of the word: and these are all such who get no conviction by it, or are not stirred up by it to seek to be purged from their filthiness, who are not pointed to Christ as the only laver, and never partake of his blood and Spirit, by it. These are they on whom the great mean of washing from sin is ineffectual; of whom the Lord may justly say, as Ezekiel 24:13, "In your filthiness is lewedness: because I have purged you, and you were not purged, you shall not be purged from your filthiness any more, until I have caused my fury to rest upon you."

INFERENCE 4. Lastly, They do not believe the word, who are not cleansed in heart and life thereby; for (as the apostle says of the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 2:13,) "When you received the Word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the word of men, but (as it is in truth) the Word of God, which effectually works also in you that believe." If the word were received by faith, it could not miss to be sanctifying: but beholding the unholiness of men, we may cry out, as Isaiah 53:1, "Who has believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" The word preached is not truly believed, therefore it brings not forth fruit.

Secondly, Christ washes sinners by the sacraments, Ephesians 5:26. Hence baptism is said to save us, 1 Peter 3:21. The sacraments are external means of spiritual washing, and are made effectual by the Spirit, being received by faith; but no otherwise in subjects capable of believing; for God has not communicated the virtue of sanctifying to the elements as to natural causes which work necessarily, 1 Peter 3:21.

The use of the sacraments to the washing of sinners lies here.

1. The sacraments point out to us the laver wherein we may be washed, as being representing signs of Christ with his sanctifying blood. Hence the apostle says, 1 Corinthians 10:16, "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" They set the laver as it were before our eyes, and call us to think of it, and our need thereof. Therein Christ is as it were crucified before our eye, his blood springing forth for our washing.

2. The sacraments confirm our right in it, and our welcome to it, as seals. Hence the apostle says concerning Abraham, Romans 4:11, "He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also." The blood of Christ is most precious; but there is a grant of it made to us in the word, which is our charter, and the sacraments se al it. The word says, John 3:16, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life:" the sacraments seal it, that so we may be excited and encouraged to come boldly, and make use of it for our sanctification.

3. The sacraments present, exhibit, and apply it to us who believe, 1 Corinthians 11:24. As by earth and stone delivered to a man upon a legal right, he is possessed of the house or land: so, by the sacraments received by faith, Christ and all his benefits are applied to us, for our cleansing.

An inference shall shut up this branch.

INFERENCE. Hence we may try, whether the sacraments be effectual to us, or not; whether we have believingly received them or not. While people are never the more holy, for all the sacraments they receive, the more the worse, their disease is the more confirmed their filthiness is the more fixed on them. But when they stir up the soul to an usemaking of Christ for sanctification, and men get a cubit added to their spiritual stature, it is a good sign.

Thirdly, and Lastly, Christ washes sinners by afflictions. Hence the prophet says, Isaiah 27:9, "By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away his sin." They also are but external means, in the hand of the Spirit, and cannot of themselves purify. But the Spirit makes use of them for cleansing sinners. There are two ways of purging filthiness, by water, and by fire; as we learn from Isaiah 4:4, "When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning." Afflictions are God's fire for that end. Their use in the washing is six-fold.

1. Afflictions are memorials of ours in, and so puts us in mind to look back on our defilements; as they were to Joseph's brethren, when they said, as Genesis 42:21, "We are truly guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us; and we would not hear: therefore is this distress come upon us." The prosperous sinner wallows at ease in his filthiness; but when God lays his afflicting hand on him, the sharper it is, conscience is readily the more awakened out of its sleep. And it will readily read the sin, out of the punishment.

2. Afflictions are a glass, wherein one sees the loathsomeness of sin in the sight of God. While the sinner prospers in his course, he cannot think that God is sore displeased at it; as the Lord himself says unto the sinner, Psalm 50:21, "These things have you done, and I kept silence: you thought that I was altogether such a one as yourself." But affliction is such a token of God's displeasure against sin, that when it comes, the sinner alters his thoughts; sees its loathsomeness before God, and therefore loathsome in itself; which makes him anxious to be washed.

3. Afflictions are a fire that melt off the paint, and deface the beauty of the defiling objects in the world. Hence says the Lord unto Israel, Jeremiah 2:36, 37, "Why do you gad about so much to change your way? you also shall be ashamed of Egypt, as you were ashamed of Assyria. Yes, you shall go forth from him, and your hands upon your head: for the Lord has rejected your confidences, and you shall not prosper in them." Where was the excellency of the thirty pieces when God's hand was lifted up against Judas for them? The beauty of former lusts melts away, when a man is laid on a sick-bed: and the bewitching creature then loses all its charms.

4. Afflictions are a bridle whereby men are restrained from defiling themselves more, and are brought to a stand in a defiling course. Hence the Lord says unto Israel, Hosea 2:6, "Behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths." They serve to take off the edge of corrupt affections, and make them to languish; whereby the sinner becomes more considerate, and pliable to counsel from the word.

5. Afflictions are occasional causes of sinners thinking of and going to the fountain to wash. Hence the Lord says of Israel, Hosea 5:15, "I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their afflictions they will seek me early." How many are there to whom afflictions have been the blessed means and occasions of their turning serious? Such a rod they met with, or they had gone on like the wild donkey upon the mountains, snuffing up the wind.

6. Lastly, Afflictions are a sharp wind to blow up the fire of grace where it is, and particularly to excite faith, whereby the soul is washed. Hence the spouse prays, Canticles 4:16, "Awake, O north-wind, and come, you south, blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out." In prosperity people can fetch in their comfort by sense; but in afflictions, when created streams are dried up, they must fetch it in by faith, or else want it.

Two inferences shall conclude this branch.

INFERENCE 1. Let this cause us to take afflictions kindly; since they are means by which Christ washes us. Though the water be cold and piercing, yet we endure it, that we may get our hands made clean. Though medicines sicken us, we blame not the physician, because they are for our health. Why should we be angry at our God afflicting us, since the fruit designed is to purge away sin?

INFERENCE 2. Let us, in all our afflictions, seek purification from our sin, and know they are not effectual unless they have a sanctifying efficacy on us. They are indeed of the nature of fire, first causing the scum to come above, but next throwing it off. They do discover much of the corruption of the heart, that otherwise would be latent: but then if they humble the soul under a sense of sinfulness, and send it anew to Christ for purging of the nature, they are not in vain.

I shall now proceed to the second general head proposed, namely,

II. To consider the unwashed or unsanctified sinner's having no part with Christ.

In discussing this head, I shall show,

1. What the unwashed sinner's having no part with Christ supposes; and,

2. Wherein it lies.

First, We shall show what the unwashed sinner's having no part with Christ supposes. It supposes,

1. That Christ himself is happy. He is not only happy as he is God, Romans 9:5, who is therefore styled "God blessed forever;" but as he is Mediator, the head of the body, the church. Hence it is said of him, Psalm 72:17, "Men shall be blessed in him, all nations shall call him blessed." All mankind were brought to misery and ruin by Adam's fall: but the man Christ was an exception from that rule. He was happy from the moment of the incarnation, all along, notwithstanding what he suffered: and from his resurrection and ascension his happiness was completed: Philippians 2:9, "Wherefore God also has highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name." Hebrews 10:13, "From henceforth expecting until his enemies be made his footstool." There are two things wherein Christ is completely happy.

1st, In having fully done the work he undertook to do. Hence he says to his Father, John 17:4, "I have glorified you on the earth: I have finished the work which you gave me to do." He had a great work to do, for the glory of his Father, and the salvation of sinners. It was the hardest work that ever was taken in hand. All hardships from Heaven, earth, and Hell, met together upon him; and his work was to go through them all in a course of perfect obedience. And now it is done; he was born holy, lived righteous, satisfied completely by his death: now he is got to the joy set before him: Romans 6:9, "Christ being raised from the dead, dies no more; death has no more dominion over him." Revelation 3:21, "To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne."

2dly, In having received the reward of his work. Our Lord, "for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God," Hebrews 12:2. Never was there such a reward of work, as Christ has received; it bears proportion to the work, which was of infinite value. All the promises of the covenant, whether respecting himself, or his people, are now in his hand. They are won by him, and he is put in possession of the things promised, which make an inexhaustible treasure. Hence the apostle, (Ephesians 3:8.) speaks of "the unsearchable riches of Christ."

2. There is enough in him to make others happy too: Colossians 1:19, "For it pleased the Father, that in him should all fullness dwell." There is a fullness of a fountain in him, whereby others may be supplied from him, may have part with him, and yet he have no lack. The first Adam was a spring of ruin to all his posterity: but the gospel points out Christ the second Adam as a spring of happiness for wretched sinners.

3. Sinners may have part with Christ in his fullness; it is lodged in him to be communicated. Hence our Lord himself says, Matthew 11:27, 28, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knows the Son but the Father: neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whoever the Son will reveal him. Come unto me, all you that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He is the bowl on the top of the candlestick, (Zechariah 4:2.) the immediate receptacle of the oil, from whence it is conveyed to the seven lamps. Joseph was sent to Egypt, and exalted there, to provide for Jacob's family in the dearth: so Christ is great Steward of Heaven, for the behalf of poor sinners; that he having all in his hand, they may be happy in having part with him.

4. All that are sanctified are happy in having part with Christ: Colossians 2:9, 10, "For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are complete in him." They have part in his work, by imputation; even as they had part with Adam in his sin: Romans 5:19, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners: so by the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous." They have part in his reward, by a real communication thereof to them; even as they had part with Adam in the corruption of his nature: John 1:16, "And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace." 1 Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." This, it is true, is but imperfect as yet; but it is so begun that it will undoubtedly be perfected. But such as it is, their sanctification is not the cause of it, but it is the cause of their sanctification. This appears from 1 John 1:3, 7, "That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin."

5. Lastly, Unholy sinners are miserable in the want of part with Christ. They are "without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world," Ephesians 2:12. Therefore this struck Peter, when he saw how deep it drew: for he said, Acts 4:12, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." It is true, all that hear the gospel are externally called to the fellowship of his Son: but most men love the fellowship of the world lying in wickedness, and will not take part with Christ. So they are without it, though it lies open to them: and to each one of them may be said what Peter said to Simon Magus, Acts 8:21, "You have neither part nor lot in this matter: for your heart is not right in the sight of God." Meanwhile their unholiness is not the thing that bars them from having part with Christ; but their want of part with Christ is that whereby they keep themselves unholy.

Secondly, I shall show wherein the unwashed sinner's having no part with Christ does lie or consist. This will appear, with the misery of the case, in taking a view, 1. Of Christ's work; and, 2. Of his reward; in neither of which the unholy have part with him.

First, Christ is happy, in that he has done out the work he undertook for the salvation of sinners: and all that are his have part with him therein; it is imputed to them, as if they had done it, Galatians 2:20. And,

1. He has been born holy, and answered the demand of the law for holiness of nature, by his bringing a holy human nature into the world with him, as a public person. Hence in Luke 1:35, he is called "that holy thing born." Hebrews 7:26, "For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners." So that demand of the law for salvation for all that are his, is answered; for in Colossians 2:10, 11, they are said to be complete in him; and to be circumsised in him. The law cannot stop their salvation for want of a perfectly holy nature; for they have part with him, in the holiness of his nature, and that holy nature is communicated to them.

But unholy sinners have no part with Christ in this matter: the holiness of Christ's nature is not imputed to them, or reckoned theirs. There is a holy birth of the second Adam, to take away the guilt of sin that we are born in: but such as are not washed by Christ from their sin, have no share in it.

The evidence of this is, that whoever have part in the holiness of Christ's birth by imputation, are really born again in their own persons: because Christ's holy birth is the efficient meritorious cause of the new birth of his members. Hence the apostle says, 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new." Colossians 2:11, "In whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ." Now, the unholy are not born again; therefore they have no part with Christ in his holy birth: and so they have nothing to answer the law's demand for holiness of nature.

2. Christ has lived a righteous life, in perfect obedience to the law's commands: Philip. 2:8, "He became obedient unto death." He did it as a public person: and all his have part with him in it; they obeyed in Christ, as they sinned in Adam, Romans 8:3, 4, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Hence are these epithets of the church, undefiled, without spot, complete in him. So the law's demand of obedience, as the condition of life, is answered as to them: their part in Christ's obedience answers it fully.

But the unholy have no part with Christ in the obedience of his life. For Christ's obedience being meritorious of our sanctification, the want of the latter is a plain evidence of no part in the former; and that upon the ground of justice, which requires the delivering of the thing purchased, upon the application of the price, Romans 8:1–4. If you have obeyed legally in Christ, you obey really in your own persons; for Christ's obedience has a conforming virtue in those to whom it is imputed, Romans 8:29, "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestine to be conformed to the image of his Son." 1 John 2:6, "He who says he abides in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." Inherent righteousness necessarily follows imputed righteousness. An unholy life argues no part in the holiness of Christ's life: therefore there is a bar between Heaven and the unholy.

3. He has suffered, to the full satisfaction of the law in its threatening and curse for sin, Philip. 2:8, "He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Galatians 3:13, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree." And Christ suffering as a public person, all that are his suffered in him, having part with him in his sufferings. They were legally crucified with him, Galatians 2:20, died with him, Romans 6:10, 11, and were buried with him, Colossians 2:12. So the law's demand of satisfaction is answered for them, since they have part with Christ.

But the unholy have no part with Christ in his sufferings. An undeniable evidence whereof is their not being conformed to him in his death, Philip. 3:10. The death of Christ will infallibly prove the death of sin, when one has part with Christ in it; Romans 6:6, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Galatians 5:24, "They that are Christ's, have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts." As sure as Christ died for the sins of the elect, they will die to sin that have communion with him in it: for as death made its way from the members to the head, until it laid him in the grave; so the merit of his death will make its way from the head to them to their sanctification. So that demand of the law lies on their heads unanswered.

4. He has brought in everlasting righteousness. In what he was, did, and suffered, he fully satisfied what the law had to demand, coming up, as a public person, to an exact conformity thereto. This is the righteousness he has wrought, sufficient to cover every sinner in the sight of God, and to render him accepted as righteous. All that are his have part with him in it, Psalm 45:13; Canticles 6:10; Revelation 3:18. So they that have a righteousness that is law-biding.

But the unholy have no part with him in it. For wherever righteousness imputed is on any man, inherent holiness is in him. By the former satisfying the law, the strength of sin is taken away: so that the man cannot be living in sin as formerly. Hence the, apostle says, Romans 6:2, "How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?"

Secondly, Christ has received the reward of his work; and so he as an inexhaustible treasure; and all that are his have part with him is it.

Christ is risen again from the dead. By the authority of the Father he is discharged from the grave; death is never to seize him more: Acts 2:24, "God raised him up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be held of it." And all his have part with him in his Resurrection: Ephesians 2:6, "God has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: forasmuch as he rose as a public person. But the unholy have no part with him in his resurrection. For,

1st, They are still dead in their sins, while they live in them. Where is there part then in Christ's resurrection? They that have part with him are risen with him, risen by virtue of his resurrection; the power of the resurrection of the head raising the members from death in sin, Colossians 2:12; and 3:1. Alas! the grave-clothes of the sins of the flesh, which you are not putting off, but keeping on, and the ties whereof are still as fast upon you as ever, speak you destitute of any part with Christ in this matter.

2dly, They are still members of the congregation of the dead, Ephesians 2:1, 2, 3. When our Lord rose, he left the congregation of the dead in their graves; yes, he conversed not with the world thereafter, as before his death. And so, whenever a soul gets part with Christ, it leaves the world lying in wickedness, comes out from among them, and walks no more according to the course of this world. Hence the apostle says, Romans 6:4, 5, "We are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death; we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." What shadow of ground have they then to pretend to a part with him, that are not walking in newness of life, but just according to the course of the world.

2. Christ is now ascended up into glory, where he sits at the Father's right hand, Mark 16:19. He ascended into it, as a public person, to take possession of it for us, Hebrews 6:20. And all his have part with him in it, as the members of the glory of the head: Ephesians 2:6, "God has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."

But the unholy have no part with him in it. For,

1st, They are yet lying in the filth of their natural state, through original and actual sin, Psalm 14:3; all over defiled, Titus 1:15. They may have worldly glory, outside glory, such as arises from bravery, wealth, and honor; yes they may glory in wickedness, that is really their shame. But there is no heavenly glory or any, but by sanctifying grace, 2 Corinthians 3:18; that only makes a glorious inside, Psalm 45:13; in so far as thereby the purity of the divine image is on the soul.

2dly, Neither is their heart there, nor are they making forward to it. Our Lord tells us, Matthew 6:21, that "where the treasure is, there will the heart be also." And therefore the apostle urges, Colossians 3:1, 2, to "seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God; to set our affection on things above, not on things on the earth." What part then have they with Christ in his glory, whose affections are not on things above, but on the earth, Philippians 3:19, "who mind earthly things?" They carry themselves as natives of the world, not as pilgrims in it. Their great aim is, to compass designs of worldly profits and pleasures, but not to be fitted for glory, 1 John 3:3.

3. Christ has the Spirit of life and holiness dwelling in him, as the head of his body mystical. So the Spirit of life is in him, to be communicated; and it is the purchase of his death, Revelation 3:1, "He has the seven Spirits; seven Spirits answerable to the seven golden candlesticks; enough to quicken and actuate them all. Hence he is said to quicken, John 5:21, 26. And all his have part with him therein, Philip. 2:1. The same Spirit that is in the head, is in the members too, in so much that "the Spirit of God dwells in them; and if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his."

But the unholy have no part with him in his Spirit For,

1st, He is the holy Spirit, "the Spirit of holiness," Romans 1:4; so called not only from the work of sanctification ascribed peculiarly to him, but from the holiness of his nature, in opposition to the unclean spirit, Mark 3:29, 30, to attest all the works of God without himself, whereof he is the immediate worker, to be holy. So that in whoever he dwells, and actuates, they must needs be made holy: Romans 8:2, "For the law of the Spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, has made them free from the law of sin and death." Since then the unholy are under the law of sin as the subjects thereof, and under the law of spiritual death, they have no part with Christ.

2dly, They have the spirit of the world in them, conforming them to the world, in their frame of heart, way, and walk, 1 John 4:4. It is an unclean, unholy spirit, whereby they cannot relish nor favor the holy things of God: but things that are fleshy, sensual, carnal, and earthly, Jude verse 19; not without a secret enmity at true holiness, Romans 8:7, and cannot hold on in the way of God, as Caleb did, Numbers 14:24.

3dly, They live in the state wherein Adam left them, without a saving change. 1 Corinthians 15:45, Adam was made "a living soul," but Christ "a quickening spirit." What men derive from Adam, they have; a natural life, a life of reason, gifts of knowledge, etc. But what men derive from Christ, they have not; they are not quickened by him with the Spirit of life unto God. But if they had part with Christ, they would be spiritually quickened souls; as sure as having part with Adam, they are living souls.

4. There is a fullness of grace in the man Christ: Colossians 1:19, "For it pleased the Father, that in him should all fullness dwell." John 1:14, "The Word was full of grace and truth." Grace is given him without measure, John 3:4; and all that are his partake with him in it, it being in him as in the storehouse; it is so poured on him as the head, that it runs down to the skirts of his garment, John 1:16.

But the unholy have no part with him in his grace. For,

1st, They are not partakers of the divine nature, that new nature which is derived from Christ, by the communication of grace from him by the Spirit into his mystical members, whereby they escape the corruption of the world, 2 Peter 1:4. Instead of that, the old nature reigns in them, which is enmity against God, and serious religion. The old man with his deeds is still in his vigor, has not yet got his deadly wound.

2dly, Whatever good or grace may seem to be in them, it is but in someone or few particulars. There are still several black buts in their religion; they never make thorough work of it, Psalm 119:6, They have not respect unto all God's commandments. For they are never made new creatures; though some things, yet never are all things become new with them: An evidence that they have no part in the grace of Christ; for then should they have grace for grace.

3dly, Hence they do not bear Christ's image: they are not like him, in the set of their spirit, and tenor of their walk: 1 John 2:6, "For he who says he abides in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." They look like the old Adam, sinful, sensual, and averse from God. But O how unlike the holy crucified Jesus, and how quite unconcerned to be like him, their own consciences bear witness. But the having part with Christ makes a person like him.

5 Lastly, Christ is anointed of the Father with the Spirit to be the Prophet, Priest, and King of his church. Hence he says himself, Isaiah 61:1. "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek, he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." And the apostle Peter says, Acts 10:38, that "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit, and with power; who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil: for God was with him." This is the honor put on him, to bear these offices, signified by his names Messiah and Christ, that is, anointed. And as he is Christ, all that are his are Christians, anointed with the same Spirit, Psalm 45:7, having part with him in his offices.

1st, Christ is a prophet: and all that are his, have part with him in his prophetic office, are prophets too, Psalm 105:15. They are let into the knowledge of the things of God by the Spirit. Hence the apostle says, 1 John 2:20, 27, "But you have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things. But the anointing which you have received of him, abides in you: and you need not that any man teach you: But, as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth and is no lie: and even as it has taught you, you shall abide in him." They are on the secret of Heaven: For (Psalm 25:14,) "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him: and he will show them his covenant," Matthew 11:25. And they teach them to others too, though they cannot make them effectual. Hence David says, Psalm 51:13, "I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners shall be converted unto you." Not only ministers, but every true Christian has this office; the former in a public, the latter in a private captivity, Philippians 2:15, 16.

But the unholy have no part with him in his prophetic office.

(1.) They are not illuminated by the Spirit of holiness, savingly to know the things of God, 1 Corinthians 2:12, 14. They may be taught by men, but are not taught of God: they may know the literal sense of the words of the gospel; but the things thereof in their suitableness to the divine perfections and sinner's case, are are hidden from them, Matthew 11:25. They never get into the secret of religion.

(2.) Neither do they by the Spirit of holiness enlighten the world. Being dark themselves, they darken the world by their ungodly, profane, or formal lives. Most of them see no tie on them to be their brother's keeper. Such as teach others the things of God, do it by a gift, for their own glory; not by the Spirit, out of love to Christ and his glory. So they have no part with him in his prophetic office.

2dly, He is a Priest: and all his have part with him in that venerable office. They are priests too, 1 Peter 2:9, a royal priesthood: Revelation 1:6, priests unto God. They are consecrated to God to serve him in his spiritual temple, in their robes of Christ's imputed righteousness and inherent holiness. They offer sacrifices of thanksgiving unto God, which are accepted of God through Christ, their only altar. They offer to him themselves, Romans 12:1, their service to him in acts of worship and duty, Hebrews 13:15; Acts 10:4, and in suffering or bearing the cross, Philip. 2:17; 2 Timothy 4:6.

But the unholy have no part with Christ in his priestly office.

(1.) They are not of the line, not descended from our great High Priest, as born of his Spirit. They were never truly consecrated, or made holy persons; they are destitute of imputed and implanted righteousness: they are wholly polluted and defiled, as being of the world lying in wickedness: so if they pretend to the spiritual priesthood, they will be, as polluted, put from it.

(2.) They do not, nor cannot offer acceptable sacrifices to God. They never offer themselves to God as a sacrifice, but to the world and their lusts. If they offer prayers or other services to him, they never offer them on the right altar, Christ. Hence they, and all they do, even their best things, are an abomination, Proverbs 28:9.

Lastly, Christ is a King: and all his have part with him in that honorable office. They are kings too, Revelation 1:6, "Kings unto God." They have the right of dominion over their spiritual enemies, the rule of their own spirits governing themselves by the laws of Christ, and the lordship of the world, Romans 4:13; and they are heirs of the kingdom of Heaven. They do not yet peaceably possess their kingdom; the rebels and their open enemies are making constant wars against them; but they do overcome, and are "more than conquerors, through him that loved them," 1 John 4:4; Romans 8:37.

But the unholy have no part with Christ in his kingly office.

They are servants and slaves to sin and Satan, Romans 6:16. They are under the power of Satan, Acts 26:18; led captive at his will, 2 Timothy 2:26. They have no gracious management of their own spirits, Proverbs 25:28. They are the servants of corruption; they can neither think nor do any service acceptable to God.

 

THE APPLICATION

I shut up all with some practical inferences.

INFERENCE 1. Holiness is absolutely necessary to happiness: for (Hebrews 12:14,) "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." You may be either poor or rich, sick or whole, and yet be happy. But if you be not holy, you are miserable; for you have no part with Christ, And, Acts 4:12, "There is no salvation in any other: for there is none other name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." It is astonishing to think, how easy many that hear the gospel are about holiness; they are in no concern whether they be holy or not. They would not have people to take them for saints; nay, holy people are a jest with them. There is no accounting for this any other way but that holiness is rare in the world, and they have no mind to be singular, nor to distinguish themselves from "the world lying in wickedness."

But consider these four things.

1. God is holy. The God that made you is holy by necessity of nature; he is so holy that he cannot be but holy. If God is necessarily holy, he cannot but hate unholiness; because be cannot but love his own image, and hate what is contrary to his nature: therefore he cannot but hate your unholiness, and for it hate you who are unholy. And what we hate as contrary to our nature, we seek to destroy. Now, consider the misery of being objects of God's hatred and aversion, and what makes you so; and you will see the necessity of your being holy, 1 Peter 1:16, "Be you holy," says the Lord, "for I am holy."

2. Christ our Savior is holy. As he is God, he is "the holy One of Israel;" as he is man, he is "that holy thing," Luke 1:35. Jesus is called "the holy One;" the very devils owned him to be so, Mark 1:24. The very end of his being Jesus, was to make men holy, Matthew 1:21, "You shall call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins." He came to destroy the works of the devil, he died to redeem sinners from their sins, Titus 2:14. What part then can you possibly imagine yourselves to have in him, while you continue unholy?

3. The body of Christ is holy; they that belong to him, the company of the saved, Ephesians 5:25, 26. The devil is the God of this world; his subjects are the world lying in wickedness. Out of them Christ raises his kingdom, and his subjects are all holy, Galatians 4:4; Revelation 19:14. It is their distinguishing badge from those that belong to Satan, that agrees to them all, and to them only, 2 Timothy 2:19. So that if you are not holy, you belong not to Christ, but to Satan.

4. Heaven is holy; it is a holy state, a holy place, where no unholy thing can enter, Revelation 21:27. As to the dogs and swine, their place will be without, Revelation 21:15, that is, the unholy, who "go with the dog to the vomit, and with the sow that was washed to the wallowing in the mire," shall be cast out from the supper of the saints in glory into outer darkness, Matthew 8:12.

INFERENCE 2. There is no true holiness, but in communion with Christ. Men may have a show and semblance of holiness, without union and communion with Christ. But real holiness acceptable to God, no man attains but in Christ, being sanctified only with his blood, by his Spirit, through faith; made new creatures after his image, by participation of the all-fullness of grace in him, as at large declared, 1 Corinthians 1:2; Ephesians 2:10; 1 Peter 1:2; Acts 26:18.

And therefore holiness is quite another thing, than,

1. Common civility. A man may be civil, not rude, but courteous, discreet, and obliging in his conversation; and yet be a stranger to holiness. This was the case of the young man, of whom, "when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, You are not far from the kingdom of God," Mark 12:34. There are some rude persons that bear the devil's mark on their foreheads, who behave themselves neither according to the rules of grace nor good manners: some professors that affect and pride themselves in rudeness, regarding no body, nor their offence, but only to please themselves. Such would do well to consider, whether that be consistent with real holiness or not. The reason of the doubt, is the second great command of the law, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Howbeit, civility is not holiness, though a part of the matter of it.

2. Morality, whether we understand by it common honesty in dealings in the world; or a conformity to the letter of the law, which makes a blameless outward conversation, and goes under the name of moral virtue, but has no relation to Christ and his Spirit. Men may have all this, and not be holy; as had the Pharisee, Luke 18:11, who "stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican." This was also the case of Paul, Philippians 3:6, "Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless." These fruits are in many like the apples of Sodom, which are fair to look at, but when handled fall to ashes.

3. A form of godliness, 2 Timothy 3:5. There may be the going the round of the external duties of religion, where there is no holiness: for these may be done by them that are without Christ, Luke 18:12; Matthew 5:20; Isaiah 58:2, 3; though many place all their religion in these things, as if they pray, communicate, etc. to be concerned no more to be holy.

All these differ from true holiness,

1st, In the original and spring of them. True holiness springs from union with Christ, the Spirit applying the blood of Christ to the soul, received by faith, improving the word, sacraments, and afflictions. The Spirit is the efficient cause, the blood the meritorious cause, and faith the instrumental cause of true sanctification. But these others have a far lower rise. They are the effect of good education and breeding; of unsanctified consideration of their own circumstances and worldly interest, that oblige many to take up themselves, and live regularly; of fear and hope; of respect to credit and reputation; and in some, of legal convictions.

2dly, In the subject of them. Holiness diffuses itself through the whole man, inward and outward, 2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:23. These are mere plasterings of the outward man, while enmity against God, raucour against serious godliness, and reigning power of lusts in the heart, do remain in their native force, and the old man bears full sway within; as appears in the Pharisees. They make a new life, but they leave the old nature unhealed, unrenewed.

3dly, In the extent of them. True holiness extends to all the Lord commands and forbids, Psalm 119:6; for the whole law is written in the heart, Hebrews 8:10; and so they are holy in all manner of conversation. These never take in more than some shreds of the law; such men never set themselves to conform to it in its spirituality. They quite neglect many of the duties thereof; they consider them not, or they despise them: for they have no mind to take more of them, than makes for their purpose.

Lastly, In the nature and kind of them. True holiness is a cluster of the fruits of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22, "Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." They are acts of moral discipline, which have self-love in an unrenewed heart, not the love of God in a renewed heart, for their principle. The reason of them is not the will of God; for reasons of their own they do so, but not because God commands it. They do not their works in faith of the promise of assistance from Heaven, nor of acceptance for Christ's sake; but out of their own stock, little valuing whether they be accepted or no; or if they do, looking for acceptance on their intriusic worth. Their end is not the glory of God, and to express their gratitude; but as they come from self, so they are swallowed up in self.

INFERENCE 3. Vain are the pretenses of the unholy to part with Christ; for no unwashed sinner has part with the holy Jesus. They do but deceive themselves in their pretending thereto; and the deceit will out on them to their eternal confusion, if they see it not timely. Here consider,

1. Who are unwashed sinners; and,

2. The state of unwashed sinners, as having no part with Christ.

1. Consider who are unwashed sinners. In the general,

1st, Those who have not yet escaped the pollutions of the world in the outward man, but in the course of their lives are conform to the world lying in wickedness, Psalm 24:3, 4; Galatians 5:19–21. How can they pretend to be washed, on whom the gross filth of sin is still lying visible in their outward life and conversation? Men may escape that, and yet not be truly washed; escape and yet be intangled again by apostasy. Let none such pretend to have part in Christ, 2 Peter 2:20, 21, for Christ will disown them.

2dly, They that have no apparent beauty of holiness on them, 1 Thessalonians 5:5. Men deceive themselves in despising the appearance of holiness, scorning to appear holy. That is but a peace of fashionable contempt of religion, poured on it in compliance to an ungodly world, and a naughty heart: for wherever grace is in the heart, it will shine forth in the life, Matthew 6:22; Philip. 2:15, 16. And though men may appear holy, who are not so; yet no man can be holy that has no appearance of it. If there is any religion at at all in the world, it must be among them that have an appearance of it, and not among those that have not.

More particularly, they are yet unwashed by Christ,

1st, Who have never yet had the glass of the law held to their face, in a work of conviction of the sinfulness of their nature, heart, and life, John 16:8. Christ washes none until he has discovered to them their pollution. For until then they will never see their need of washing. He washes by the word, as by its light it convinces of defilement, points out the cleanness to be aimed at, and sets the soul astir anxiously to seek it.

2dly, Who have not yet got a view of the filthiness, loathsomeness, and abominable nature of sin, Ezekiel 36:31. Men's consciences may be fired with a sense of the guilt of sin; so as they may be brought to cast it out as a coal that would burn them; that yet are blind to the filth of sin, and see not how it defiles them. This appears, in that if they could be but safe from wrath, they would never part with sin.

3dly, Who have not yet been made willing to be made clean. None are washed against their will, Jeremiah 13:27. And there is need of a day of power to make willing, Psalm 110:3. Men naturally love to be still in the pollution of their sin, as the sow to wallow in the mire. They are as loath to be brought away, as fishes to come out of the water. Nay, there is in every unregenerate man, a heart enmity against holiness, Romans 8:7. The heart spits its venom against it. They are not only not fond of it, but they hate it: A certain indication, that they are void of it.

4thly, Who have never yet felt an absolute need of Christ, his blood and Spirit, for their sanctification; and so have not yet come to Christ by faith for it, Hosea 5:13; Psalm 51:2; and 65:3. There is no washing but by Christ, and in union with him: therefore they who have not come to Christ for sanctification, whatever pains they have been at to wash themselves, are yet unwashed.

2. Consider the state of unwashed sinners as having no part with Christ. Having no part with Christ,

1st, They have no part in the favor of God, Ephesians 2:12. They are "without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." They are yet in a state of enmity with God; for he only is our peace, and the only way to the Father. All their sins, original and actual, in the guilt of them, do yet lie upon them: there is not one item blotted out of their account. For God gives no pardons, but to sinners in Christ: they must meet him there who would be pardoned or reconciled, 2 Corinthians 5:19.

2dly, They are loathsome in God's sight; his soul abhors them as abominable, Titus 1:15. No sinner can be savory in God's sight, but by the sweet-smelling savor of Christ's sacrifice upon them. The smell of Jacob was sweet to Isaac, in the goodly clothing of his elder brother: and sinners are savory to God, only in Christ, 2 Corinthians 2:15. While the sinner has no part with Christ, the filth of all his sin, original and actual, lies on him; and there is nothing on him to master the filthy savor arising therefrom.

3dly, They have no part with the family of God, but with "the world lying in wickedness, 1 John 1:3, and 5:19, "They are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world," being without Christ, Ephesians 2:12. They have no right to the privileges of God's children; for none can have that but in the right of Christ as his head. What is the state of the world lying in wickedness, is their state. They are under God's wrath, and the curse of the law.

Lastly, They shall have no part with the saints in light, but their part will be with sinners in outer darkness, Colossians 1:12, 13; Revelation 22:15. One who has no part with Christ here, will have no part in Heaven hereafter for none can come there, but in and through him. They will have their part in "the lake which burns with fire and brimstone," Revelation 21:8.

INFERENCE 4, Lastly, The way to be washed from sin, and made holy, is to get part with Christ by faith.

1. Think not that you must first be holy, before you can have part with Christ: but you must first have that part with Christ, before you can be holy, as appears from what is said. The former is as absurd as to say, the sick must be cured before he come to the physician, and the filthy washed before he come to the waters. Hence,

(1.) Your unholiness cannot bar you from getting part with Christ.

(2.) The first step to holiness is to believe.

2. This is a sure way to holiness; it cannot misgive. For hereby the sick are put in the hand of the physician, the filthy in the laver. The sinner united to Christ, most needs partake of his blood and Spirit: as through our relation to Adam we are defiled, so by our relation to Christ we come to be sanctified.

3. Lastly, This is the only way, as being of God's appointment. The sanctification of a sinner is above the power of nature, not to be reached by natural endeavors; they have not that word of appointment.