CONSIDERATIONS SEASONABLE AT ALL TIMES FOR CLEANSING THE HEART AND LIFE. 1. OF God, and therein, 1. Of his purity and holiness, one that cannot endure to behold iniquity. The ftars are not pure in his 'fight'.' And his angels he chargeth with folly 2.' How then canft thou think to draw near to the Holy God, when thy heart, and thy lips, and thy life, are clothed with impurity and filthinefs? when thy thoughts, the only inftruments whereby thou canst converse with him, are bufied in confiderations unworthy of a fpirit, much more unworthy of the God of fpirits? Canft thou think that this holy God will accept of the productions of that foul, thy prayers and meditations, who but now was employed in base unclean earthly thoughts, and didst but now part with them with a refolution to resume them? Every impure thought leaves a mark and blot upon thy foul, that remains when thy thought is paffed; and canft thou bring that spotted foul into the prefence of the pure and holy God without confufion and fhame? Thou art now going about with thy lips to draw near unto God; remember how many vain and unprofit able words, how many murmuring and unthankful words, how many unclean and filthy words, how many false and diffembling words, how many proud and arrogant words, how many malicious and vindictive words, how many hypocritical and deceitful words, 1 Job xxv. 5. Job xv. 15. Job iv. 18. how how many feducing and misleading words, how many ungodly and blafphemous words have ftained and polluted thofe calves of thy lips, thou art now about to facrifice to thy Creator. Thou art about to undertake a converfation and walking with God. • Can two walk together unless they are agreed ". How then canft thou, a polluted man in all thy actions, even thofe of the best denomination, expect to have a converfation with the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord? The ftains of thy life paft ftick upon thee, and thou art not cleanfed from them; and the fea of corruption that is within thee will, notwithstanding thy highest refolutions, never ceafe to caft out mire and dirt. O Lord, it is true, I am a finful man, and the whole frame of my heart, and lips, and life, hath 'been only evil, and that continually and as I have been, fo ftill I must continue, without Thy mercy to pardon and cleanfe me. My pollutions and impuri'ties are fuch as may justly affright me from coming near Thy holiness, left I fhould be confumed; fuch as 'may difcourage my prayers and applications unto 'Thee, left I should stain and infect them: and it is no more in my power to change or cleanfe myself from the ftains of my fins paft, or from the growing evils of my nature, than in the leopard to change his fpots; fo that I may moft justly conclude, that it were extreme prefumption for me to draw near unto Thee, and rather cry out with the difciple, Depart 'from me, O Lord, for I am a finful man 2. But if 'I fit where I am, I fhall perifh; and if I draw near unto Thee, I can but die. That purity that I behold in Thee, is the purity of the great God; and my fins are the fins of a finite creature: my finfulness cannot ' defile Thy holiness, but Thy holinefs may cleanse my impurity that fire which will confume an impure and a proud heart, will cleanse an impure and un'humble heart. O Lord, I defire to abhor myself in ' dust and ashes. Unless Thou hadft fhewn me my 6 'filthinefs 'filthinefs, I could not have feen it; and unless Thy Grace had been with my heart, I could not have humbled myself before Thee: unless thou hadst called me, I could not have moved towards Thee. Thy promifes, upon which my foul fhall ever fix till Thou throw me off, are full of bounty and tenderness C even to the vileft of finners; no fin of fo deep a dye 'but thy mercy can wash away; no corruption fo hideous, but Thy grace can cleanfe. And fo far haft "Thou condefcended to the weakness of Thy creature, ❝ that Thou haft given us a visible facrifice, whose blood 'is fufficient to cleanfe us from all our guilt, a visible fountain to wafh for fin and for uncleanness, even the Blood of the Son of God, which cleanseth us 'from all fin, which cleanfeth our confciences from the guilt and ftain of fin, and washeth our bodies from the dominion and pollution of fin; and by that "blood hath opened a new and living way for us into the prefence of God 1, and given access thereby into the holieft, and given us a commiffion to draw near ' with acceptation into his prefence 2. 2. The prefence of God. 'Whither shall I fly from 'thy prefence?' He feeth the fecreteft corners of the world, and the fecreteft chambers of thy heart, and all the guests that are there, even thy closest thoughts and contrivances and purposes, much more thy moft retired and deepest actions, are as legible to him as if they were graved in brafs. And the deep and fettled and frequent confideration of this, will be of excellent ufe upon all occafions. Is thy heart folicited by thyfelf (as our unhappy hearts are our own tempters) or by any object, or by the perfuafions of others, or by the fuggeftion of the Devil, to impure fpeculations, or finful refolutions, to atheistical difputations, to proud or arrogant conceptions of thyfelf, to revengeful or uncharitable or forbidden wifhes, to vain and unprofitable thoughts? remember thou and all thofe thy thoughts (which 3 Psal. cxxxix. 7. Hebr. x. 20. 2 Hebr. x. 19. |