cannot any of them subsist, save in men's deluded imagination.
The end of washing in the blood of Christ is, that we may come to this
light, and have fellowship with it. For the darkness of hell, the utter
darkness of the curse of God, which overspreads the unbelieving soul, and
eclipses all the light of God's countenance from him,--that dark and thick
cloud of guiltiness, that heap of unrenewed conversation, this, I say,
must be removed by the cleansing of the blood of Christ, and then the soul
is admitted to enjoy that light, and walk in it. And it is removed chiefly
for this end, that there may be no impediment in the way of this
fellowship. This blood cleanseth, that you, being cleansed, may henceforth
walk in purity, and there is no purity like that of the light of God's
countenance and commands. And so you are washed in the blood of Christ,
that you may walk in the light of God, and take heed that you defile not
your garments again. But if so be, (and certainly it will be, considering
our weakness,) that you defile yourselves again, like foolish children
who, after they have washed, run to the puddle again, forgetting that they
were cleansed, if either your daily infirmities trouble, or some grosser
pollution defile and waste your conscience, know that this blood runs all
along in the same channel of your obligation to holy walking, and is as
sufficient now as ever, to cleanse you from all sin, from sins of daily
incursion, and sins of a grosser nature. There is no exception in that
blood, let there be none in your application to it and apprehension of it.
Now, this is not to give boldness to any man to sin, or continue in sin,
because of the lengthened use and continued virtue and efficacy of the
blood of Christ, for if any man draw such a result from it, and improve it
to the advantage of his flesh, he declares himself to have no portion in
it, never to have been washed by it. For what soul can in sobriety look
upon that blood shed by the Son of God, to take away the sins of the
world, and find an emboldening to sin from that view? Who can wash and
cleanse here, and presently think of defilement, but with indignation?

I speak these things the rather, because there is a twofold
misapprehension of the gospel among Christians, and on both hands much
darkness and stumbling is occasioned. We have poor narrow spirits, and do
not take entire truth in its full comprehension, and so we are as unfit
and unequal discerners