thinks himself clean? Then certainly the most part are in a great
delusion. Will ye then once examine whether or not ye be deluded with
them? It shall be your peace to know it, while it may be amended. But how
comes it to pass, that so many hearing of the gospel, and lying near this
fountain, are not cleansed? I think certainly, because they will not have
a thorough cleansing, they get none at all. All men would love Christ's
blood well to pardon sin, but who will accept of the water to sanctify
them from sin? But Christ came with both. Shall this blood be spent upon
numbers of you, who have no respect to it, but would still wallow in your
filthiness? Would ye have God pardoning these sins ye never throughly
resolved to quit? But how is it that so many men are clean in their own
eyes, and yet not washed? I think indeed, the reason of it is, they make a
kind of washing, which they apprehend sufficient, and yet know not the
true fountain. We find men taking much soap and nitre, when convinced of
sin, or charged with it, and thereupon soon absolving themselves. If ye
ask their grounds, they will tell you, they repent and are sorry for it;
they purpose to make amends, and they think amendment a good compensation
for the past wrong. They will, it may be, vow to drink no more for a year
after they have been drunk; they will confess their sin in public, and all
this they do without having any thought of Jesus Christ, or the end of his
coming, and can absolve themselves from such grounds, though in the mean
time Christ come not so much as in their mind; and therefore are they not
really washed. All thy righteousness is unclean before God, and thy
repentances defile thee: and yet because of some such duties, though
deceivest thyself, and are clean in thine own eyes. These have some beauty
in thy eyes, and thou puttest them between thy filthiness and thy eye, and
so conceivest that thou art clean. I think a reason also, why many men are
clean in their own eyes, and conceive that God hath pardoned their sin, is
because they have forgotten it. It is not recent in their memory, and
makes no present wound in their conscience: and therefore, they apprehend
God such as themselves,--they think he hath forgotten about it also. But
oh! how terrible shall it be, when God brings to remembrance, and sets our
sins in order before us! Ye think God cares not for your sins, that he
forgives them before thee, and thou shalt know they are still marke