ee uncleanness, go up to the fountain head, original corruption, go down
to all the streams, even the iniquity of holy things. Let every man be
particular in the search of his own provocations personal, and every one
be public in the general sins of the land, that you may confess out of
knowledge and sense, "We are all unclean," &c.

Sermon XVIII.

Isaiah lxiv. 7.--"And there is none that calleth upon thy name,
that stirreth up himself to take hold on thee," &c.

They go on in the confession of their sins. Many a man hath soon done with
that a general notion of sin is the highest advancement in repentance that
many attain to. You may see here sin and judgment mixed in thorough
other(315) in their complaint. They do not so fix their eyes upon their
desolate estate of captivity, as to forget their provocations. Many a man
would spend more affection, and be more pathetic in the expression of his
misery, when it is pungent, nor he can do when he speaketh of his sins. We
would observe, from the nature of this confession, something to be a
pattern of your repentance. And it is this. When the Spirit convinceth,
and men are serious in repentance, then the soul is more searching, more
universal, more particular in acknowledgment of sins. These are characters
of the Spirit's work.

_First_, The Spirit discovereth unto men, not only sin, but the
loathsomeness of sin, its heinous nature, how offensive it is to God's
holy eye. Many of you know abundance of evil deeds, and call them sins,
but you have never taken up sin's ugly face, never seen it in the glass of
the holy law, uncleanness itself, because you do not abhor yourselves.
Poor and low thoughts of God make mean and shallow thoughts of sin. You
should be as Job, vile, chap. xl. 4, and abhor yourselves in dust and
ashes, chap. xlii. 6. As God's holiness grew great in your eyes, sins
uncleanness would grow proportionably, Isa. vi. 3, 5. And here your
repentance halteth in the very entry.

But, _secondly_, The Spirit discovereth not only the uncleanness of men's
natures, and leadeth them up to original corruption, but the Spirit also
leadeth men along all the streams, not only those that break out, but
those which go under ground, and have a more secret and subtile
conveyance. It concludeth not only open breaches of the command under
filthiness, but also all a man's own righteousness, though never so
refined, it concludeth it also a defiled garment, so that