United States or Vatican City ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But yet, 1. These very souls shall be counted by the church, yea, by Christ himself, for virgins; that is, such as had not defiled their profession. 2. And will be such virgins as have, and hold every one her lamp, even as the wise themselves. 3. Such virgins as were, every one of them gone forth from the pollutions of this evil world. 4.
"For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning."
Now Christ being the way to the Father, both as to justification, in taking away the enmity, in changing our state, and removing our unrighteousness and guilt, whereby we were lying under the sentence of the law, adjudging such sinners as we are to hell; and as to sanctification, in cleansing us from all our pollutions, renewing our souls, washing away our spots and defilements, &c.
Thus they would roll the work on him, and leave it there. First, The believer would in all this work be kept in the exercise of these graces following: 1. Of humility; seeing what a vile, filthy wretch he is, that stands in need of washing and purging daily, because of his daily pollutions and transgressions.
Men also, who, by means of God's Holy Spirit, have escaped the pollutions of the world, are in a fit state to understand the mysteries of God, and to carry with them the seal of their own commission. Thus men under sin can never discern spiritual things. But "to the disciples of Christ," and to the doers of his will, "it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven."
The soul also now is killed to his own righteousness, and counts that but dung, but dross, not worth the dirt hanging on his shoes. O! then, says he, thou filthy righteousness! how hast thou deceived me! How hast thou beguiled my poor soul! How did I deceive myself with giving of a little alms; with abstaining from some gross pollutions; with walking in some ordinances, as to the outside of them!
I know our moralists look upon themselves as matchless, in talking of following his steps as he hath left us an example; in this they make a flourishing with flanting effrontery, but for all their boasting of wisdom, such a poor simple man as I, am made to wonder at their folly, who proposing, as they say, the purity of Christ as their pattern, are not even thence convinced, that in order to a conformity thereto, there is a simple and absolute necessity of the mighty operations of that Spirit of God, whereby this end can be reached; but while they flout at the Spirit's working as a melancholy fancy, whereby the soul is garnished with the beauty of holiness, and made an habitation for God, I doubt not to say of these great sayers, that they understand neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm; nay, doth not the talking of the one, not only without seeing the necessity of the other, but speaking against it, say in the heart of every one, who hath not the heart of a beast, that they have never yet got a sight of the holiness of that pattern, nor of their own pollutions and impotency; for if they had, they would give themselves up to Jesus Christ to be washed by him, without which they can have no part with him.
Here we see the highest contradictions reconciled, here justice kisseth the sinner, here a man stands just in the sight of God while confounded at his own pollutions, and here he that hath done no good hath yet a sufficient righteousness, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ. Second. The JUSTICE of God is here more seen than in punishing all the damned.
But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Would that be an ignoble life?
Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world. 19. Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: 20. But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. 21.
Word Of The Day