4. Hence also is manifest the necessity there is of continual ap- 2jlicatio7is to Jesus Christ for cleansing virtue from his Spirit, and the sprinkling of his blood on our consciences, in the efficacy of it, to purge them from dead works. We defile ourselves every day, and if we go not every day to the "fountain that is open for sin and for uncleanness," we shall quickly be all over leprous. Our con- sciences will be filled with dead works, so that we shall no way be able to serve the living God, unless they are daily purged out. How this is done hath been at large before declared. When a soul, filled with self-abasement under a sense of its own defilements, applies itself unto Christ by faith for cleansing, and that constantly and continually, with a fervency answering its sense and convictions, it is in its way and proper course. I am persuaded no true believer in the world is a stranger unto this duty; and the more any one abounds therein, the more genuine is his faith evidenced to be, and the more humble is his walk before the Lord.
But it may justly be inquired, after all that we have discoursed
4G4 THE riLTPI OF SIN PURGED [BOOK IV.
upon this subject concerning the defilement of sin, how, if it be so, believers can be united unto Jesus Christ, or be members of that mystical body whereof he is the head, or obtain fellowship with him; for whereas he is absolutely ^tM'e, holy, and perfect, how can he have union or communion with them who are in any thing defiled ? There is no fellowship between righteousness and unright- eousness, no communion between light and darkness, and what can there be between Christ and those that are defiled with sin? and be- cause he is " holy, harmless, and undefiled," he is said to be " sepa- rate from sinners."
Many things must be returned unto this objection, all concurring to take away the seeming difficulty that is in it ; as, —
1. It must be granted that where men are wholly under the power of their original defilement, they neither have nor can have either union or communion with Christ. With respect unto such persons the rules before mentioned are universally true and certain. There is no more communion between them and Jesus Christ than is be- tween light and darkness, as the apostle speaks expressly, 1 John i. 6. Whatever profession they may make of his name, whatever expectations they may unduly raise from him in their own minds, he will say unto them at the last day, " Depart from me, I never knew you." No person, therefore, whatever, who hath not been made partaker of the washing of regeneration and the renovation of the Holy Ghost, can possibly have any union with Christ. I do not speak this as though our purifying were in order of time and nature antecedent unto our union with Christ, for indeed it is an effect thereof; but it is such an effect as immediately and inseparably accompanieth it, so that where the one is not, there is not the other. The act whereby he unites us unto himself is the same with that whereby he cleanseth our natures.
2. Whatever our defilements are or may be, he is not defiled by them. They adhere only unto a capable subject, which Christ is not. He was capable to have the guilt of our sins imputed to him, but not the filth of one sin adhering to him. A member of a body may have a putrefied sore; the head may be troubled at it and grieved with it, yet is not defiled by it. Wherefore, where there is a radical, original cleansing by the Spirit of regeneration and holi- ness, Avhereby any one is meet for union and communion with Christ, however he may be affected with our partial pollutions, he is not de- filed l)y them. He is able cu/i^ra^^ca/, " compati, condolere ;" he suffers with us in his compassion; — but he is not liable ffu^^oXuvsff^a/, to be defiled with us or for us. The visible mystical body of Christ may be defiled by corrupt members, Heb. xii. 15; but the mystical body cannot be so, much less the head.
CHAP, v.] BY THE SPIRIT AND BLOOD OF CHRIST. 465
8, The design of Christ, when he takes behevers into union with himself, is to purge and cleanse them absolutely and perfectly; and therefore the present remainders of some defilements are not abso- lutely inconsistent with that union. " He gave himself for the church, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish," Eph. v. 25-27. This he aims at, and this he will, in his own way and in his own time, perfectly accom- plish. But it is not done at once ; it is a progressive work, that hath many degrees. God did never sanctify any soul at once, unless by death. The body must die by reason of sin. Every believer is truly and really sanctified at once, but none is perfectly sanctified at once. It is not, therefore, necessary unto union that we should be completely sanctified, though it is that we shoidd be truhj sanctified. Complete sanctification is a necessary effect of union in its proper time and season. See John xv. 1-5.