art of you have no employment for Christ; ye have extreme
need of him, but ye know it not, for there are many things which ye will
not number among your sins,--your prayers, your hearing, reading, singing,
public and private worship, giving alms, &c. How many of you were never
convinced of any sin in these! Do ye not conceive God is well-pleased with
you for them? Your conscience hath convinced you, it may he, of gross
sins, as drunkenness, filthiness, swearing, &c. But ye are not convinced
for your well doing, ye find not a necessity of a Mediator for these. I
think many of you never confessed any such thing, except in a general
notion. Alas, how ignorant are men of themselves! We are unclean, how
can any thing we do cleanse us? Are not we unclean, and do not our hands
touch our own works? Shall not then our own uncleanness defile our good
actions, more than they can cleanse us? Hag. ii. 13. The ignorance of
this makes men go about to build up their old ruined righteousness, and
still seek something in themselves, to make up wants in themselves.
Always, when the light of God hath discovered you to yourselves, so that
ye can turn your eye nowhere, but uncleanness fills it, though your
conversation be blameless in the world, so as men can challenge nothing
yet ye have found within and without nothing, but matter of mourning, I
say, this is an evidence that the Spirit hath sinned and enlightened thy
darkness. Now, when thou hast fled unto Jesus Christ for a covering to
thy righteousness, as well as unrighteousness, it remains that thou now
put away the evil of thy doings,--put not away thy doings, but the evil of
them. We challenge your prayers, services, and public duties, even as the
prophet did we declare unto you that God is as ill pleased with them, as
your drunkenness, whoring, intemperance, &c. The most part of you are no
more acceptable when ye come to the church, than when ye go to the
tavern,--your praying and cursing is almost all one. What shall we do
then, say ye? Shalt we pray no more, and hear no more? No, say I, put not
away your prayers and ordinances, but put away the evil of them from
before his sight. Rather multiply your doings, but destroy the evil and
iniquity of your doings. And there is one evil or two above all, that
makes them hateful to him: ye trust too much in them. Here is the
iniquity, the idol of jealousy set up: ye make your doings your
righteousness, and in that notion they