them who have given their black souls to Jesus to bleach, when he shall
present them without spot, not only clothed with wrought gold, but all
glorious within, and those who have never dipped, yea, who have despised
to dip their defiled souls in any other fountain, save in the impure
puddle of their own performances. This will make them loathsome in his
sight, and cause his soul abhor those who have done this despite unto
the Spirit of grace, as to slight that blessed fountain, opened for sin
and for uncleanness, let them pretend as high as they will, to look to
him as a pattern; while, because the plague-sore is gone up in their
eye, they look not to him as a price, nor to the grace of Jesus Christ,
as that which can only principle any acceptable performance of duty, he
will plunge them in the ditch, and it will cost them their souls, for
rejecting the counsel of God against themselves, in not making use of
him who came by water as well as by blood.

3. This gospel holiness respects Christ as the altar. It is in him, and
for him, that his soul is well pleased with our performance--this is the
altar upon which thou must lay thy gift, and leave it, without which thy
labour is lost, and whatsoever thou dost is loathed, as a corrupt thing.
As believers draw all their strength from him, so they expect acceptance
only through him, and for him. They do not look for it, but in the
Beloved; they dare not draw near to God in duty, but by him. This is
the new and living way which is consecrate for them; and if such, who
offer to come to God, do not enter in hereat, instead of being admitted
to a familiar converse with God, they shall find him a consuming fire.
When the saints have greatest liberty in prayer, and so of all other
performances, when their hearts are most lifted up in the ways of the
Lord, they abhor at thinking their prayer can any otherways be set forth
before him as incense, or the lifting up of their hands as the evening
sacrifice, but as presented by the great intercessor, and perfumed by