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The Defilement of Sin - by John Owen
"We are not able of ourselves, without the especial aid, assistance, and operation
of the Spirit of God, in any measure or degree to free ourselves from this pollution,
neither that which is natural and habitual nor that which is actual. It is true,
it is frequently prescribed unto us as our duty, - we are commanded to 'wash
ourselves,' to 'cleanse ourselves from sin,' to 'purge ourselves' from all our
iniquities, and the like, frequently; but to suppose that whatever God requireth
of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of
Jesus Christ of none effect. Our duty is our duty, constituted unalterably by the
law of God, whether we have power to perform it or no, seeing we had so at our first
obligation by and unto the law, which God is not obliged to bend unto conformity
to our warpings, nor to suit unto our sinful weaknesses. Whatever, therefore,
God worketh in us in a way of grace, he prescribeth unto us in a way of duty, and
that because although he do it in us, yet he also doth it by us, so as that the
same work is an act of his Spirit and of our wills as acted thereby. Of ourselves,
therefore, we are not able, by any endeavors of our own, nor ways of our own finding
out, to cleanse ourselves from the defilement of sin. 'If I be wicked,' saith Job,
'why then labor I in vain? If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands
never so clean, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall
make me to be abhorred,' chap. ix. 29-31. There may be ways and means used whereby
an appearance of washing and cleansing may be made; but when things come to be tried
in the sight of God, all will be found filthy and unclean. In vain, saith the prophet,
shalt thou take thyself soap and much nitre, thou shalt not be purged, Jer. ii. 22.
The most profitable means of cleansing, and the most effectual in our judgment,
however multiplied, shall fail in this case. Some speak much of 'washing away their
sins by the tears of repentance;' but repentance as prescribed in the Scripture
is of another nature, and assigned unto another end. And for men's tears in this
matter, they are but 'soap and nitre,' which, howsoever multiplied, will not produce
the effect intended; and therefore doth God, in places of Scripture innumerable,
take this to himself as the immediate effect of his Spirit and grace, -namely, to
'cleanse us from our sins and our iniquities.'"
- taken from the Works of John Owen volume 3 pg. 433
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