William Romaine, The more I know of myself the more I am led to loathe myself, and to repent in dust and ashes; for I am a sinner, filthy and abominable altogether; by nature as vile as sin can render a fallen creature, and daily polluting myself in heart and life with fresh impurities. I have no means of cleansing myself; no hope, that anything in the creation can do it for me. Deep in my very constitution, the stain remains! and I am forced to be crying out–Unclean, unclean. My ease would be quite desperate, if God himself had not provided a remedy, the report of which has come to mine ears in the gospel. O it is blessed news. I welcome it to my heart; that God has opened a fountain which cleanseth from all sin. He has recommended it to me, as having infinite virtue and everlasting efficacy to cleanse. And I have a command from heaven, vile and filthy as I am, to make use of it; for thus it is written–” In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.”
When the Holy Spirit enables the sinner to believe the report and to mix faith with it, then he has a warrant thus to pray: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God! and renew a right spirit within me.”
And the Lord hears and answers the prayer in these words:
“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you; a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh: and I will put my Spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them; I will also save you from all your uncleannesses.”
