Leviticus 13

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XIII.—In this filthy distemper, for which no cure but the power of God is prescribed, with shame and confusion of face I behold the penal, the dreadful, the defiling, the spreading and obstinate, nature of reigning corruptions; and how they exclude from fellowship with God and his people! Jealous of myself, it becomes me to present my heart and my ways before my all-seeing High Priest, that he may search and try me. If he find me pining away in mine iniquity; wilfully increasing unto more ungodliness; depending on self-righteousness as the ground of my acceptance with God; habitually disposed to rage at reproof; fixed in gross heresy, or given to boast of that which is plainly sinful; I am certainly a leper, a servant of sin: and let me, with the deepest agony and grief, bewail my condition, while by faith I apply to him, for his word only can effect the cure, and his grace relieve the misery. If he find in me the opposite marks of real grace, particularly a deep sense of universal filthiness in heart and life, still let me wash myself in Jesus’ blood, on account of my remaining corruptions and daily infirmities.—Let me submit to his trial the garments of my conversation, that he may purge out what is ‘amisa; and save my soul, though my works should be burnt up.—Let ministers learn with what tenderness and exact attention to God’s prescriptions they should judge of the states of others, in order either to admit them to, or exclude them from, the seals of God’s covenant