But these proposals were
reckoned unseasonable and impracticable, tending rather to kindle
contention, than compose division, and so were thrown over their bar.
The generality of these men were so plunged and puddled in the ditch of
defection and apostasy, that they could not think of the drudgery of
cleansing themselves in God's way, by a particular and public confession
of, and humiliation for their own and the land's public sins, but chose
rather to sit down filthy and polluted as they were, and presume, in the
midst of their abominations unrepented of, to approach God's holy
things, which, how provoking to heaven, let God in his word be judge,
_Isa._ lii, 11; _Hag._ ii, 13, 14; 2 _Chr._ xxx, 3; _Ezek._ xliv, 10.
Nay, it is but too, too evident, that for this cause, God then laid them
under that awful sentence, _Rev._ xxii, 11: "Him that is filthy, let him
be filthy still;" or that, _Isa._ xxii, 14. For as their hearts were
then hardened against God's call by his word and providence to that
important and most necessary duty; so, ever since, they, have been so
much the more so, and have gone on from evil to worse.
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