without the perfect conformity to him, herein do they exercise themselves to grow in grace, and to be still advancing towards some more likeness to his image, forgetting all their attainments, as things that are behind, and by their Teachings forth unto that which is before, make it evident that they make every begun degree of grace and conformity to God, a prevenient capacity for a new degree which yet they have not attained.  I know our moralists look upon themselves as matchless, in talking of following his steps as he hath left us an example; in this they make a flourishing with flanting effrontery, but for all their boasting of wisdom, such a poor simple man as I, am made to wonder at their folly, who proposing, as they say, the purity of Christ as their pattern, are not even thence convinced, that in order to a conformity thereto, there is a simple and absolute necessity of the mighty operations of that Spirit of God, whereby this end can be reached; but while they flout at the Spirit’s working as a melancholy fancy, whereby the soul is garnished with the beauty of holiness, and made an habitation for God, I doubt not to say of these great sayers, that they understand neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm; nay, doth not the talking of the one, not only without seeing the necessity of the other, but speaking against it, say in the heart of every one, who hath not the heart of a beast, that they have never yet got a sight of the holiness of that pattern, nor of their own pollutions and impotency; for if they had, they would give themselves up to Jesus Christ to be washed by him, without which they can have no part with him.  O there will be a vast difference, at the latter day, betwixt 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.