cruelty, it is an insult to God. If Cain so offended, by offering inferior gifts of his own, shall 499 he not offend, who offers the goods of another? An offering is nothing else but a sacrifice, a purification, not a pollution. And thou who darest not to pray with unclean hands, dost thou offer the dirt and filth of robbery, and think thou doest nothing wrong? Thou sufferest not thy hands to be full of dirt and filth, but having first cleansed these, thou offerest. Yet that filth is no charge against thee, while the other deserves reproach and blame. Let it not therefore be our consideration, how we may offer prayers and oblations with clean hands, but how the things offered may be pure. If one, after having washed a vessel clean, should fill it with unclean gifts, would it not be ridiculous mockery? Let the hands be clean; and they will be so, if we wash them not with water only, but first with righteousness. This is the purifier of the hands. But if they be full of unrighteousness, though they be washed a thousand times, it avails nothing. “Wash you, make you clean” (Isa. i. 16.), He says, but does He add, “Go to the baths, the lakes, the rivers”? No; but what? “Put away the evil of your doings from your souls.” This is to be clean.1390 This it is to be cleansed from defilement. This is real purity. The other is of little use; but this bestows upon us confidence towards God. The one may be obtained by adulterers, thieves, murderers, by worthless, and dissolute, and effem- inate persons, and especially the latter. For they are ever careful of the cleanliness of their bodies, and scented with perfumes, cleansing their sepulcher.1391 For their body1392 is but a sepulcher, since the soul is dead within it. This cleanness therefore may be theirs,1393 but not that which is inward. To wash the body is no great matter. That is a Jewish purification, senseless1394 and unprofitable, where purity within is wanting. Suppose one to labor under a putrefying sore, or consuming ulcer; let him wash his body ever so much, it is of no advantage. And if the putrefaction of the body receives no benefit from cleansing and disguising the outward ap- pearance; when the soul is infected with rottenness, what is gained by the purity of the body? Nothing! Our prayers ought to be pure, and pure they cannot be, if they are sent forth from a corrupt soul, and nothing so corrupts the soul as avarice and rapine. But there are some who after committing numberless sins during the day, wash themselves in the evening and enter the churches, holding up their hands with much confidence, as if by the washing of the bath they had put off all their guilt. And if this were the case, it would be a vast advantage 1390 B., though usually here far inferior to the printed text, seems best in these words. Sav. has, “That is, be clean: this it is that cleanses,” &c. 1391 σῆμα. 1392 σῶμα. 1393 B. reads μετεῖναι, for μετιέναι. 1394 Sav. “useless.” 863 2 Timothy 2:20,21