 7. General rules without which no lust will be mortified, no mortification unless a man be a believer, dangers of attempting mortification of sin by unregenerate persons, the duty of unconverted persons as to this business of mortification considered, the vanity of the papist's attempts and rules for mortification thence discovered. 2. The ways and means whereby a soul may proceed to the mortification of any particular lust and sin which Satan takes advantage by to disquiet and weaken him come next under consideration. Now, there are some general considerations to be premised concerning some principles and foundations of this work without which no man in the world be he never so much raised by convictions and resolved for the mortification of any sin can attain thereunto. General rules and principles without which no sin will ever be mortified are these. 1. Unless a man be a believer, that is, one that is truly engrafted into Christ, he can never mortify any one sin. I do not say unless he knows himself to be so, but unless indeed he be so. 2. Mortification is the work of believers, Romans 8.13, if ye through the Spirit, etc. 3. Ye believers, to whom there is no condemnation, verse 1. They alone are exhorted to it. Colossians 3.5, mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth. Who should mortify? You who are risen with Christ, verse 1, whose life is hid with Christ and God, verse 3, who shall appear with him in glory, verse 4. An unregenerate man may do something like it, but the work itself, so as it may be acceptable with God, he can never perform. You know what a picture of it is drawn in some of the philosophers, Seneca, Tully, What affectionate discourses they have of contempt of the world and self, of regulating and conquering all exorbitant affections and passions. The lives of most of them manifested that their maxims differed as much from true mortification as the sun painted on a signpost from the sun in the firmament. They had neither light nor heat. Their own Lucian sufficiently manifest what they all were. There is no death of sin without the death of Christ. You know what attempts there are made after it by the papus and their vows, penances and satisfactions. I dare say of them, I mean as many of them as act upon the principles of their church as they call it, what Paul says of Israel in Point of Righteousness, Romans 9, 31, 32. They have followed after mortification, but they have not attained to it. Wherefore, because they seek it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. The same is the state and condition of all amongst ourselves who, in obedience to their convictions and awakened consciences, do attempt a relinquishment of sin. They follow after it, but they do not attain it. It is true, it is, it will be, required of every person whatever that hears the law or gospel preached that he mortifies sin. It is his duty, but it is not his immediate duty. It is his duty to do it, but to do it in God's way. If you require your servant to pay so much money for you in such a place, but first to go and take it up in another, it is his duty to pay the money appointed, and you will blame him if he do it not. Yet it was not his immediate duty. He was first to take it up according to your direction. So it is in this case. Sin is to be mortified, but something is to be done in the first place to enable us thereunto. I have proved that it is the spirit alone that can mortify sin. He is promised to do it, and all other means without him are empty and vain. How shall he then mortify sin that hath not the spirit? A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the spirit. Now how is he attained? It is the spirit of Christ. And as the apostle says, if we have not the spirit of Christ, we are none of his, Romans 8, 9. So if we are Christ, have an interest in him, we have the spirit, and so alone have power for mortification. This the apostle discourses at large, Romans 8, 8. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. It is the inference and conclusion he makes of his foregoing discourse about our natural state and condition, and the enmity we have unto God and his law therein. If we are in the flesh, if we have not the spirit, we cannot do anything that should please God. But what is our deliverance from this condition? First nine. But ye are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you. Ye believers that have the spirit of Christ, ye are not in the flesh. There is no way of deliverance from the state and condition of being in the flesh but by the spirit of Christ. And what if this spirit of Christ be in you? Why, then you are mortified. Verse 10. The body is dead because of sin or unto it. Mortification is carried on. The new man is quickened to righteousness. This the apostle proves, verse 11, from the union we have with Christ by the spirit, which will produce suitable operations in us to what it wrought in him. All attempts, then, for mortification of any lust without an interest in Christ are vain. Many men that are galled with and for sin, the arrows of Christ for conviction by the preaching of the word, or some affliction having been made sharp in their hearts, do vigorously set themselves against this or that particular lust, wherewith their consciences have been most disquieted or perplexed. But poor creatures, they labor in the fire and their work consumeth. When the spirit of Christ comes to this work, he will be like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap, and he will purge men as gold and as silver. Malachi 3, 2, 3. Take away their dross and tin, their filth and blood, as Isaiah 4, 4. But men must be gold and silver in the bottom, or else refining will do them no good. The prophet gives us the sad issue of wicked men's utmost attempts for mortification, by means whatsoever that God affords them. Jeremiah 6, 29, 30. The bellows are burned, and the lead is consumed of the fire. The founder Melteth in vain. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them. And what is the reason hereof? Verse 28. They were brass and iron when they were put into the furnace. Men may refine brass and iron long enough before they will be good silver. I say then, mortification is not the present business of unregenerate men. God calls them not to it as yet. Conversion is their work, the conversion of the whole soul, not the mortification of this or that particular lust. You would laugh at a man that you should see setting up a great fabric, and never take any care for a foundation. Especially if you should see him so foolish as that, having a thousand experiences that what he built one day fell down another, he would yet continue in the same course. So it is with convinced persons. Though they plainly see that what ground they get against sin one day they lose another, yet they will go on in the same road still, without inquiring where the destructive flaw in their progress lies. When the Jews upon the conviction of their sin were cut to the heart, Acts 2.37, and cried out, What shall we do? What doth Peter direct them to do? Does he bid them go and mortify their pride, wrath, malice, cruelty, and the like? No, he knew that was not their present work, but he calls them to conversion and faith in Christ in general, verse 38. Let the soul be first thoroughly converted, and then, looking on him whom they had pierced, humiliation and mortification will ensue. Thus when John came to preach repentance and conversion, he said, The ax is now laid to the root of the tree, Matthew 3.10. The Pharisees had been laying heavy burdens, imposing tedious duties, and rigid means of mortification, and fastings, washings, and the like, all in vain. Says John, The doctrine of conversion is for you, the ax in my hand is laid to the root. And our Saviour tells us what is to be done in this case. Says he, Do men gather grapes from thorns? Matthew 7.16. But suppose a thorn be well pruned and cut, and have pains taken with him. Yea, but he will never bear fix, verse 17.18. It cannot be, but every tree will bring forth fruit according to its own kind. What is then to be done, he tells us, Matthew 12.33, Make the tree good, and his fruit will be good. The root must be dealt with, the nature of the tree changed, or no good fruit will be brought forth. This is that I aim at, unless a man be regenerate, unless he be a believer, all attempts that he can make for mortification, be they never so specious or promising, all means he can use, let him follow them with never so much diligence, earnestness, watchfulness, and intention of mind and spirit, are to no purpose. In vain shall he use many remedies, he shall not be healed. Yea, there are sundry desperate evils attending and endeavor in convinced persons, that are no more but so to perform this duty. One, the mind and soul is taken up about that which is not the man's proper business, and so he is diverted from that which is so. God lays hold by his word and judgments on some sin in him, galls his conscience, disquietes his heart, deprives him of his rest. Now other diversions will not serve his turn, he must apply himself to the work before him. The business in hand, being to awaken the whole man unto a consideration of the state and condition wherein he is, that he might be brought home to God, instead hereof he sets himself to mortify the sin that galls him, which is a pure issue of self-love, to be freed from his trouble and not at all to the work he is called unto, and so is diverted from it. Thus God tells of Ephraim, when he spread his net upon them and brought them down as the fowls of heaven and chastised them, Hosea 712, caught them, entangled them, convinced them that they could not escape. Sayeth he of them, they return but not to the most high. They set themselves to a relinquishment of sin, but not in that manner by universal conversion as God called for it. Thus are men diverted from coming unto God by the most glorious ways that they can fix upon to come to him by. And this is one of the most common deceits whereby men ruin their own souls. I wish that some whose trade is to daub with untempered mortar in the things of God did not teach this deceit and cause the people to err by their ignorance. What do men do? What oftimes are they directed unto when their consciences are galled by sin and disquietment from the Lord who hath laid hold upon them? Is not a relinquishment of sin as to practice that they are, and some fruits of it, perplexed with all, and making head against it the sum of what they apply themselves unto? And is not the gospel end of their convictions lost thereby? Here men abide and perish. 2. This duty being a thing good in itself, in its proper place, a duty evidencing sincerity, bringing home peace to the conscience. A man finding himself really engaged in it, his mind and heart set against this or that sin with purpose and resolution to have no more to do with it, he is ready to conclude that his state and condition is good, and so to delude his own soul. For, one, when his conscience hath been made sick with sin, and he could find no rest, when he should go to the great physician of souls and get healing in his blood, the man by this engagement against sin pacifies and quiets his conscience, and sits down without going to Christ at all. Ah, how many poor souls are thus deluded to eternity? When Ephraim saw his sickness, he sent to King Jerob, Hosea 513, which kept him off from God. The whole bundle of the Popish religion is made up of designs and contrivances to pacify conscience without Christ, all described by the Apostle Romans 10.3. 2. By this means men satisfy themselves that their state and condition is good, seen they do that which is a work good in itself, and they do not do it to be seen. They know they would have the work done in sincerity, and so are hardened in a kind of self-righteousness. 3. When a man hath thus for a season been deluded, and hath deceived his own soul, and finds in a long course of life that indeed his sin is not mortified, or if he hath changed one he hath gotten another, he begins at length to think that all contending is in vain. He shall never be able to prevail, he is making a dam against water that increaseeth on him. Hereupon he gives over, as one despairing of any success, and yields up himself to the power of sin and that habit of formality that he hath gotten. 4. And this is the usual issue with persons attempting the mortification of sin without an interest in Christ first obtained. It deludes them, hardens them, destroys them, and therefore we see that there are not usually more vile and desperate sinners in the world than such as, having by conviction been put on this course, hath found it fruitless, and deserted it without a discovery of Christ. And this is the substance of the religion and godliness of the choicest formalists in the world, and of all those who in the Roman synagogue are drawn to mortification, as they drive Indians to baptism or cattle to water. I say then that mortification is the work of believers and believers only. To kill sin is the work of living men, where men are dead, as all unbelievers, the best of them, are dead. Sin is alive and will live. 2. It is the work of faith, the peculiar work of faith. Now if there be a work to be done that will be effected by one only instrument, it is the greatest madness for any to attempt the doing of it that hath not that instrument. Now it is faith that purifies the heart, Acts 15-9, or as Peter speaks, we purify our souls in obeying the truth through the spirit, 1 Peter 1-22, and without it it will not be done. 2. What hath been spoken, I suppose, is sufficient to make good my first general rule. Be sure to get an interest in Christ. If you intend to mortify any sin without it, it will never be done. 3. Objection. You will say, What then would you have unregenerate men that are convinced of the evil of sin do? Shall they see striving against sin, live desolately, give their lust their swing, and be as bad as the worst of men? This were a way to set the whole world into confusion, to bring all things into darkness, to set open the floodgates of lusts, and lay the reins upon the necks of men to rush into all sin with delight and greediness, like the horse into battle. Answer. 1. God forbid. It is to be looked on as a great issue of the wisdom, goodness, and love of God, that by manifold ways and means he is pleased to restrain the sons of men from running forth into that compass of excess, and riot which the depravedness of their nature would carry them out unto with violence. By what ways soever this is done, it is an issue of the care, kindness, and goodness of God, without which the whole earth would be a hell of sin and confusion. 2. There is a peculiar convincing power in the word, which God is often times pleased to put forth, to the wounding, amazing, and in some sort humbling of sinners, though they are never converted. And the word is to be preached, though at hath this end, yet not with this end. Let then the word be preached, and the sins of men will be rebuked, lust will be restrained, and some oppositions will be made against sin, though that be not the effect aimed at. 3. Though this be the work of the word and spirit, and it be good in itself, yet it is not profitable nor available as to the main end in them in whom it is wrought. They are still in the gall of bitterness, and under the power of darkness. 4. Let men know it is their duty, but in its proper place. I take not men from mortification, but put them upon conversion. He that shall call a man from mending a hole in the wall of his house, to quench a fire that is consuming the whole building, is not his enemy. Poor soul, it is not thy sore finger, but thy hectic fever that thou art to apply thyself to the consideration of. Thou setest thyself against a particular sin, and does not consider that thou art nothing but sin. Let me add this to them who are preachers of the word, or intend, through the good hand of God that employment. It is their duty to plead with men about their sins, to lay loads on particular sins, but always remember that it be done with that which is the proper end of law and gospel. That is, they make use of the sin they speak against to the discovery of the state and condition wherein the sinner is. Otherwise, happily they may workmen to formality and hypocrisy, but little of the true end of preaching the gospel will be brought about. It will not avail men to beat a man off from his drunkenness into a sober formality. A skillful master of the assemblies lays his acts at the root, drives still at the heart. To convey against particular sins of ignorant, unregenerate persons, such as the land is full of, is a good work. But yet, though it may be done with great efficacy, vigor, and success, if this be all the effect of it, that they are set upon the most sedulous endeavors of mortifying their sins preached down, all that is done is but like the beating of an enemy in an open field, and driving him into an impregnable castle, not to be prevailed against. Get you at any time a sinner at the advantage, on the account of any one sin whatever. Have you anything to take hold of him by? Bring it to his state and condition, drive it up to the head, and there deal with him. To break men off particular sins, and not to break their hearts, is to deprive ourselves of advantages of dealing with them. And herein is the Roman mortification grievously pecan. They drive all sorts of persons to it, without the least consideration whether they have a principle for it or no. Yea, they are so far from calling on men to believe, that they may be able to mortify their lust, that they call men to mortification instead of believing. The truth is, they neither know what it is to believe, nor what mortification itself intends. Faith with them is but a general assent to the doctrine taught in their church, and mortification the betaking of a man by a vow to some certain course of life, wherein he denies himself something of the use of the things of this world, not without a considerable compensation. Such men know neither the scriptures, nor the power of God. Their boasting of their mortification is but their glorying in their shame. Some casuists among ourselves who, overlooking the necessity of regeneration, do avowaly give this for a direction to all sorts of persons that complain of any sin or lust, that they should vow against it, at least for a season, a month or so, seem to have a scantling of light in the mystery of the gospel, much like that of Nicodemus when he first came to Christ. They bid men vow to abstain from their sin for a season. This commonly makes their lust more impetuous. Perhaps with great perplexity they keep their word, perhaps not, which increases their guilt and torment. Is their sin at all mortified hereby? Do they find a conquest over it? Is their condition changed, though they attain a relinquishment of it? Are they not still in the gall of bitterness? Is not this to put men to make brick, if not without straw, yet which is worse without strength? What promise have any unregenerate man to countenance him in this work? What assistance for the performance of it? Can sin be killed without an interest in the death of Christ or mortified without the spirit? If such directions should prevail to change men's lives, as they seldom do, yet they never reach to the change of their hearts or conditions. They may make men self-judiciaries or hypocrites, not Christians. It grieves me off times to see poor souls that have a zeal for God and a desire of eternal welfare kept by such directors and directions under a hard, burdensome, outside worship and service of God, with many specious endeavors for mortification in an utter ignorance of the righteousness of Christ and unacquaintedness with his spirit all their days. Persons and things of this kind I know too many. If ever God shine into their hearts to give them the knowledge of his glory and the face of his Son, Jesus Christ, they will see the folly of their present way. The second principle which to this purpose I shall propose is this. Without sincerity and diligence in a universality of obedience, there is no mortification of any one perplexing lust to be obtained. The other was to the person, this to the thing itself. I shall a little explain this position. A man finds any lust to bring him into the condition formally described. It is powerful, strong, tumultuating, leads captive, vexes, disquietes, takes away peace. He is not able to bear it. Wherefore, he sets himself against it, groans under it, size to be delivered. But in the meantime, perhaps in other duties, in constant communion with God, in reading, prayer, and meditation, in other ways that are not of the same kind with the lust wherewith he is troubled, he is loose and negligent. Let not that man think that ever he shall arrive to the mortification of the lust he is perplexed with all. This is a condition that not seldom befalls men in their pilgrimage. The Israelites, under a sense of their sin, drew night to God with much diligence and earnestness, with fasting and prayer, Isaiah 58. Many expressions are made of their earnestness in the work. Verse 2 They seek me daily, and delight to know my ways. They ask of me the ordinances of justice. They take delight in approaching to God. But God rejects all. Their fast is a remedy that will not heal them, and the reason given of it, verses 5 through 7, is because they were particular in this duty. They attended diligently to that, but in others were negligent and careless. He that hath a running sore—it is the scripture expression—upon him, arising from an ill habit of body, contracted by intemperance and ill diet, let him apply himself with what diligence and skill he can to the cure of his sore. If he leave the general habit of his body under distempers, his labor and travail will be in vain. So will his attempts be that shall endeavor to stop a bloody issue of sin and filth in his soul, and is not equally careful of his universal spiritual temperature and constitution. For, one, this kind of endeavor for mortification proceeds from a corrupt principle, ground, and foundation, so that it will never proceed to a good issue. The true and acceptable principles of mortification shall be afterward insisted on. Hatred of sin as sin, not only as galling or disquieting, a sense of the love of Christ and the cross lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification. Now it is certain that that which I speak of proceeds from self-love. Thou settest thyself with all diligence and earnestness to mortify such a lust or sin. What is the reason of it? It disquietes thee. It hath taken away thy peace. It fills thy heart with sorrow and trouble and fear. Thou hast no rest because of it. Ye, but friend, thou hast neglected prayer or reading. Thou hast been vain and loose in thy conversation and other things, that have not been of the same nature with that lust wherewith thou art perplexed. These are no less sins and evils than those under which thou groanest. Jesus Christ bled for them also. Why dost thou not set thyself against them also? If thou hadest sin as sin, every evil way, thou wouldst be no less watchful against everything that grieves and disquietes the Spirit of God than against that which grieves and disquietes thine own soul. It is evident that thou contentest against sin merely because of thine own trouble by it. Would thy conscience be quiet under it? Thou wouldst let it alone. Did it not disquiet thee? It should not be disquieted by thee. Now canst thou think that God will set in with such hypocritical endeavors that ever his Spirit will bear witness to the treachery and falsehood of thy Spirit? Just thou think he will ease thee of that which perplexeth thee that thou mayst be at liberty to that which no less grieves him? No. Says God, here is one. If he could be rid of this lust, I should never hear of him more. Let him wrestle with this, or he is lost. Let not any man think to do his own work that will not do God's. God's work consists in universal obedience. To be freed of the present perplexity is their own only. This is that of the Apostle, 2 Corinthians 7-1. Cleanse yourselves from all pollution of the flesh and Spirit, perfecting holiness and the fear of God. If we will do anything, we must do all things. So then it is not only an intense opposition to this or that particular lust, but a universal humble frame and temper of heart, with watchfulness over every evil and for the performance of every duty that is accepted. 2. How knowest thou, but that God hath suffered the lust wherewith thou hast been perplexed to get strength in thee and power over thee, to chasten thee for thy other negligences and common lukewarmness in walking before him, at least to awaken thee to the consideration of thy ways that thou mayst make a thorough work and change in thy course of walking with him? The rage and predominancy of a particular lust is commonly the fruit and issue of a careless, negligent course in general, and that upon a double account. One, as its natural effect, if I may say so. Lust, as I showed in general, lies in the heart of every one, even the best whilst he lives. And think not that the scripture speaks in vain, that it is subtle, cunning, crafty, that it seduces, entices, fights, rebels. Whilst a man keeps a diligent watch over his heart, his root and fountain, whilst above all keepings he keeps his heart, whence are the issues of life and death, lust withers and dies in it. But if, through negligence, it makes an eruption of any particular way, gets a passage to the thoughts by the affections, and from them and by them, perhaps, breaks out into open sin in the conversation, the strength of it bears that way it hath found out, and that way mainly it urges, until, having got a passage, it then vexes and disquietes, and is not easily to be restrained. Thus perhaps a man may be put to wrestle all his days, in sorrow with that which, by a strict and universal watch, might easily have been prevented. Two, as I said, God often times suffers it to chasten our other negligences. For as with wicked men, he gives them up to one sin as the judgment of another, a greater for the punishment of a less, or one that will hold them more firmly and securely for that which they might have possibly obtained a deliverance from. So even with his own, he may, he doth leave them sometimes to some vexatious distempers, either to prevent or cure some other evil. So was the messenger of Satan let loose on Paul, that he might not be lifted up through the abundance of spiritual revelations. Was it not a correction to Peter's vain confidence that he was left to deny his master? Now if this be the state and condition of lust and its prevalency, that God often times suffers it so to prevail, at least to admonish us and to humble us, perhaps to chasten and correct us for our general loose and careless walking, is it possible that the effect should be removed and the cause continued? That the particular lust should be mortified, and the general course be unreformed? He then that would really, thoroughly, and acceptably mortify any disquieting Let him take care to be equally diligent in all parts of obedience and know that every lust, every omission of duty, is burdensome to God, though but one is so to him. Whilst there abides a treachery in the heart to indulge to any negligence in not pressing universally to all perfection in obedience, the soul is weak as not giving faith its whole work, and selfish as considering more the trouble of sin than the filth and guilt of it, and lives under a constant provocation of God, so that it may not expect any comfortable issue in any spiritual duty that it doth undertake, much less in this under consideration which requires another principle and frame of spirit for its accomplishment. End of Chapter 8 CHAPTER IX OF THE MORTIFICATION OF SIN This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Stephen Escalera. THE MORTIFICATION OF SIN by John Owen. CHAPTER IX Particular directions in relation to the foregoing case proposed. First, consider the dangerous symptoms of any lust. One, inveterateness. Two, peace obtained under it, the several ways whereby that is done. Three, frequency of success in its seductions. Four, the souls fighting against it with arguments only taken from the event. Five, its being attended with judiciary hardness. Six, its withstanding particular dealings from God, the state of persons in whom these things are found. Three, the foregoing general rules being supposed, particular directions to the soul for its guidance under the sense of a disquieting lust or distemper, being the main thing I aim at, come next to be proposed. Now, of these some are previous and preparatory, and in some of them the work itself is contained. Of the first sort are these ensuing. First, consider what dangerous symptoms thy lust hath attending or accompanying it, whether it hath any deadly mark on it or no. If it hath, extraordinary remedies are to be used. An ordinary course of mortification will not do it. You will say, what are these dangerous marks and symptoms, the desperate attendencies of an indwelling lust that you intend. Some of them I shall name. One, inveterateness. If it hath lain long corrupting in thy heart, if thou hast suffered it to abide in power and prevalency, without attempting vigorously the killing of it, and the healing of the wounds thou hast received by it for some long season, thy distemper is dangerous. Hast thou permitted worldliness, ambition, greediness of study to eat up other duties, the duties wherein thou oddest to hold constant communion with God for some long season, or uncleanness to defile thy heart with vain and foolish and wicked imaginations for many days? Thy lust hath a dangerous symptom. So was the case with David, Psalm 385. My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness. When a lust hath lain long in the heart, corrupting, festering, cankering, it brings the soul to a woeful condition. In such a case an ordinary course of humiliation will not do the work. Whatever it be it will by this means insinuate itself more or less into all the faculties of the soul, and habituate the affections to its company and society. It grows familiar to the mind and conscience, that they do not startle at it as a strange thing, but are bold with it as that which they are wanted unto. Ye it will get such advantage by this means as often times to exert and put forth itself without having any notice taken of it at all, as it seems to have been with Joseph in his swearing by the life of Pharaoh. Unless some extraordinary course be taken, such a person hath no ground in the world to expect that his latter end shall be peace. For first, how will he be able to distinguish between the long abode of an unmortified lust and the dominion of sin which cannot befall a regenerate person? Secondly, how can he promise himself that it shall ever be otherwise with him, or that his lust will cease to multuating and seducing, when he sees it fixed and abiding, and hath done so for many days and hath gone through a variety of conditions with him? It may be it hath tried mercies and afflictions, and those possibly so remarkable that the soul could not avoid the taking special notice of them. It may be it hath weathered out many a storm and passed under much variety of gifts in the administration of the word. And will it prove an easy thing to dislodge an inmate pleading a title by prescription? Old neglected wounds are often mortal, but it is dangerous. Indwelling distemperes grow rusty and stubborn by continuance in ease and quiet. Lust as such an inmate as, if it can plead time in some prescription, will not easily be ejected. As it never dies of itself, so if it be not daily killed, it will always gather strength. Two. Secret pleas of the heart for the countenance of itself and keeping up its peace, not withstanding the abiding of a lust without a vigorous gospel attempt for its mortification, is another dangerous symptom of a deadly distemper in the heart. Now there be several ways whereby this may be done. I shall name some of them. As, one, when upon thoughts, perplexing thoughts about sin, instead of applying himself to the destruction of it, a man searches his heart to see what evidences he can find of a good condition, not withstanding that sin and lust, so that it may go well with him. For a man to gather up his experiences of God, to call them to mind, to collect them, consider, try, improve them is an excellent thing, a duty practiced by all the saints commended in the Old Testament and the New. This was David's work when he communed with his own heart, and called to remembrance the former loving kindness of the Lord. This is the duty that Paul sets us to practice, 2 Corinthians 13-5. And as it is in itself excellent, so it hath beauty added to it by a proper season, a time of trial or temptation, or disquietness of the heart about sin, is a picture of silver to set off this golden apple, as Solomon speaks. But now to do it for this sin, to satisfy conscience, which cries and calls for another purpose, is a desperate device of a heart in love with sin. When a man's conscience shall deal with him, when God shall rebuke him for the sinful distemper of his heart, if he, instead of applying himself to get that sin pardoned in the blood of Christ and mortified by his spirit, shall relieve himself by any other such evidences as he hath, or thinks himself to have, and so disentangle himself from under the yoke that God was putting on his neck, his condition is very dangerous, his wound hardly curable. Thus the Jews, under the gallings of their own consciences, and the convincing preaching of our Savior, supported themselves with this, that they were Abraham's children, and on that account accepted with God, and so countenanced themselves in all abominable wickedness to their utter ruin. This is, in some degree, a blessing of a man's self, and saying that upon one account or other he shall have peace, although he adds drunkenness to thirst. Love of sin, under valuation of peace, and of all tastes of love from God, are enwrapped in such a frame. Such a one plainly shows that if he can but keep up hope of escaping the wrath to come, he can be well content to be unfruitful in the world at any distance from God that is not final separation. What is to be expected from such a heart? 2. By applying grace and mercy to an unmortified sin, or one not sincerely endeavored to be mortified, is this deceit carried on? This is a sign of a heart greatly entangled with the love of sin. When the man hath secret thoughts in his heart, not unlike those of Naaman about his worshiping in the house of Ramon, and all other things I will walk with God, but in this thing God be merciful unto me, his condition is sad. It is true, indeed, a resolution to this purpose, to indulge a man's self in any sin on the account of mercy, seems to be, and doubtless in any course is, altogether inconsistent with Christian sincerity, and is a badge of a hypocrite, and is the turning of the grace of God into wantonness. Yet I doubt not, but through the craft of Satan, and their own remaining unbelief, the children of God may themselves sometimes be ensnared with this deceit of sin, or else Paul would never have so cautioned them against it as he doth, Romans 6, 1, 2. Yea, indeed, there is nothing more natural than for fleshly reasonings to grow high and strong upon this account. The flesh would feign be indulged unto upon the account of grace, and every word that is spoken of mercy it stands ready to catch at, and to pervert it, to its own corrupt aims and purposes. To apply mercy, then, to a sin not vigorously mortified, is to fulfill the end of the flesh upon the gospel. These and many other ways and wiles a deceitful heart will sometimes make use of, to countenance itself and its abominations. Now, when a man with his sin in this condition, that there is a secret liking of the sin prevalent in his heart, and though his will be not wholly set upon it, yet he hath an imperfect valiety towards it, he would practice it were it not for such and such considerations, and hereupon relieves himself other ways than by the mortification and pardon of it in the blood of Christ. That man's wounds stink and corrupt, and he will, without speedy deliverance, be at the door of death. 3. Frequency of success in sin's seduction in obtaining the prevailing consent of the will unto it is another dangerous symptom. This is what I mean. When the sin spoken of gets the consent of the will, with some delight, though it be not actually outwardly perpetrated, yet it hath success. A man may not be able upon outward considerations to go along with sin to that which James calls the finishing of it, as to the outward acts of sin, when yet the will of sinning may be actually obtained. Then hath it, I say, success. Now, if any lust be able thus far to prevail in the soul of any man, as his condition may possibly be very bad and himself be unregenerate. So it cannot possibly be very good, but dangerous. And it is all one upon the matter whether this be done by the choice of the will or by inadvertency, for that inadvertency itself is in a manner chosen. When we are inadvertent and negligent, where we are bound to watchfulness and carefulness, that inadvertency doth not take off from the voluntariness of what we do thereupon. For although men do not choose and resolve to be negligent and inadvertent, yet if they choose the things that will make them so, they choose inadvertency itself as a thing may be chosen in its cause. And let not men think that the evil of their hearts is in any measure extinuated because they seem, for the most part, to be surprised into that consent which they seem to give unto it, for it is negligence of their duty in watching over their hearts that betrays them into that suprisal. 4. When a man fighteth against his sin only with arguments from the issue or the punishment due unto it, this is a sign that sin hath taken great possession of the will, and that in the heart there is a superfluity of naughtiness. Such a man as opposes nothing to the seduction of sin and lust in his heart, but fear of shame among men, or hell from God, is sufficiently resolved to do the sin if there were no punishment attending it, which, what it differs from living in the practice of sin, I know not. Those who are Christ, and are acted in their obedience upon gospel principles, have the death of Christ, the love of God, the detestable nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, a deep grounded abhorrency of sin as sin, to oppose to any seduction of sin, to all the workings, strivings, fightings of lust in their hearts. So did Joseph. How shall I do this great evil, sayeth he, and sin against the Lord, my good and gracious God? And Paul, the love of Christ, constraineth us, and, having received these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all pollution of the flesh and spirit, 2 Corinthians 7.1. But now if a man be so under the power of his lust that he hath nothing but law to oppose it with all, if he cannot fight against it with gospel weapons, but deals with it altogether with hell and judgment, which are the proper arms of the law, it is most evident that sin hath possessed itself of his will and affections to a very great prevalency and conquest. Such a person hath cast off, as to the particular spoken of, the conduct of renewing grace, and is kept from ruin only by restraining grace. And so far as he fallen from grace and returned under the power of the law. And can it be thought that this is not a great provocation to Christ that men should cast off his easy, gentle yoke and rule, and cast themselves under the iron yoke of the law, merely out of indulgence unto their lusts? Try thyself by this also. When thou art by sin, driven to make a stand, so that thou must either serve it and rush at the command of it into folly, like the horse into the battle, or make head against it to suppress it. What dost thou say to thy soul? What dost thou expostulate with thyself? Is this all? Hell will be the end of this course. Vengeance will meet with me and find me out. It is time for thee to look about thee. Evil lies at the door. Paul's main argument to events that sin shall not have dominion over believers is that they are not under the law but under grace. Romans 6, 14. If thy contendings against sin be all on legal accounts, from legal principles and motives, what assurance canst thou attain unto that sin shall not have dominion over thee, which will be thy ruin? Yea, know that this reserve will not long hold out. If thy lust hath driven thee from stronger gospel forts, it will speedily prevail against this also. Do not suppose that such considerations will deliver thee when thou hast voluntarily given up to thine enemy those helps and means of preservation which have a thousand times their strength. Rest assuredly in this, that unless thou recover thyself with speed from this condition, the thing that thou fearst will come upon thee. What gospel principles do not, legal motives cannot do. When it is probable that there is or may be somewhat of judiciary hardness, or at least of chastening punishment in thy lust as disquieting, this is another dangerous symptom. That God does sometimes leave even those of his own under the perplexing power at least of some lust or sin to correct them for former sins, negligence, and folly, I no way doubt. Hence was that complaint of the church. Why hast thou hardened our heart from thy fear? Isaiah 63, 17. That this is his way of dealing with unregenerate men, no man questions. But how shall a man know whether there be anything of God's chastening hand in his being left to the disquietment of his distemper? Answer, examine thy heart and ways. What was the state and condition of thy soul before thou fellest into the entanglements of that sin which now thou so complainest of? Hats thou been negligent in duties? Hats thou lived inordinately to thyself? Is there the guilt of any great sin lying upon thee unrepented of? A new sin may be permitted, as well as a new affliction sent, to bring an old sin to remembrance. Hast thou received any imminent mercy, protection, deliverance, which thou didst not improve in a due manner, nor was thankful for? Or hast thou been exercised with any affliction without laboring for the appointed end of it? Or hast thou been wanting to the opportunities of glorifying God and thy generation, which, in his good providence, he had graciously afforded unto thee? Or hast thou conformed thyself unto the world and the men of it through the abounding of temptations in the days wherein thou livest? If thou findest this to have been thy state, awake, call upon God. Thou art fast asleep in a storm of anger round about thee. 6. When thy lust hath already withstood particular dealings from God against it. This condition is described, Isaiah 57, 17. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him, I hid me and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. God had dealt with them about their prevailing lust, and that several ways, by affliction and desertion, but they held out against all. This is a sad condition, which nothing but mere sovereign grace, as God expresses it in the next verse, can relieve a man in, and which no man ought to promise himself or bear himself upon. God oftentimes, in his providential dispensations, meets with a man and speaks particularly to the evil of his heart, as he did to Joseph's brethren in their selling of him into Egypt. This makes the man reflect on his sin, and judge himself in particular for it. God makes it to be the voice of the danger, affliction, trouble, sickness that he is in or under. Sometimes in reading of the word, God makes a man stay on something that cuts him to the heart, and shakes him as to his present condition. More frequently in the hearing of the word preached, his great ordinance for conviction, conversion, and edification, death he meet with men. God often hues men by the sword of his word in that ordinance, strikes directly on their bosom beloved lust, startles the sinner, makes him engage unto the mortification and relinquishment of the evil of his heart. Now, if his lust have taken such hold on him as to enforce him to break these bands of the Lord, and to cast these cords from him, if it overcomes these convictions and gets again into its old posture, if it can cure the wounds it so receives, that soul is in a sad condition. Unspeakable are the evils which attend such a frame of heart. Every particular warning to a man in such an estate is an inestimable mercy. How then doth he despise God and them who holds out against them? And what infinite patience is this in God, that he doth not cast off such a one, and swear in his wrath, that he shall never enter into his rest? These and many other evidences are there of a lust that is dangerous, if not mortal. As our Savior said of the evil spirit, this kind goes not out, but by fasting and prayer. So say I of lusts of this kind. An ordinary course of mortification will not do it. Extraordinary ways must be fixed on. This is the first particular direction. Consider whether the lust or sin you are contending with hath any of these dangerous symptoms attending of it. Before I proceed I must give you one caution by the way, lest any be deceived by what hath been spoken. Whereas I say the things and evils above mentioned may befall true believers, let not any that finds the same things in himself thence, or from thence conclude that he is a true believer. These are the evils that believers may fall into and be ensnared with all, not the things that constitute a believer. A man may as well conclude that he is a believer because he is an adulterer, because David, that was so, fell into adultery, as concluded from the signs foregoing, which are the evils of sin and Satan in the hearts of believers. The seventh chapter of the Romans contains the description of a regenerate man. He that shall consider what has spoken of his dark side, of his unregenerate part, of the indwelling power and violence of sin remaining in him, and because he finds the like in himself, conclude that he is a regenerate man, will be deceived in his reckoning. It is all one as if you should argue, a wise man may be sick and wounded, yea, do some things foolishly. Therefore everyone who is sick and wounded and does things foolishly is a wise man. Or as if a silly deformed creature, hearing one speak of a beautiful person, and saying that he had a mark or a scar that much defigured him, should conclude that because he hath himself scars and moles and warts, he also is beautiful. If you will have evidences of your being believers, it must be done from those things that constitute men believers. He that hath these things in himself may safely conclude, if I am a believer, I am a most miserable one. But that any man is so, he must look for other evidences if he will have peace. 2. The Danger Manifold. 1. Hardening. 2. Temporal Correction. 3. Loss of Peace and Strength. 4. Eternal Destruction. Rules for the management of this consideration. 3. The Evil of it. 1. Ingrieving the Spirit. 2. Wounding the new creature. 3. Taken away a man's usefulness. The second direction is this. Get a clear and abiding sense upon thy mind and conscience of the guilt, danger, and evil of that sin wherewith thou art perplexed. 1. Of the guilt of it. It is one of the deceits of a prevailing lust to extenuate its own guilt. Is it not a little one? When I go and bow myself in the house of Ramon, God be merciful to me in this thing. Though this be bad, yet it is not so bad as such and such an evil, others of the people of God have had such a frame, yea, what dreadful actual sins have some of them fallen into. In numerable ways there are whereby sin diverts the mind from a right and due apprehension of its guilt. It's noisome exhalations darken the mind that it cannot make a right judgment of things. Perplexing reasonings, extenuating promises, tumultuating desires, treacherous purposes of relinquishment, hopes of mercy, all have their share in disturbing the mind in its consideration of the guilt of a prevailing lust. The prophet tells us that lust will do thus holy when it comes to the height, Hosea 411. Hordom and wine and new wine take away the heart, the heart that is the understanding as it is often used in the scripture. And as they accomplish this work to the height and unregenerate persons, so in part and regenerate also. Solomon tells you of him who was enticed by the lewd woman, that he was among the simple ones. He was a young man void of understanding. Proverbs 7.7. And wherein did his folly appear? Why says he in the 23rd verse? He knew not that it was for his life. He considered not the guilt of the evil that he was involved in. And the Lord, rendering a reason why his dealings with Ephraim took no better effect, gives this account. Ephraim is like a silly dove without heart. Hosea 7.11. Had no understanding of his own miserable condition. Had it been possible that David should have lain so long in the guilt of that abominable sin, but that he had innumerable corrupt reasonings, hindering him from taking a clear view of its ugliness and guilt in the glass of the law. This made the prophet that was sent for his awakening in his dealings with him to shut up all subterfuges and pretenses by his parable, so that he might fall fully under a sense of the guilt of it. This is the proper issue of lust in the heart. It darkens the mind that it shall not judge a right of its guilt, and many other ways it hath for its own extinuation that I shall not now insist on. Let this, then, be the first care of him that would mortify sin, to fix a right judgment of its guilt in his mind. To which end take these considerations to thy assistance. 1. Though the power of sin be weakened by inherent grace in them that have it, that sin shall not have dominion over them as it hath over others, yet the guilt of sin that doth yet abide and remain is aggravated and heightened by it. Romans 6, 1, 2. What shall we say, then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? How shall we that are dead? The emphasis is on the word we. How shall we do it, who, as the afterward describes it, have received grace from Christ to the contrary? We doubtless are more evil than any if we do it. I shall not insist on the special aggravations of the sins of such persons, how they sin against more love, mercy, grace, assistance, relief, means, and deliverances than others. But let this consideration abide in thy mind. There is inconceivably more evil and guilt in the evil of thy heart that doth remain than there would be in so much sin if thou hath no grace at all. Observe. 2. That as God sees abundance of beauty and excellency in the desires of the heart of his servants, more than in any of the most glorious works of other men, yea, more than in most of their own outward performances, which have a greater mixture of sin than the desires and paintings of grace in the heart have, so God sees a great deal of evil and the working of lust in their hearts, yea, and more than in the open notorious acts of wicked men, or in many outward sins wherein to the saints may fall. Seen against them there is more opposition made, and more humiliation generally follows them. Thus Christ, dealing with his decaying children, goes to the root with them, lays aside their profession. Revelation 3.15. I know thee. Thou art quite another thing than thou professest, and this makes thee abominable. So then let these things and the like considerations lead thee to a clear sense of the guilt of thy indwelling lust, that there may be no room in thy heart for extenuating or excusing thoughts whereby sin insensibly will get strength and prevail. 2. Consider the danger of it, which is manifold. 1. Of being hardened by its deceitfulness. This the apostle sorely charges on the Hebrews 3.12.13. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, and departing from the living God, but exhort one another daily, while it is called to-day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 2. Take heed, sayeth he, use all means, consider your temptations, watch diligently. There is a treachery, a deceit and sin, that tends to the hardening of your hearts from the fear of God. The hardening here mentioned is to the utmost, utter obduration. Sin tends to it, and every distemper and lust will make at least some progress towards it. 3. Thou that was tender, and its use to melt under the word, under reflections will grow as some have profanely spoken, sermon-proof and sickness-proof. 4. Thou that its tremble at the presence of God, thoughts of death and appearance before him, when thou hast more assurance of his love than thou thou hast, shalt have a stoutness upon thy spirit not to be moved by these things. 5. Thy soul and thy sin shall be spoken of and spoken to, and thou shalt not be at all concerned, but shall be able to pass over duties, praying, hearing, reading, and thy heart not in the least affected. 6. Sin will grow a light thing to thee. 7. Thou will pass it by as a thing of naught, this it will grow to. 8. And what will be the end of such a condition? Can a sadder thing befall thee? Is it not enough to make any heart to tremble, to think of being brought into that estate wherein he should have slight thoughts of sin? Slight thoughts of grace, of mercy, of the blood of Christ, of the law, heaven, and hell, come all in at the same season. Take heed, this is what thy lust is working towards. The hardening of the heart, searing of the conscience, blinding of the mind, stupefying of the affections, and deceiving of the whole soul. 2. The danger of some great temporal correction, which the scripture calls, vengeance, judgment, and punishment. Psalm 89, 30 through 33. Though God should not utterly cast thee off for this abomination that lies in thy heart, yet he will visit thee with the rod, though he pardon and forgive, he will take vengeance of thy inventions. Remember David and all his troubles. Look on him, flying into the wilderness, and consider the hand of God upon him. Is it nothing to thee that God should kill thy child in anger, ruin thy estate in anger, break thy bones in anger, suffer thee to be a scandal and reproach in anger, kill thee, destroy thee, make thee lie down in darkness in anger? Is it nothing that he should punish, ruin and undo others for thy sake? Let me not be mistaken. I do not mean that God doth send all these things always on his in anger. God forbid. But this I say, that when he doth so deal with thee, and thy conscience bears witness with him what thy provocations have been, thou wilt find his dealings full of bitterness to thy soul. If thou fearst not these things, I fear thou art under hardness. 3. Loss of peace and strength all a man's days. To have peace with God, to have strength to walk before God, is the sum of the great promises of the Covenant of Grace. In these things is the life of our souls. Without them in some comfortable measure, to live is to die. What good will our lives do us if we see not the face of God sometimes in peace, if we have not some strength to walk with him? Now both these will an unmortified lust certainly deprive the souls of men of. This case is so evident in David, as that nothing can be more clear. How often doth he complain that his bones were broken, his soul disquieted, his wounds grievous on this account. Take other instances. Isaiah 57, 17. For the iniquity of his covetousness I was wroth and hid myself. What peace, I pray, is there to his soul while God hides himself or strength whilst he smites. Hosea 5, 15. I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense and seek my face. I will leave them, hide my face, and what will become of their peace and strength. If ever, then, thou hast enjoyed peace with God, if ever his terrors have made thee afraid, if ever thou hast had strength to walk with him, or ever hast mourned in thy prayer, and been troubled because of thy weakness, think of this danger that hangs over thy head. It is, perhaps, but a little while, and thou shalt see the face of God and peace no more. Perhaps by tomorrow thou shalt not be able to pray, read, hear, or perform any duties with the least cheerfulness, life, or vigor. And, possibly, thou mayst never see a quiet hour whilst thou livest, that thou mayst carry about the broken bones full of pain and terror all the days of thy life. Yea, perhaps God will shoot his arrows at thee and fill thee with anguish and disquietness, with fears and perplexities. Make thee a terror and an astonishment to thyself and others. Show thee hell and wrath every moment. Frighten and scare thee with sad apprehensions of his hatred, so that thy sore shall run in the night season, and thy soul shall refuse comfort, so that thou shalt wish death rather than life. Yea, thy soul may choose strangling. Consider this a little. Though God should not utterly destroy thee, yet he might cast thee into this condition, wherein thou shalt have quick and living apprehensions of thy destruction. Use thy heart to the thoughts hereof. Let it know what is like to be the issue of its state. Leave not this consideration until thou hast made thy soul to tremble within thee. For there is the danger of eternal destruction. For the due arrangement of this consideration observe, one, that there is such a connection between a continuance in sin and eternal destruction, that though God does resolve to deliver some from a continuance in sin that they may not be destroyed, yet he will deliver none from destruction that continue in sin, so that whilst any one lies under an abiding power of sin, the threats of destruction and everlasting separation from God are to be held out to him. So Hebrews 312, to which add chapter 10, 38. This is the rule of God's proceeding. If any man depart from him, draw back through unbelief, God's soul hath no pleasure in him, that is, his indignation shall pursue him to destruction. So evidently Galatians 6, 8. 2. That he who is so entangled, as above described, under the power of any corruption, can have at that present no clear prevailing evidence of his interest in the covenant, by the efficacy whereof he may be delivered from fear of destruction, so that destruction from the Lord may justly be a terror to him, and he may he ought to look upon it, as that which shall be the end of his course and ways. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, Romans 8.1. True, but who shall have the comfort of this assertion? Who may assume it to himself? They that walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh. But you will say, is not this to persuade men to unbelief? I answer, no. There is a twofold judgment that a man may make of himself, first of his person, and secondly of his ways. It is the judgment of his ways, not his person that I speak of. Let a man get the best evidence for his person that he can, yet to judge that an evil way will end in destruction is his duty, not to do it is atheism. I do not say that in such a condition a man ought to throw away the evidences of his personal interest in Christ. But I say he cannot keep them. There is a twofold condemnation of a man's self. First, in respect of dessert, when the soul concludes that it deserves to be cast out of the presence of God, and this is so far from a business of unbelief that it is an effect of faith. Secondly, with respect to the issue and event, when the soul concludes it shall be damned. I do not say this is the duty of anyone, nor do I call them to it. But this I say, that the end of the way wherein a man is ought by him to be concluded to be death, that he may be provoked to fly from it. And this is another consideration that ought to dwell upon such a soul, if it desired to be freed from the entanglement of its lusts. Three, consider the evils of it. I mean its present evils. Danger respects what is to come. Evil what is present. Some of the many evils that attend an unmortified lust may be mentioned. One, it grieves the holy and blessed spirit, which is given to believers to dwell in them and abide with them. So the apostle Ephesians 4, 25 through 29, dehorting them from many lusts and sins, gives this as the great motive of it. Verse 30. Grieve not the Holy Spirit, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Grieve not that Spirit of God, saith he, whereby ye receive so many and so great benefits, of which he instances in one signal and comprehensive one, sealing to the day of redemption. He is grieved by it. As a tender and loving friend is grieved at the unkindness of his friend, of whom he hath well deserved, so is it with this tender and loving spirit, who hath chosen our hearts for a habitation to dwell in, and there to do for us all that our souls desire. He is grieved by our harboring his enemies, and those whom he is to destroy, and our hearts with him. He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve us. Lamentations 3, 33. And shall we daily grieve him? Thus he is said sometimes to be vexed, sometimes grieved at his heart, to express the greatest sense of our provocation. Now if there be anything of gracious ingenuity left in the soul, if it be not utterly hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, this consideration will certainly affect it. Consider who and what thou art, who the Spirit is that is grieved, what he hath done for thee, what he comes to thy soul about, what he hath already done in thee, and be ashamed. Among those who walk with God there is no greater motive and incentive unto universal holiness, and the preserving of their hearts and spirits in all purity and cleanness than this, that the blessed Spirit, who hath undertaken to dwell in them as temples of God, and to preserve them meet for him who so dwells in them, is continually considering what they give entertainment in their hearts unto, and rejoiceth when his temple is kept undefiled. That was a high aggravation of the sin of Zimri, that he brought his adulteress into the congregation in the sight of Moses and the rest, who were weeping for the sins of the people, Numbers 25, 6. And is it not a high aggravation of the countenancing, a lust, or suffering it to abide in the heart when it is, as it must be if we are believers, entertained under the peculiar eye and view of the Holy Ghost, taking care to preserve his tabernacle pure and holy? 2. The Lord Jesus Christ is wounded afresh by it. His new creature in the heart is wounded. His love is foiled. His adversary gratified. As a total relinquishment of him by the deceitfulness of sin is the crucifying him afresh and the putting of him to open shame. So every harboring of sin that he came to destroy wounds and grieves him. 3. It will take away a man's usefulness in his generation. His works, his endeavors, his labors seldom receive blessing from God. If he be a preacher, God commonly blows upon his ministry that he shall labor in the fire and not be honored with any success or doing any work for God, and the like may be spoken of other conditions. The world is at this day full of poor, withering professors. How few are there that walk in my beauty or glory? How barren? How useless are they for the most part? Amongst the many reasons that may be assigned of this sad estate, it may justly be feared that this is none of the least effectual. Many men harbor spirit devouring lusts in their bosoms that lie as worms at the root of their obedience, and corrode and weaken it day by day. All graces, all the ways and means whereby any graces may be exercised and improved, are prejudiced by this means, and as to any success God blasts such men's undertakings. This, then, is my second direction, and it regards the opposition that is to be made to lust in respect of its habitual residence in the soul. Keep alive upon thy heart these or the like considerations of its guilt, danger, and evil. Be much in the meditation of these things. Cause thy heart to dwell and abide upon them. Engage thy thoughts into these considerations. Let them not go off, nor wander from them until they begin to have a powerful influence upon thy soul, until they make it to tremble. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Stephen Escalara. The Mortification of Sin by John Owen. CHAPTER XI. The third direction proposed. Load thy conscience with the guilt of the perplexing distemper. The ways and means whereby that may be done. The fourth direction. Viemant desire for deliverance. The fifth. Some distempers rooted deeply in men's natural tempers. Considerations of such distempers. Ways of dealing with them. The sixth direction. Occasions and advantages of sin to be prevented. The seventh direction. The first actings of sin vigorously to be opposed. This is my third direction. Load thy conscience with the guilt of it. Not only consider that it hath a guilt, but load thy conscience with the guilt of it's actual eruptions and disturbances. For the right improvement of this rule I shall give some particular directions. One. Take God's method in it, and begin with generals, and so descend to particulars. One. Charge thy conscience with that guilt which appears in it from the rectitude and holiness of the law. Bring the holy law of God into thy conscience. Lay thy corruption to it. Pray that thou mayst be affected with it. Consider the holiness, spirituality, fiery severity, inwardness, absoluteness of the law, and see how thou canst stand before it. Be much, I say, in affecting thy conscience with the terror of the Lord in the law, and how righteous it is that every one of thy transgressions should receive a recompense of reward. Perhaps thy conscience will invent shifts and evasions to keep off the power of this consideration, as that the condemning power of the law doth not belong to thee, thou art set free from it, and the like. And so, though thou be not conformable to it, yet thou needst not to be so much troubled at it. But, one, tell thy conscience that it cannot manage any evidence to the purpose that thou art free from the condemning power of sin, whilst thy unmortified lust lies in thy heart, so that, perhaps, the law may make good its plea against thee for a full dominion, and then thou art a lost creature. Wherefore it is best to ponder to the utmost what it hath to say. Assuredly, he that pleads in the most secret reserve of his heart, that he is freed from the condemning power of the law, thereby secretly to countenance himself in giving the least allowance unto any sin or lust, is not able, on gospel grounds, to manage any evidence unto any tolerable spiritual security, that indeed he is in a due manner freed from what he so pretends himself to be delivered from. Two, whatever be the issue, yet the law hath commissioned from God to seize upon transgressors wherever it finds them, and so bring them before his throne, where they are to plead for themselves. This is thy present case. The law hath found thee out, and before God it will bring thee. If thou canst plead a pardon, well and good. If not, the law will do its work. Three, however, this is the proper work of the law, to discover sin in the guilt of it, to awake and humble the soul for it, to be a glass to represent sin in its colors. And if thou deniest to deal with it on this account, it is not through faith, but through the hardness of thy heart and the deceitfulness of sin. This is a door that too many professors have gone out at unto open apostasy. Such a deliverance from the law they have pretended, as that they would consult its guidance and direction no more. They would measure their sin by it no more. By little and little, this principle hath insensibly, from the notion of it, proceeded to influence their practical understandings, and, having taken possession there, hath turned the will and affections loose to all manner of abominations. By such ways I say, then, as these, persuade thy conscience to hearken diligently to what the law speaks, in the name of the Lord, unto thee about thy lust and corruption. O, if thy ears be open, it will speak with a voice that shall make thee tremble, that shall cast thee to the ground, and fill thee with astonishment. If ever thou wilt mortify thy corruptions, thou must tie up thy conscience to the law, shut it from all shifts and exceptions, until it owns its guilt with a clear and thorough apprehension, so that thence, as David speaks, thy iniquity may ever be before thee. 2. Bring thy lust to the gospel. Not for relief, but for further conviction of its guilt. Look on him whom thou hast pierced, and be in bitterness. Say to thy soul, what have I done? What love? What mercy? What blood? What grace have I despised and trampled on? Is this the return I make to the Father for his love? To the Son for his blood? To the Holy Ghost for his grace? Do I thus requite the Lord? Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, that the blessed spirit hath chosen to dwell in? And can I keep myself out of the dust? What can I say to the dear Lord Jesus? How shall I hold up my head with any boldness before him? Do I account communion with him of so little value, that for this vile lust's sake I have scarce left him any room in my heart? How shall I escape if I neglect so great salvation? In the meantime, what shall I say to the Lord? Love, mercy, grace, goodness, peace, joy, consolation, I have despised them all, and esteemed them as a thing of naught, that I might harbor a lust in my heart. Have I obtained a view of God's fatherly countenance, that I might behold his face and provoke him to his face? Was my soul washed, that room might be made for new defilements? Shall I endeavor to disappoint the end of the death of Christ? Shall I daily grieve that spirit whereby I am sealed to the day of redemption? Entertain thy conscience daily with this treaty. See if it can stand before this aggravation of its guilt. If this make it not sink in some measure and melt, I fear thy case is dangerous. 2. Descend to particulars. As under the general head of the Gospel, all the benefits of it are to be considered as redemption, justification, and the like. So, in particular, consider the management of the love of them towards thine own soul, for the aggravation of the guilt of thy corruption. As, one, consider the infinite patience and forbearance of God towards the end particular. Consider what advantages he might have taken against thee, to have made thee a shame and a reproach in this world, and an object of wrath for ever. How thou hast dealt treacherously and falsely with him from time to time, flattered him with thy lips, but broken all promises and engagements, and that by the means of that sin thou art now in pursuit of. And yet he hath spared thee from time to time, although thou seemest boldly to have put it to the trial how long he could hold out. And wilt thou yet sin against him? Wilt thou yet weary him and make him to serve with thy corruptions? Hast thou not often been ready to conclude thyself that it was utterly impossible that he should bear any longer with thee, that he would cast thee off, and be gracious no more, that all his forbearance was exhausted, and hell and wrath was even ready prepared for thee? And yet, above all thy expectation, he hath returned with visitations of love. And wilt thou yet abide in the provocation of the eyes of his glory? 2. How often hast thou been at the door of being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, and by the infinite rich grace of God has been recovered to communion with him again? 3. Hast thou not found grace decaying, delight in duties, ordinances, prayer, and meditation vanishing, inclination to loose, careless walking, thriving? Hast thou not found thyself engaged in such ways, societies, companies, and that with delight as God abhors, and wilt thou venture any more to the brink of hardness? 4. All God's gracious dealings with thee, and providential dispensations, deliverances, afflictions, mercies, and joyments, all ought here to take place. By these, I say, and the like means, load thy conscience, and leave it not until it be thoroughly affected with the guilt of thy indwelling corruption, until it is sensible of its wound and lie in the dust before the Lord. Unless this be done to the purpose, all other endeavors are to no purpose. Whilst the conscience hath any means to alleviate the guilt of sin, the soul will never vigorously attempt its mortification. 4. Being thus affected with thy sin, in the next place, get a constant longing, breathing after deliverance from the power of it. Suffer not thy heart one moment to be contented with thy present frame and condition. Longing desires after anything, and things natural and civil, are of no value or consideration any further but as they incite, and stir up the person in whom they are to a diligent use of means for the bringing about the thing aimed at. In spiritual things it is otherwise. Longing, breathing, and panting after deliverance is a grace in itself that hath a mighty power to conform the soul into the likeness of the thing longed after. Hence the Apostle, describing the repentance and godly sorrow of the Corinthians, reckons this as one eminent grace that was then set on work, vehement desire. 2 Corinthians 7.11. And in this case of indwelling sin and the power of it, what frame doth he express himself to be in? Romans 7.24. His heart breaks out with longings into a more passionate expression of desire of deliverance. Now if this be the frame of saints upon the general consideration of indwelling sin, how is it to be heightened and increased when there unto is added the perplexing rage and power of any particular lust and corruption? Assure thyself, unless thou longest for deliverance, thou shalt not have it. This will make the heart watchful for all opportunities of advantage against its enemy, and ready to close with any assistances that are afforded for its destruction. Strong desires are the very life of that praying always, which is enjoined us in all conditions, and in none is more necessary than in this. They set faith and hope on work, and are the souls moving after the Lord. Get thy heart then into a panting and breathing frame. Long, sigh, cry out. You know the example of David. I shall not need to insist on it. The fifth direction is, consider whether the distemper with which thou art perplexed be not rooted in thy nature, and cherished, fomented, and heightened from thy constitution. A proneness to some sins may doubtless lie in the natural temper and disposition of men. In this case consider, one, this is not in the least an extinuation of the guilt of thy sin. Some, with an open profane-ness, will ascribe gross enormities to their distemper and disposition, and whether others may not relieve themselves from the pressing guilt of their distemper by the same consideration, I know not. It is from the fall, from the original deprivation of our natures, that the fuel and nourishment of any sin abides in our natural temper. David reckons his being shapen in iniquity and conception in sin as an aggravation of his following sin, not a lessening or extinuation of it. That thou art peculiarly inclined unto any sinful distemper is, but a peculiar breaking out of original lust in thy nature, which should peculiarly abase and humble thee. Two, that all thou hast to fix upon on this account, in reference to thy walking with God, is, that so great an advantage is given to sin, as also to Satan, by this thy temper and disposition, that without extraordinary watchfulness, care, and diligence, they will assuredly prevail against thy soul. Thousands have been on this account hurried headlong to hell, who otherwise at least might have gone at a more gentle, less provoking, less mischievous rate. Three, for the mortification of any distemper so rooted in the nature of a man, unto all other ways and means already named, or further to be insisted on, there is one expedient peculiarly suited. This is that of the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 927, I keep under my body and bring it into subjection. The bringing of the very body into subjection is an ordinance of God tending to the mortification of sin. This gives check unto the natural root of the distemper, and withers it by taking away its fatness of soil. Perhaps because the papus, men ignorant of the righteousness of Christ, the work of his spirit, and whole business in hand, have laid the whole weight and stress of mortification and voluntary services and penances leading to the subjection of the body, knowing indeed the true nature neither of sin nor mortification. It may, on the other side, be a temptation to some to neglect some means of humiliation which by God himself are owned and appointed. The bringing of the body into subjection in the case insisted on, by cutting short the natural appetite, by fasting, watching, and the like, is doubtless acceptable to God, so it be done with the ensuing limitations. One, that the outward weakening and impairing of the body be not looked upon as a thing good in itself, or that any mortification doth consist therein, which were again to bring us under carnal ordinances, but only as a means for the end proposed, the weakening of any distemper in its natural root and seat. A man may have leanness of body and soul together. Two, that the means whereby this is done, namely by fasting and watching and the like, be not looked on as things that in themselves, and by virtue of their own power, can produce true mortification of any sin. For if they would, sin might be mortified without any help of the spirit in any unregenerate person in the world. They are to be looked on only as ways whereby the spirit may, and sometimes doth, put forth strength for the accomplishing of his own work, especially in the case mentioned. Want of a right understanding and due improvement of these and the like considerations hath raised a mortification among the papest that may be better applied to horses and other beasts of the field than to believers. This is the sum of what hath been spoken. When the distemper complained of seems to be rooted in the natural temper and constitution, in applying our souls to a participation of the blood and spirit of Christ, an endeavor is to be used to give check in the way of God to the natural root of that distemper. The sixth direction is, consider what occasions, what advantages thy distemper hath taken to exert and put forth itself, and watch against them all. This is one part of that duty which our blessed Savior recommends to his disciples under the name of Watching, Mark 1337. I say unto you all, Watch, which in Luke 21.34 is, Take heed lest your hearts be overcharged. Watch against all eruptions of thy corruptions. I mean that duty which David professed himself to be exercised unto. I have, saith he, kept myself from mine iniquity. He watched all the ways and workings of his iniquity to prevent them, to rise up against them. This is that which we are called unto under the name of Considering Our Ways. Consider what ways, what companies, what opportunities, what studies, what businesses, what conditions have at any time given or do usually give advantages to thy distempers, and set thyself heedfully against them all. Men will do this with respect unto their bodily infirmities and distempers. The seasons, the diet, the air that have proved offensive shall be avoided. Are the things of the soul of less importance? Know that he that dares to dally with occasions of sin will dare to sin. He that will venture upon temptation unto wickedness will venture upon wickedness. Hazael thought he should not be so wicked as the prophet told him he would be. To convince him, the prophet tells him no more, but thou shalt be king of Syria. If he will venture on temptations unto cruelty, he will be cruel. Tell a man he shall commit such and such sins, he will startle at it. If you can convince him that he will venture on such occasions and temptations of them, he will have little ground left for his confidence. Particular directions belonging to this head are many, not now to be insisted on. But because this head is of no less importance than the whole doctrine here handled, I have at large in another treatise about entering into temptation treated of it. The seventh direction is, Rise mightily against the first actings of thy distemper, its first conceptions. Suffer it not to get the least ground. Do not say, thus far it shall go, and no further. If it have allowance for one step, it will take another. It is impossible to fix bounds to sin. It is like water in a channel. If it once break out, it will have its course. It's not acting is easier to be compassed than its bounding. Therefore doth James give that gradation and process of lust, chapter 1, 14, 15, that we may stop at the entrance. Dost thou find thy corruption to begin to entangle thy thoughts? Rise up with all thy strength against it, with no less indignation than if it had fully accomplished what it aims at. Consider what an unclean thought would have. It would have thee roll thyself in folly and filth. Ask envy what it would have. Murder and destruction is at the end of it. Set thyself against it with no less vigor than if it had utterly debased thee to wickedness. Without this course thou wilt not prevail. As sin gets ground in the affections to delight in, it gets also upon the understanding to slight it.