Rule 10. Accustom your thoughts to such meditations as are proper to mortify sin in your affections, else all endeavours to mor- tify it will be but faint and languid : To this purpose, I shall re- commend the following meditations, as proper means to destroy the interest of sin.
Meditation 1. Consider the evil that is in sin, and how terrible the appearances of God will one day be against those that obey it, in the lusts thereof. Rom. i. 18. " The wrath of God is revealed " from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,1* 1 Thes. i. 7, 8, 9. " The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from hea- " ven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance
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" on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of " our Lord Jesus Christ : who shall be punished with everlasting " destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory " of his power." Let your thoughts dwell much upon the consi- deration of the fruits and consequences of sin ; it shews its fairest side to you in the hour of temptation. O but consider how it will look upon you in the day of affliction, Numb. xxii. 23. in that day your sin will find you out : Think what its aspect will be in a dying hour. 1 Cor. XV." 56. " The sting of death is sin." Think what the frightful remembrances of it will be at the bar of judgment, when Satan shall accuse, conscience shall upbraid, God shall con- demn, and everlasting burnings shall avenge the evil of it : such thoughts as these are mortifying thoughts.
Meditation 2. Think what it cost the Lord Jesus to expiate the guilt of sin by suffering the wrath of the great and terrible God for it in our room : the meditations of a crucified Christ are very cru- cifying meditations unto sin, Gal. vi. 14. he suffered unspeakable things for sin ; it was a divine wrath which lay upon his soul for it ; that wrath of which the prophet saith, Nahum i. 5, 6. " The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt. Who can " stand before his indignation ? And who can abide in the fierce- " ness of his anger ? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks " are thrown down by him." It was unmixed and unallayed wrath, poured out in the fulness of it, even to the last drop : and shall we be so easily drawn to the commission of those sins which put Christ under such sufferings ? O do but read such scriptures as these, Luke xxii. 44. Matth. xxvi. 36, 37. Mark xiv. 33. and see what a plight sin put the Lord of glory into ; how the wrath of God put him into a sore amazement, a bloody sweat, and made his soul heavy unto death.
Meditation 3. Consider what a grief and wound the sins of be- lievers are to the Spirit of God, Eph. iv. 30. Ezek. xvi. 43. Isa. lxiii. 10. O how it grieves the Holy Spirit of God ! Nothing is more contrary to his nature. "Odo not that abominable thing " which I hate," saith the Lord, Jer. xliv. 4. Nothing obstructs and crosses the sanctifying design of the Spirit, as sin doth ; de- facing and spoiling the most rare and admirable workmanship that ever God wrought in this world ; violating all the engagements laid upon us by the love of the Father, by the death of his Son, by the operations of his Spirit in all his illuminations, convictions, compunctions, renovation, preservation, obsignation, and manifold consolations. Lay this meditation upon thy heart, believer, and say, Sicne rependis ? dost thou thus requite the Lord, O my un- grateful heart, for all his goodness ? Is this the fruit of his tern-
«SERM. XXVIII. THE METHOD OF GRACE. 393
poral, spiritual, common, and peculiar mercies, which are without number ?
Meditation 4. Consider with yourselves, that no real good, either of profit or pleasure can result from sin ; you can have no pleasure in it, whatever others may have, it being against your new nature ; and as for that brutish pleasure and evanid joy which others have in sin, it can be but for a moment ; for either they must repent or not repent : if they do repent, the pleasure of sin will be turned into the gall of asps here ; if they do not repent, it will terminate in everlasting howlings hereafter. That is a smart question, Rom. vi. 21. " What fruit had ye in those things where- " of ye are now ashamed ? For the end of those things is death. " You that are believers must never expect any pleasure in sin ; for you can neither commit it without regret, nor reflect upon it with- out shame and confusion : expect no better consequents of sin than the woundings of conscience and the dismal cloudings of the face of God ; that is all the profit of sin. O let these things sink into your heart.
Meditation 5. Consider what the damned suffer for those sins which the devil now tempteth you to commit ; it hath deprived them of all good, all outward good, Luke xvi. 25. all spiritual good, Mat. xxv. 41. and of all hope of enjoying any good for ever: and as it hath deprived them of all good, so it hath remedilessly plunged them into all positive misery : misery from without, the wrath of God being come upon them to the uttermost ; and misery from within, for their worm dieth not, Mark ix. 44. The memory of things past, the sense of things present, and the fearful expecta- tions of things to come, are the gnawings and bitings of the worm of conscience, at every bite whereof damned souls give a dreadful shriek ; crying out, O the worm ! the worm ! Would any man that is not forsaken by reason, run the hazard of those eternal miseries for the brutish pleasures of a moment ?
Meditation 6. Bethink yourselves what inexcusable hypocrisy it will be in you to indulge yourselves in the private satisfaction of your lusts, under a contrary profession of religion : you are a peo- ple that profess holiness, and professedly own yourselves to be under the government and dominion of Christ : and must the worthy name of Christ be only used to cloak and cover your lusts and corruptions, which are so hateful to him ? God forbid. You daily pray against sin, you confess it to God, you bewail it, you pour out supplications for pardoning and preventing grace ; are you in jest or earnest in these solemn duties of religion ? Certainly, if all those duties produce no mortification, you do but flatter God with your lips, and put a dreadful cheat upon your own souls. Nay, do you not frequently censure and condemn those things in others,
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and dare you allow them in yourselves ? What horrid hypocrisy is this ? Christians are dead to sin, Rom. vi. 2. dead to it by profes- sion, dead to it by obligation, dead to it by relation to Christ, who died for them ; and how shall they that are so many ways dead to sin, live any longer therein ? O think not that God hates sin the less in you because you are his people *, nay, that very considera- tion aggravates it the more, Amos iii. 2.