They are sensible how the flesh smarts under the rod, but had rather it should smart, than conscience should smart under guilt. Affliction, saith an upright soul, grieves me, but sin will grieve God ; affliction wounds my flesh, but sin will wound my soul. Deliver- ance I long for, but I will not pay so dear for it, how much soever I desire it: Nolo tanti emere poenitentiam : Outward ease is sweet, but inward peace is sweeter.
7. Seventhly, He prizeth the spiritual good gotten by affliction, above deliverance from it, and can bless God from his heart for those mercies, how dear soever his flesh hath paid for them. Psalm cxix. 67, and 71. " It is good for me that I have been afflicted."' Such is the value the people of God have for spiritual graces, that they cannot think them dear, whatever their flesh hath paid for them. The mortification of one lust, one discovery of sincerity, one mani- festation of God to their souls, doth much more than make amends for all that they have endured under the rod.
Is patience improved, self-acquaintance increased, the vanity of the creature more effectually taught, longings after heaven enflamed ? O blessed afflictions, that are attended with such blessed fruits .? It was the saying of a holy man, under a sore trouble for the death of an only son, when in that dark day God had graciously manifested himself to his soul ; ' O, (saith he) I would be contented, if it were possible, ' to lay an only son in the grave every day I have to live in the ' world, for one such discovery of the love of God as I now enjoy.'
Shewing indwelling sin to be to grace, what jire is to gold ; and how the soundness and unsoundness of our hearts are discovered by our carriage towards it.
Jr ROSPERITY and adversity put sincerity to the trial ; but nothing makes a deeper search into our bosoms, nothing sifts our spirits more narrowly, or tells us what our state is more plainly,
ABSTINENCE FROM SIN A DISCOVERY OF TflE HEART. 551
than our behaviour towards that corruption which dwells in us ; the thorn is next neighbour to the rose : Sin and grace dwell not only in the same soul, but in the same faculties. The collier and fuller dwell in one room ; what one cleanses the other blacks. Of all the evils God permits in this world, none is more grievous to his people than this : They sometimes wonder why the Lord will suffer it to be so; why, surely, among other wise and holy ends of this permis- sion, these are some.
They are left to try you, and to humble you : There is no intrin- sic goodness in sin ; but, however, in this it occasions good to us, that by our carriage towards it, we discern our sincerity. The touch-stone is a worthless stone in itself, but it serves to try the gold; 1 John iii. 9, 10. " Whosoever is born of God, doth nbt commit *' sin ; for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he " is born of God : In this the children of God are manifest, and the " children of the devil :" q. d. In respect of their carriage towards sin, the one and the other is plainly manifested : This is that which separates the dross from the gold, and shews you what the true state of men's persons, and tempers of their hearts are. By not sinning, we are not to understand a total freedom from it in this world, as if it implied any such perfection of the people of God in this world ; that is the Popish and Pelagian sense : Nor yet must we take it in the Arminian sense, who, to avoid the argument of the orthodox, will understand it of the sin against the Holy Ghost. What a strange thing would it be, to make that a characteristical note of dis- tinction betwixt the godly and ungodly, which so very few, even of the most ungodly, are ever guilty of .'^
But the manner of our behaviour towards sin, and our carriage towards it before, or under, or after the commission of it, in that the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.
Now, there are five things relating to sin, that discriminate and mark the state of the persons : The diiference is discernable.
1. Abstinence from sin.
2. Hatred of sin. In our ^ S. Trouble about sin.
4. Subjection to sin.
5. Opposition to sin.
(1.) X HE grounds and motives of our abstinence do very clearly manifest the state of our souls ; what they are in the regenerate and unregenerate, is our next work : and let it be considered,
1. Fh'st, That an unsound and unrenewed heart may abstain from one sin, because it is contrary to, and inconsistent with another sin : For, it is with the sins of our nature, as it is with the diseases of our bodies : Though all diseases be contrary to health, yet some diseases^
552 ABSTIXEXCE FROM Sl:ff A DISCOVERY OF THE HEART.
as the fever and palsy, are contrary to each other. So are prodiga- lity and covetousness, hypocrisy and profaneness. These oppose each other, not for mutual destruction, as sin and grace do, but for superiority, each contending for the throne, and sometimes taking it by turns. It is with such persons as with that possessed man. Mat. xvii. 15. whom the spirit cast sometimes into the fire, sometimes into the water : Or if one subdue the other, yet the heart is also subdued to the vassalage of that lust that is uppermost in the soul.
2. Secondhj^ An unrenewed soul may be kept from the commis- sion of some sin, not because there is a principle of grace within him, but because of some providential restraint without him, or upon him: For it often falls out, that when men have conceived sin, and are ready to execute it, providence claps on the fetters of restraint, and hinders them from so doing.
This was the case with Abimelech, Gen. xx. 6. and 17. compared, / xvitJtr-lield thee : And though persons so restrained, have not the ^ood of such providences, yet others have ; for by it a world of mis- chief is prevented in the world, which otherwise would break out ; and to this act of providence we owe our lives, hberties, estates, and comforts in this world.
3. Thirdly^ An unsound heart may not commit some sins, not be- cause he truly hates them, but because his constitution inclines him not to them : These men are rather beholden to a good temper of body, than to a gracious temper of soul. Some men cannot be drunkards if they would, others cannot be covetous and base ; they are made e meliori lato^ of a more refined metal than others ; but chaste and liberal, just and sober nature, is but nature still: The best nature, in all its endowments, is but nature at the best.