[8.] Eighthly, The settled resolutions of a gracious heart is not to sin : Ps. cxix. 106, ' I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments ;' Neh. x. 28-31, dwell on it ; Job xxxi. 1, &c. ; Micah iv. 5, ' For all people will walk, every one in the name of his god, and we walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.' So Daniel and the three children.
Blessed Hooper resolves rather to be discharged of his bishopric than yield to certain ceremonies.
Jerome writes of a brave^ woman, who, being upon the rack, bid her persecutors do their worst, for she was resolved that she would rather die than lie.
The Prince of Conde being taken prisoner by Charles the Ninth of France, and put to his choice — first, whether he would go to mass ; or second, be put to death ; or thirdly, suffer perpetual imprisonment, an- swered, ' As for the first, I will never do, by the assistance of God's grace ; and as for the other two, let the king do with me what he
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pleaseth, for I am very well assured that God will turn all to the best.'
' The heavens shall as soon fall,' said William Flower to the bishop that persuaded him to save his life by retracting,^ ' as I will forsake the opinion and faith I am in, God assisting of me.'
So Marcus Arethusius chose rather to suffer a most cruel death than to give one halfpenny towards the building of an idol temple. ^
So Cyprian, when the emperor, in the way to his execution, said, * Now I give thee space to consider whether thou wilt obey me in cast- ing a grain of frankincense into the fire, or be thus miserably slain.' ' Nay,' saith he, ' there needs no deliberation in the case.' There are many thousands of such instances scattered up and down in history.
[9.] Ninthly, There is a real luillingness in every gracious soul to he rid of all sin, Kom. vii. 24 ; Hosea xiv. 2, 8 ; Job vii. 21. Saving grace makes a Christian as willing to leave his sin as a slave is will- ing to leave his galley, or a prisoner his dungeon, or a thief his bolts, or a beggar his rags. ' Many a day have I sought death with tears,' saith blessed Cooper, ' not out of impatience, distrust, or perturbation, but because I am weary of sin, and fearful of falling into it.' Look, as the daughters of Heth even made Eebekah weary of her life, (Gen. xxvii. 46 ;) so corruptions within makes a gracious soul even weary of his life. A gracious soul looks upon sin with as evil and as envious an eye as Saul looked on David when the evil spirit was upon him. ' Oh,' saith Saul, ' that I was but once well rid of this David ;' and oh, saith a gracious soul, that I was but once well rid of * this proud heart, this hard heart, this unbelieving heart, this unclean heart, this earthly heart, this froward heart of mine.'
[10.] Tenthly, Every godly man complains of his knoivn sins, and mourns over his known sins, and would be fain rid of his known sins, as might be made evident out of many scores of scripture, Job vii. 21; Ps. li. 14; Hosea ii.
[11.] Eleventhly, Every gracious soulse^s himself mostli/, resolutely, valiantly, and habitually against his special sins, his constitution sins, his most prevalent sins : Ps. xviii. 23, ' I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity.' Certainly that which is the special sin of a godly man, is his special burden ; it is not delighted in, but lamented. ^ There is no sin which costs him so much sorrow as that to which either the temper of his body or the occasions of his life leads him. That sin which he finds his heart most set upon, he sets his heart, his whole soul, most against. The Scripture gives much evidence that David, though a man after God's own heart, was very apt to fall into the sin of lying ; he used many unlawful shifts. We read of his often faltering in that kind, when he was in straits and hard put to it, 1 Sam. xxi. 2, 8, and xxvii. 8, 10, &c., but it is as clear in Scripture that his heart was set against lying, and that it was the grief and daily burden of his soul. Certainly that sin is a man's greatest burden and grief which he prays most to be delivered from. Oh, how earnestly did David pray to be delivered from the sin of lymg : Ps, cxix. 29, ' Keep me from the way of lying.' And as he
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