Use. 1 . Caution. Take heed ; the world is a dangerous place, even to a disciple of Christ ; and therefore you have need ' to use it as if you used it not.' The heart is soon tainted, and that insensibly. There are two remedies that you should constantly use — watching and prayer ; they are prescribed by our Saviour : Mat. xxvi. 41, ' Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.' These must always go together. We watch that we may not be careless ; we pray that we may not be self-confident. These two duties help one another ; the heart is best kept when it is commeuded to God. We watch only to discover the approaches of the enemy ; and we cry for God's help against the temptation. As watching helps prayer, danger descried giveth quickness, fervency, and earnestness in supplication ; so also prayer helpeth watching. We can best maintain our station when we call in God's help.
1. Watch, and that especially against two things — the occasions of sin, and the privy distempers of the heart.
[1.] The occasions of sin. Do not put yourselves upon danger ; it is a sign of a naughty heart to dally with occasions ; as ravens, when they are driven away from the carrion, will stand within the scent. It is not good to be within the scent of sin. Lot and his wife were not to look back upon Sodom : Gen. xix. 26, ' Lot's wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.' The act in itself was not sinful, but it was forbidden to them as an occasion of sin. You shall see, ver. 29, Abraham looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and he is commended ; but it was forbidden to Lot : ver. 17, ' Escape for thy life, look not behind thee;' because it was likely to work relentings. He was loath to leave that pleasant vale ; the sight was more like to work on Lot's heart and his wife's than Abraham's, and prove a snare to them. Therefore Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt. Pray mark it ; Ananias and Sapphira were stricken dead for a sin, and Lot's wife for i)utting herself upon a temptation to sin. God hath declared his displeasure against hankering after corruption as well as closing with it ; and in these days sin is not grown less dangerous, nor
VeR. 15.] SERMONS UPON JOHN XVII. 399
God less angry with it. A wanton look, putting ourselves upon the presence of a temptation without a call, ' beholding the wine while it sparkleth in the glass,' these are temptations, and we have no need to tempt the tempter. Satan is waiting for such advantages ; he can interpret the silent language of a blush, a smile, a frown, a look, the glance of a lustful eye ; he is watchful, and is an excellent naturalist, skilled in the external gestures and motions of the spirits.
[2.] Against privy distempers. We are not only to watch against actual sins, but the secret growing of evil habits, especially against deadness, drowsiness, and those distempers that insensibly creep upon the heart. Conversing with worldly pleasures and worldly objects breedeth a deadness, and withdraweth the heart ere we are aware. Natural conscience is kept waking against foul lusts and corruptions ; they are in a dead sleep that can, as Jonah did, sleep in a storm, that fall into brutish practices without remorse. But the great end of spiritual watching is to keep the heart in frame, to prevent the sly en- croachments of the world. But how shall we know when the world doth encroach ? I answer — When your care is lessened towards heavenly things, and your delight is lessened in them.
(1.) When your care is lessened towards heavenly things, you are not SO serious, so frequent in communion with God. This is Martha's fault ; she ' was cumbered about much serving, while Mary sat at Jesus his feet, and heard his words,' Luke x. When you begin to lessen your course of duty, though the same abilities, opportunities, and necessities continue, and only out of respect to the world, it is a carnal distemper, especially when the world beginneth to upbraid conscience. If I hear as much, and pray as much, and meditate as much as I was wont, it will engross my time and hinder my worldly pursuits. As Sarah thrust Ishmael out of doors when he began to scoff at Isaac, it is good to thrust the world out of the heart when it encroacheth too much. Be it the world of carnal delight, or of carnal profit, when it would defraud God, or the soul, or the family of its due allowance, it is sad.
(2.) When your delight is lessened, and you have lost your savour of the word or the ordinances, or sabbath, and prize communion with God less, God is defrauded : 1 John ii. 15, ' Love not the world, nor the things of the world ; for if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.' The love of the world hath made you weary of God. When the affections are scattered to other objects, it is adultery ; the wife of the bosom is defrauded of her right. So it is spiritual adultery when the world hath intercepted your delight, and you go a-whoring after it. It is idolatry to divert our trust, and adultery to divert our delight. Worldliness is expressed by both terms — adultery and idolatry : Ps. Ixxiii. 27, 28, ' Thou hast destroyed all them that go a-whoring from thee ; but it is good for me to draw near to God.' Estrangement of affection from God is called there, ' going a-whoring from God,' and opposed to delight in communion with God. And it is spiritual idolatry : Col. iii. 5, ' Mortify your earthly members; fornication, &c., and covetousness, that is idolatry.' And E[)h. v. 5, 'No covetous person, that is an idolater, shall inherit the kingdom of Christ and of God.' Therefore though we do not run