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242 SERMONS UPON ROMANS VI. [SeU. X.
opposition to the Spirit, and you so far prevail that for your drift and course you are not led by the flesh, but the Spirit, then you are sincere and upright with Grod ; otherwise you must not thinlc every striving will excuse you, if it be such a striving as may consist with the dominion and customary practice of sin. There are few wretches so bad but they may have some wishes that they could leave sin, especially when tliey think of the inconveniences that attend it, and conscience may strive a little before they yield, but they live in it still. A chris- tian striveth, but cannot be perfect ; there are infirmities : but the con- vinced sinner striveth, but cannot 1 ive holily ; there are iniquities. This striving hindereth not the dominion of sin, because he doth not con- quer and master it so far but that it breaketh out in a gross manner ; his striving cometh not from the renovation of the Spirit, but the con- viction of his conscience, which is ever condemning his practices.
2. Positively, when we obey it and follow it, and do that to which sin enticeth us. For the end of sin's reign and empire is our obedience ; the commands and urgings of it are in vain if you obey them not, but rather rebuke and suppress them. Now we may obey bodily lusts two ways — [1.] By the inward consent of the mind ; for what sins you would do you have done in God's acco'unt, though the outward act follow not : Mat. V. 28, ' He that looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart,' though you be impeded and hindered in the action. The life and reign of sin is in the heart, in the love of the heart, though it may be it may not appear in out- ward deeds. Eestraint is not sanctification. Practices may be restrained by by-ends ; but if you like the sin in your hearts, you let it reign, and do not oppose it by gracious motives. Your hearts are false with God if his empire be not set up there. Therefore obey not the lusts of the body, that is, consent not to them; if they arise and bubble up in your hearts, let them be disowned and disliked. We are to ' abstain from fleshly lusts,' 1 Peter ii. 11, before they break out into our conversation. For the governing of the heart, and the regu- lating of the life are two distinct acts of our obedience to God ; they are required indeed, the one in order to the other, but you must be careful of both. Your love to God and his law must be showed by abominating the motions that would draw you to the contrary : Ps. cxix. 113, ' I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love.' The first motions are sins, for they proceed from corrupt nature ; we had none such in innocency ; and the consent is a further sin, because then you begin to give way to its reign. The delightful stay of the mind showeth our love to it ; these pauses' of the mind come from sin, are sin, and tend to further sin : James i. 15, ' Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.'
[2.] The execution of these motions by the body, when sin is brought to her consummate effect : Micah ii. 1, ' Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds ; when the morning is light they practise it, because it is in the power of their hands.' This is a sign of the reign of sin ; loo much room being given to sin in the heart, that it obtains a mastery there ; it violently and effectually commands our practice, which, if it be a scandalous enormity, it makes sin to reign for the present. Lesser evils steal into the throne
VeR. 12.] SEltMONS UPON ROMANS VI. 243
by degrees, and leaven us with a proud, worldly, or carnal frame of heart ; but gross sins invade the throne in an instant, at least for the present, making fearful havoc and waste of the conscience, and the lepeated acts show our state.
Secondly, That christians are strictly obliged to take heed that sin get not dominion over them.
1. By the light of nature, which is in part sensible of this disorder which hath invaded all mankind, namely, an inclination to seek the liappiness and good of tlie body above that of the soul. The very make and constitution of man showeth his duty. Man is composed of a body and a soul, both which parts are to be regarded according to the dignity of each. The body was subordinated to the soul, and both soul and body unto God ; his flesh was a servant unto his spirit, and both flesh and spirit unto the Lord ; but sin entering, defaced the beauty, and disturbed the harmony and order of God's creation and workmanship. Man withdrew from subordination to God his maker, seeking his happiness without God, and apart from him, in earthly and worldly things ; and also the body and flesh is preferred before the soul, and reason and conscience enslaved to sense and appetite ; understanding and will are made bond-slaves to the lusts of the flesh, which govern and influence all his actions ; his wisdom, mind, and spirit as it were sunk into the flesh, and transformed into a brutish quality and nature. This many of the wiser heathens saw, and sought to rectify. Maximus Tyrius calls our passions and appetites rov ^TjfjLov, the tumultuous populacy or common people of the soul, which must not be left to their own boisterous violence, but be kept under the law and empire of the mind. Philo the Jew calleth them to drfky, the woman part in man, in opposition to reason, which he maketh to be the masculine part; Simplicius, rov iralha, the child in us, which needeth more staid heads to govern it ; and some, irepi- ire^iov yjrvxn'i H'^po'i, the foot part of the soul ; as it is a monstrous disorder if the feet be there where the head should be, so it is for us to serve divers lusts and pleasures, when we should be governed by reason. The stoics generally, to drjpiov, the bestial part in us, which they counted the man, as if the beast should ride the man, as Socrates expressly calls reason 'qvlo'xpv, the rider or chariot-driver, as the body and bodily inclinations the horses. Now if the light of nature taught the heathens, who knew little of the cause and malignity of this vitiosity and disorder, to observe this, and labour under it, surely christians are. more strictly bound to curb the flesh, and moderate the lusts and passions of it. We know more clearly what an evil it is to love the creature above God, the body more than the soul, the world above heaven, riches, honours, and pleasures more than grace and holiness ; as the light of Christianity befriendeth the light of nature in this point, we may see clearly how great a disorder it is to obey or fulfil these bodily lusts to the wrong of God and the soul, and that the true honour and dignity of a man consists in the victory which he hath over himself ; and that to pamper the flesh is not our honour, but our disgrace ; and that these irregular desires should not be grati- fied, but mortified.