[6.] What vile unthankfulness it is, and a great abuse of that liberty which we have by Christ : Gal. v. 13, ' Ye are called to liberty, only use it not as an occasion to the flesh.' We have a great liberty to use our worldly comforts, with a respect to God's glory, and as encourage- ments of God's service, and for the sweetening of our pilgrimage ; but it is strangely perverted when we use these things to please the flesh ; you turn it into a bondage, and offer a great abuse to Jesus Christ. Surely he never died to promote the power of sin, or gave us these comforts to defeat the ends of his death. Was he a man of sorrows that we might live in pleasure ? Did he suffer in the flesh to purchase us liberty to please the flesh ? or die for sin, to give sin the mastery ? Did the Lord vouchsafe these comforts that we might dishonour his name, or undo our own souls ?
2. Means to come out of this estate and course of sin. I shall give you a few directions :
[I.] To those that never pretended to the spiritual and heavenly life, and are as yet to be drawn out of the common apostasy and defection of mankind to God. All that I shall say to them is to observe checks
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50 8ERM0NS UPON ROMANS VIII. [SeR. XVII.
of conscience and motions of the Spirit, and what help is given to weaken the flesli.
(1.) Checks of conscience, however occasioned, either by a lapse into some sin, which is wont to scourge the soul with some remorse : Mat. xxvii. 4, saying ' I have sinned in betx-aying innocent blood.' Conscience, working after the fact or by the conviction of the word : Acts xxiv. 25, ' And as he reasoned of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled.' l)o not smother these checks ; that breedeth atheism and hardness of heart. Suppose one, dissolutely bent, yet upon some loathsome concomitants which follow his riot and intemperance, beginneth to be troubled ; God's providence is to be observed as well as his own sin. This is a kind of softening his heart ; if he revert to his old frame, the man is the worse. No iron so hard as that which hath been often heated. Water, after it hath been heated by the fire, congealeth the sooner after it is taken off. If he doth not take notice of God's warnings, his soul is more unapt to be wrought to repentaute ; yea, God injustice may deprive him of those common helps : Hos. iv. 17, ' Let him alone ; ' or give him up to his own heart's counsels. It is dangerous not to make use of those intervals of reason and sober thoughts which arise in our minds.
(2.) The motions of the Holy Spirit, when he cometh to recover you from the flesh to God ; and you are troubled not only with remorse for actual and heinous sins, but about your eternal estate ; and are haunted with thoughts of tlie other world, and ui'ged to resolve upon the heavenly life. Surely, when the waters are stirred, we should put in for a cure, John v ; when he draweth, we should run. Cant. i. 4 ; when he knocketh, we should open, Rev. iii. 20, and not obstruct the work of godliness, but seriously employ our thoughts about it : Acts xvi. 14, ' Whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things that were spoken by Paul.' We should not rebel against the motions of the Spirit, lest we grieve our sanctifier, and he forsake us, because we for- sook him first, and so our hearts be hardened in a carnal course. Briefly, God doth all in our first conversion ; yet these three things lie upon us ; first, to observe the touches of God's punishing and chastising hand reclaiming us from our wanderings : Ps. cxix. 59. ' Before I was afflicted I went astray.' Secondly, To reflect upon the motions of his Spirit to draw us out of this estate, that we may not resist the Holy Ghost, Acts vii. 51. Thirdly, To examine every day what advantage the Spirit hath gotten against the flesh ; bow the interests of it are weakened, its lusts checked, its acts restrained, Gal. v. 16. Every one that doth seriously mind the business of his salvation cannot but see these things of great advantage to his spiritual estate ; and there is no great difficulty in them to the serious soul that hath a mind to be saved.
[2.] To those that seem to be recovered, and to have a care of the spiritual life, that they may not revert to this bondage, and that the work may be more thoroughly wrought in them.
(1.) Look to the mind ; take heed there be not flesh there, for the fleshly mind is a great enemy to godliness : Eom. viii. 7, ' The carnal mind is enmity to God ; ' and it is a low poor mind, blinded with the love of present things : James iii. 15, ' The wisdom that descendeth not
VeR. 13.] KEKMONS UPON ROMANS VIII. 61