2. The nest spiritual evil is the corruption of nature remaining in all mankind ; howsoever broken and subdued in the Lord's dear ones. This ■worketh for the best to them after this manner.
(1.) First, It serveth to make us see and know ive are kept hi/ God; how that we are not the keepers of our own selves, ' but are kept by his power through faith unto salvation,' 1 Pet. i. 5. For were it not that God upholds and sustains us, our corruptions would soon overturn us ; but the sight of corruption being sanctified to the soul, eauseth us to ground our comfort out of ourselves in Christ, and no whit to rely on anything that is in us.
(2.) Our corruptions are also good to abase the pride of our natures, and let us see the naughtiness of our spirits, that we mag be humbled before God.
(3.) And it is good we should have something within us to make us ivearg of the world; else, when we have run out our race, we be unwilling to depart hence. Now our bondage to this natural corruption serves exceed- ingly to make us mourn for our sinful disposition, and hunger after our God, to be joined with him ; as we see in St Paul's example, Rom. vii. 24, where, finding the rebellion of his nature and the strife that was in him, the flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, he cries out, saying, ' 0 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from this body of death ?' and seeketh to God in Christ for mercy straight.
(4.) Sometimes God suffers corruption to break out of us, that we mag know ourselves the better : and because corruption is weakened, not only by smothering, but many times by having a vent, whereupon grace stirs up in the soul a fresh hatred and revenge against it, and lets us see a necessity of having whole Christ, not only to pardon sin, but to purge and cleanse our defiled natures. But yet that which is ill itself must not be done for the good that comes by it by accident ; this must be a comfort after our surprisals, not an encouragement before.
(5.) It is our great consolation that our nature is p)erfect in Christ, who hath taken our nature upon him, and satisfied divine justice, not only for the sin of our lives, but for the sin of our natures, who will finish his own work in us, and never give over till by his Spirit he hath made our natures holy and pure as his own ; till he hath taken away, not only the reign, but the very life and being of sin out of our hearts. To which end he leaves his Spirit and truth in the church to the end of the world, that the seed of
256 THE PRIVILEGES OF THE FAITHFUL.
the Spirit may subilnc the seed of the serpent in us, and that tho Spirit may be a never-failing spring of all holy thoughts, desires, and endeavours in us, and dry up the contrary issue and spring of corrupt nature.
(G.) Lastly, It is good that corruption should still remain in us, that the glory of God may the more appear, rcheuas Satan, that great and strong enemy of mankind, shall he foiled, and overlvrned by a ireak and poor Christian, who is full of corruptions ; and that through the strength of faith, though mixed •with much distrust. For a Christian in the state of sin and corruption to overcome the great adversary of mankind, what a wonderment is it ! It tendeth much to the shame and dishonour of that ' fiery dragon,' that weak and sinful man should be his conqueror. Oh how it confounds him, to think that ' a grain of mustard seed,' Mat. xiii. 31, should be stronger than the gates of hell ; that it should be able to ' remove mountains of opposi- tions and temptations cast up by Satan and our rebellious hearts between God and us. Abimelech could not endure that it should be said ' a woman had slain him,' Judges ix. 53 ; and it must needs be a torment to Satan that a weak child, a decrepit old man, should by a spirit of faith put him to flight.
3. A third kind of spiritual ill of sin are the things that issue out of this cursed stock ; and those are either inward or outward. For inward sins, they are either errors or doubtings, or pride or wrath, or such like.
1. And first, for doubtings of the truth. This makes God's servants often more resolute to seek and search out the same, and to stand afterwards more firm and courageous for it. For if we doubted not of things, we should not afterwards be put out of doubt, nor seek to be better grounded and instructed in them. The Corinthians doubted once of the resurrection, but were ever after better resolved in that doctrine, the benefit whereof hath much redounded to the church's good ever since. Thomas had the like wavering disposition, but this doubting more manifested the truth. Luther being a monk at the first, and not fully grounded in the doctrine of the gospel, did therefore suspect himself the more, and wished all men after him to read his writings warily (a). The doctrine of the Trinity hath formerly been much doubted of, and therefore hath been with the greater pains and study of worthy men then living in the church more evidently proved. And when the Pelagians grew into heresies, they were by St Augustine gainsaid, and very strongly withstood. So the doctrine of the Church of Eome, being branched into divers erroneous opinions, and broached to the great hurt and prejudice of Christians, hath occasioned the truth of God against them to be the more excellently cleared and made known. For when religion is oppugned, it is time then ' to hold fast,' as the apostle St Jude saith, ' with both hands the word, and to fight for the faith ' (h), that so we may know both what to hold, and upon what ground we oppose heresy.