(2.) I think I need not say it is not the dissimulation of a sin. When a man.on some outward respects forsakes the practice of any sin, men perhaps may look on him as a changed man. God knows that to his former iniquity he hath added cursed hypocrisy, and is got in a safer path to hell than he was in before. He hath got an- other heart than he had, that is more cunning; not a new heart, that is more holy.
(8.) The mortification of sin consists not in the improvement of a quiet, sedate nature. Some men have an advantage by their natural constitution so far as that they are not exposed to such violence of unruly passions and tumultuous affections as many others are. Let now these men cultivate and improve their natural frame and tem- per by discipline, consideration, and prudence, and they may seem to themselves and others very mortified men, when, perhaps, their hearts are a standing sink of all abominations. Some man is never so much troubled all his life, perhaps, with anger and passion, nor doth trouble others, as another is almost every day ; and yet the lat- ter hath done more to the mortification of the sin than the former. Let not such pei'sons try their mortification by such things as their natural temper gives no life or vigour to. Let them bring them- selves to self-denial, unbelief, envy, or some such spiritual sin, and they will have a better view of themselves.
26 MORTIFICATION OF SIN IN BELIEVERS.
(4.) A sin is not mortified when it is only diverted. Simon Magus for a season left his sorceries; hut his covetousness and ambition, that set him on work, remained still, and would have been acting another way. Therefore Peter tells him, " I perceive thou art in the gall of bitterness;" — " Notwithstanding the profession thou hast made, notwithstanding thy relinquishment of thy sorceries, thy lust is as powerful as ever in thee ; the same lust, only the streams of it are diverted. It now exerts and puts forth itself another way, but it is the old gall of bitterness still." A man may be sensible of a lust, set himself against the eruptions of it, take care that it shall not break forth as it has done, but in the meantime suffer the same corrupted habit to vent itself some other way ; as he who heals and skins a running sore thinks himself cured, but in the meantime his flesh fes- tereth by the corruj)tion of the same humour, and breaks out in an- other place. And this diversion, with the alterations that attend it, often befalls men on accounts wholly foreign unto grace : change of the course of life that a man was in, of relations, interests, designs, may effect it; yea, the very alterations in men's constitutions, occa- sioned by a natural progress in the course of their lives, may produce such changes as these. Men in age do not usually persist in the pur- suit of youthful lusts, although they have never mortified any one of them. And the same is the case of bartering of lusts, and leaving to serve one that a man may serve another. He that changes pride for worldliness, sensuality for Pharisaism, vanity in himself to the con- tempt of others, let him not think that he hath mortified the sin thnt he seems to have left. He hath changed his master, but is a ser- vant still.
(5.) Occasional conquests of sin do not amount to a mortifying of it.
There are two occasions or seasons wherein a man who is con- tending with any sin may seem to himself to have mortified it : —
[1.] When it hath had some sad eruption, to the disturbance of his peace, terror of his conscience, dread of scandal, and evident provo- cation of God. This awakens and stirs up all that is in the man, and amazes him, fills him with abhorrency of sin, and himself for it; sends him to God, makes him cry out as for life, to abhor his lust as hell, and to set himself against it. The whole man, spiritual and natural, being now awaked, sin shrinks in its head, appears not, but lies as dead before him : as when one that hath drawn nigh to an army in the night, and hath killed a principal person, — instantly the guards awake, men are roused up, and strict inquir}^ is made after the enemy, who, in the meantime, until the noise and tumult be over, hides himself, or lies like one that is dead, yet with firm reso- lution to do the like mischief again upon the like opportunity. Upon the sin among the Corinthians, see how they muster up themselves
MORTIFICATION NEGATIVELY CONSIDERED. 27
for the surprisal and destruction of it, 2 Epist. chap. vii. 11. So it is in a person when a breach hath been made upon his conscience, quiet, perhaps credit, by his lust, in some eruption of actual sin ; — careful- ness, indignation, desire, fear, revenge, are all set on work about it and against it, and lust is quiet for a season, being run down before them ; but when the hurry is over and the inquest past, the' thief appears again alive, and is as busy as ever at his work.