[2.] In a time of some judgment, calamity, or pressing affliction ; the heart is then taken up with thoughts and contrivances of flying' from the present troubles, fears, and dangers. This, as a convinced person concludes, is to be done only by relinquishment of sin, Avhich gains peace with God. It is the anger of God in every affliction that galls a convinced person. To be quit of this, men resolve at such times against their sins. Sin shall never more have any place in them; they will never again give up themselves to the service of it. Accordingly, sin is quiet, stirs not, seems to be mortified ; not, indeed, that it hath received any one wound, but merely because the soul hath possessed its faculties, whereby it should exert itself, with thoughts inconsistent with the motions thereof; which, when they are laid aside, sin returns again to its former life and vigour. So they Ps. Ixxviii 32-37, are a full instance and description of this frame of spirit whereof I speak: " For all this they sinned still, and believed not for his wondrous works. Therefore their days did he consume in vanity, and their years in trouble. When he slew them, then they sought him : and they returned and inquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer. Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues. For their heart was not right with him, neither were they steadfast in his covenant." I no way doubt but that when they sought, and re- turned, and inquired early after God, they did it with full purpose of heart as to the relinquishment of their sins ; it is expressed in the word " returned." To turn or return to the Lord is by a relinquish- ment of sin. This they did " early," — with earnestness and diligence; but yet their sin was unmortified for all this, verses 36, 37. And this is the state of many humiliations in the days of affliction, and a great deceit in the hearts of believers themselves lies oftentimes herein.
These and many other ways there are whereby poor souls deceive themselves, and suppose they have mortified their lusts, when they live and are mighty, and on every occasion break forth, to their dis- turbance and disquietness.
28 MORTIFICATION OF SIN IN BELIEVERS.
CHAPTER VL
The mortification of sin in particular described — The several parts and degrees thereof — The habitual weakening of its root and principle — The power of lust to tempt— Dift'erences of that power as to persons and times — Constant fighting against sin — The parts thereof considered — Success against it — The sum of this discourse considered.
What it is to mortify a sin in general, which will make farther way for particular directions, is nextly to be considered.
2. The mortification of a lust consists in three things: —
(1.) An habitual weakening of it. Every lust is a depraved habit or disposition, continually iucliuing the heart to evil. Thence is that description of him who hath no lust truly mortified, Gen. vi. 5, " Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil con- tinually." He is always under the power of a strong bent and in- clination to sin. And the reason why a natural man is not always perpetually in the pursuit of some one lust, night and day, is because he hath many to serve, every one crying to be satisfied ; thence he is earned on with gi'eat variety, but still in general he lies towards the satisfaction of self.
We will suppose, then, the lust or distemper whose mortification is inquhed after to be in itself a strong, deeply-rooted, habitual in- clination and bent of will and affections unto some actual sin, as to the matter of it, though not, under that formal consideration, always stirring np imaginations, thoughts, and contrivances about the object of it. Hence, men are said to have their " hearts set upon evil," the bent of their spuits lies towards it, to make " provision for the flesh." ^ And a sinful, depraved habit, as in many other things, so in this, differs from all natural or moral habits whatever: for whereas they incline the soul gently and suitably to itself, sinful habits impel with violence and impetuousness; whence lusts are said to fight or wage " war against the soul,"^ 1 Pet. ii. 11, — to rebel or rise up in war with that conduct and opposition which is usual therein,* Rom. vii. 28, — to lead captive, or effectually captivating upon success in battle, — all works of great violence and impetuousness.
I might manifest fully, from that description we have of it, Rom. vii., how it will darken the mind, extinguish convictions, dethrone reason, inteiTupt the power and influence of any consideiations that may be brought to hamper it, and break through all into a flame. But this is not my present business. Now, the first thing in mor-
1 Rom. xiii. 14. - 'Srpartuotrai Kara, rris '4'i'X'is-
MORTIFICATION IN PARTICULAR DESCRIBED. 29
tification is the weakening of this habit of sin or lust, that it shall not, with that violence, earnestness, frequency, rise up, conceive, tu- multuate, provoke, entice, disquiet, as naturally it is apt to do, James i. 14, 15.