IIORTIFICATION THE WOEK OF BELIEVERS. 33
such a universal conquest as the soul may never more sensibly feel its opposition, and shall, however, assuredly arise to an allowance of peace to the conscience, according to the tenor of the covenant of grace.
CHAPTER VIL
General rules, without which no lust will be mortified — No mortification unless a man be a believer — Dangers of attempting mortification of sin by unre- generate persons — The duty of unconverted persons as to this business of mortification considered — The vanity of the Papists' attempts and rules for mortification thence discovered.
II. The luays and means whereby a soul may proceed to the morti- fication of any particular lust and sin, which Satan takes advantage by to disquiet and weaken him, come next under consideration.
Now, there are some general considerations to be premised, con- cerning some principles and foundations of this work, without which no man in the world, be he never so much raised by convictions, and resolved for the mortification of any sin, can attain thereunto.
General rules and principles, without which no sin will be ever mortified, are these : —
1. Unless a man he a believer, — that is, one that is truly ingrafted into Christ, — he can never mortify any one sin; I do not say, unless he know himself to be so, but unless indeed he be so.
Mortification is the work of believers: Rom. viii. 13, " If ye through the Spirit," etc., — ye believers, to whom there is no condemnation, verse 1. They alone are exhorted to it: Col. iii. 5, " Mortify there- fore your members which are uj)on the earth." Who should mortify? You who " ai'e risen with Christ," verse 1 ; whose " life is hid with Christ in God," verse 3 ; who " shall appear with him in glory," verse 4. An unregenerate man may do something like it; but the work itself, so as it may be acceptable with God, he can never per- form. You know what a picture of it is dra-\vn in some of the philo- sophers,— Seneca, Tully, Epictetus ; what affectionate discourses they have of contempt of the world and self, of regulating and conquer- ing all exorbitant affections and passions ! The lives of most of them manifested that their maxims differed as much from true mortifica- tion as the sun painted on a sign- post from the sun in the firma- ment ; they had neither light nor heat. Their own Lucian suffi- ciently manifests what they all were. There is no death of sin without the death of Christ. You know what attempts there are
VOL. VI. 3
Si JrOETIFICATION OF SIN IN BELIEVERS.
made after it by the Papists^ in their vows, penances, and satisfac- tions. I dare say of them (I mean as many of them as act upon the principles of their church, as they call it) what Paul says of Israel in point of righteousness, Rom. ix. 31, 32, — They have followed after mortification, but they have not attained to it. Wherefore? "Because they seek it not by faith, but as it were by the woYks of the law." The same is the state and condition of all amongst ourselves who, in obedience to their convictions and awakened consciences, do attempt a relinquishment of sin; — they follow after it, but they do not at- tain it.
It is true, it is, it will he, required of every person whatever that hears the law or gospel preached, that he mortify sin. It is his duti/, but it is not his immediate duty; it is his duty to do it, but to do it in God's way. If you require your servant to pay so much money for you in such a place, but first to go and take it up in another, it is his duty to pay the money appointed, and you will blame him if he do it not ; yet it was not his immediate duty, — he was first to take it up, accordmg to your direction. So it is in this case : sin is to be mortified, but something is to be done in the first place to enable us thereunto.
I have proved that it is the Spirit alone that can mortify sin; he is promised to do it, and all other means without him are empty and vain. How shall he, then, mortify sin that hath not the Sj)irit? A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit. Now, how is he attained? It is the Si^irit of Christ : and as the apostle says, " If we have not the Spirit of Christ, we are none of his," Pom. viii. 9; so, if we are Christ's, have an interest in him, we have the Spirit, and so alone have power for mortification. This the ajDOstle discourses at large, Rom. viii. 8, " So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." It is the mference and conclusion he makes of his foregoing dis- course about our natural state and condition, and the enmity we have unto God and his law therein. If we are in the flesh, if we have not the Spirit, we cannot do any thing that should please God. But what is our deliverance from this condition? Verse 9, " But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spiiit of God dwell in you ;" — " Yo believers, that have the Spirit of Christ, ye are not in the flesh." There is no way of deliverance fi-om the state and condition of being in the flesh but by the Spirit of Christ. And what if this Spirit of Christ be in you? Why, then, you are mortified; verse 10, " The body is dead because of sin," or unto it; mortification is carried on; the new man is quickened to righteousness. This the apostle proves, verse 11, from the union we have with Christ by the Spirit, which will produce suitable operations in us to what it "WTOught