(2.) How knowest thou but that God hath suffered the lust where- with thou hast been perplexed to get strength in thee, and power over thee, to chasten thee for thy other negligences and common lukewarmness in walking before him ; at least to awaken thee to the consideration of thy ways, that thou mayst make a thorough work and change in thy course of walking with him?
The rage and predominancy of a particular lust is commonly the fruit and issue of a careless, negligent course in general, and that upon a double account: —
[1.] As its natural effect, if I may so say. Lust, as I showed in general, lies in the heart of every one, even the best, whilst he lives ; and think not that the Scripture speaks in vain, that it is subtle, cunning, crafty, — that it seduces, enticesj fights, rebels. Whilst a man keeps a diligent watch over his heart, its root and fountain, — whil-^t above all keepings he keeps his heart, whence are the issues of life and death, — lust withers and dies in it. But if, through negli- gence, it makes an eruptioti any particular way, gets a passage to the thoughts by the affections, and from them and by them perhaps breaks out into open sin in the conversation, the strength of it bears that way it hath found out, and that way mainly it urgeth, until, having got a passage, it then vexes and disquiets, and is not easily to be restrained : thus, perhaps, a man may be put to wrestle all his days in sorrow with that which, by a strict and universal watch, might easily have been prevented.
[2.] As I said, God oftentimes suffers it to chasten our other negli- gences: for as with wicked men, he gives them up to one sin as the judgment of another, a greater for the punishment of a less, or one that will hold them more firmly and securely for that which they might have possibly obtained a deliverance from;^ so even with his own, he may, he doth, leave them sometimes to some vexatious dis- tempers, either to prevent or cure some other evil. So was the mes- senger of Satan let loose on Paul, that he " might not be lifted up through the abundance of spiritual revelations."^ Was it not a cor- rection to Peter's vain confidence, that he was left to deny his Master? Now, if this be the state and condition of lust in its pre- valency, that God oftentimes suffers it so to prevail, at least to admo- nish us, and to humble us, perhaps to chasten and correct us for our
1 Rom, i. 2G. » 2 Cov. xii. 7,
SYMPTOMS OF A PARTICULAR LUST. 43
general loose and careless walking, is it possible that the effect should be removed and the cause continued, — that the particular lust should be mortified and \he general course be unreformed? He, then, that would really, thoroughly, and acceptably mortify any disquieting lust, let him take care to be equally diligent in all parts of obedience, and know that every lust, every omission of duty, is burdensome to God, though but one is so to him/ Whilst there abides a treacheiy in the heart to indulge to any negligence in not pressing universally to all perfection in obedience, the soul is weak, as not giving faith its whole work; and selfish, as considering more the trouble of sin than the filth and guilt of it ; and lives under a constant provocation of God : so that it may not expect any comfortable issue in any spiritual duty that it doth undertake, much less in this under consideration, which requires another principle and frame of spirit for its accomplishment.
CHAPTEE IX.
Particular directions in relation to the foregoing case proposed — First. Consider the dangerous symptoms of any lust — 1. Inveterateness — 2. Peace obtained under it ; the several ways whereby that is done — 3. Frequency of success in its seductions — 4. The soul's fighting against it with arguments only taken from the event — 5. Its being attended with judiciary hardness— 6. Its withstanding particular deaUngs from God — The state of persons in whom these things are found.
III. The foregoing general rules being supposed, particular direc- tions to the soul for its guidance under the sense of a disquieting lust or distemper, being the main thing I aim at, come next to be proposed. Now, of these some are previous and preparatory, and in some of them the work itself is contained. Of the first sort are these en- suing : —
First. Consider what dangerous synnptoms thy lust hath attending, or accompanying it, — whether it hath any deadly mark on it or no; if it hath, extraordinary remedies are to be used; an ordinary course of mortification will not do it.
You will say, " What are these dangerous marks and symptoms, the desperate attendancies of an indwelling lust, that you intend?" Some of them I shall name : —
1. Inveterateness. — If it hath lain long corrupting in thy heart, if thou hast suffered it to abide in power and prevalency, without attempting vigorously the killing of it, and the healing of the wounds
' Isa. xliii. 24.
4^ MORTIFICATION OF SIN IN BELIEVERS.