thou hast received by it, for some long season, thy distemper is dan- gerous. Hast thou permitted worldliness, ambition, greediness of study, to eat up other duties, the duties wherein thou oughtest to hold constant communion with God, for some long season? or unclean- ness to defile thy heart with vain, and foolish, and wicked imagina- tions for many days? Thy lust hath a dangerous symptom. So was the case with David: Ps. xxxviii. 5, " My wounds stink and are cor- rupt because of my foolishness." When a lust hath lain long in the heart, corrupting, festering, cankering, it brings the soul to a woful condition. In such a case an ordinary course of humiliation will not do the work : Avhatever it be, it will by this means insinuate itself more or less into all the faculties of tlie soul, and habituate the affec- tions to its company and society; it grows familiar to the mind and conscience, that they do not startle at it as a strange thing, but are bold with it as that which they are wonted unto; yea, it will get such advantage by this means as oftentimes to exert and put forth itself without having any notice taken of it at all, as it seems to have been with Joseph in his swearing by the life of Pharaoh. Un- less some extraordinary course be taken, such a person hath no ground in the world to expect that his latter end shall be peace.
For, first. How will he be able to distinguish between the long abode of an unmortified lust and the dominion of sin, which cannot befall a regenerate person ? Secondly, How can he promise himself that it shall ever be otherwise with him, or that his lust will cease tu- multuating and seducing, when he sees it fixed and abiding, and hath done so for many days, and hath gone through a variety of conditions with him? It may be it hath tried mercies and afflictions, and those possibly so remarkable that the soul could not avoid the taking spe- cial notice of them ; it may be it hath weathered out many a storm, and passed under much variety of gifts in the administration of the word ; and will it prove an easy thing to dislodge an inmate pleading a title by prescription? Old neglected wounds are often mortal, always dangerous. Indwelling distempers grow rusty and stubborn by continuance in ease and quiet. Lust is such an inmate as, if it can plead time and some prescription, will not easily be ejected. As it never dies of itself, so if it be not daily killed it will always gather strength.
2. Secret pleas of the heart for the countenancing of itself, and
. keeping up its peace, notwithstanding the abiding of a lust, without
a vigorous gospel attempt for its mortification, is another dangerous
symptom of a deadly distemper in the heart. Now, there be .several
ways whereby this may be done. I shall name some of them ; as, —
(1.) When upon thoughts, perplexing thoughts about sin, instead of applying himself to the destruction of it, a man searches his heart
SYMPTOMS OF A PARTICULAR LUST. 45
to see wliat evidences he can find of a good condition, notwithstand- ing that sin and lust, so that it may go well with him.
For a man to gather up his experiences of God, to call them to mind, to collect them, consider, try, improve them, is an excellent thing, — a duty practised by all the saints, commended in the Old Tes- tament and the New. This was David's work when he " communed with his own heart," and called to remembrance the former lovins:- kindness of the Lord.^ This is the duty that Paul sets us to practise, 2 Cor. xiii. 5. And as it is in itself excellent, so it hath beauty added to it by a proper season, a time of trial or temptation, or dis- quietness of the heart about sin, — is a picture of silver to set off this golden apple, as Solomon speaks. But now to do it for this end, to satisfy conscience, which cries and calls for another purpose, is a des- perate device of a heart in love with sin. When a man's conscience shall deal with him, when God shall rebuke him for the sinful dis- temper of his heart, if he, instead of applying himself to get that sin pardoned in the blood of Christ and mortified by his Spirit, shall relieve himself by any such other evidences as he hath, or thinks himself to have, and so disentangle himself from under the yoke that God was putting on his neck, his condition is very dangerous, his wound hardly curable. Thus the Jews, under the gallings of their own consciences and the convincing preaching of our Saviour, sup- ported themselves with this, that they were " Abraham's children," and on that account accepted with God; and so countenanced them- selves in all abominable wickedness, to their utter ruin.
This is, in some degree, a blessing of a man's self, and saying that upon one account or other he shall have peace, " although he adds drunkenness to thirst." Love of sin, undervaluation of peace and of all tastes of love from God, are inwrapped in such a frame. Such a one plainly shows, that if he can but keep up hope of escaping the " wrath to come," he can be well content to be unfruitful in the world, at any distance from God that is not final separation. What is to be expected from such a heart?