Unspeakable are the evils which attend such a frame of heart. Every joarticular warning to a man in such an estate is an inestimable mercy; how then doth he despise God in them who holds out against them ! And what infinite patience is this in God, that he doth not cast off such a one, and swear in his wrath that he shall never enter into his rest !
These and many other evidences are there of a lust that is danger- ous, if not mortal. As our Saviour said of the evil spirit, " This kind goes not out but by fasting and prayer," so say I of lusts of this kind. An ordinary course of mortification will not do it; ex- traordinary ways must be fixed on.
This is the first particular direction : Consider whether the lust or sin you are contending with hath any of these dangerous symptoms attending of it.
Before I proceed I must give you one caution by the way, lest any be deceived by what hath been spoken. Whereas I say the things and evils above-mentioned may befall true believers, let not any that finds the same things in himself thence or from thence conclude that he is a true believer. These are the evils that believers may fall into and be ensnared withal, not the things that constitute a believer. A man may as well conclude that he is a believer because he is an adulterer, l)ecause David that was so fell into adultery, as conclude it from the signs foregoing ; which are the evils of sin and Satan in the hearts of believers. The seventh chapter of the Romans contains the description of a regenerate man. He that shall consider what is spoken of his dark side, of his unregenerate part, of the indwelling power and violence
VOL. VI. 4
50 MORTIFICATION OF SIN IN BELIEVERS.
of sin remaining in him, and, because he finds the hke in himself, conckide that he is a regenerate man, will 'be deceived in his reckon- ing. It is all one as if you should argue: A wise man may be sick and wounded, yea, do some things foolishly; therefore, every one who is sick and wounded and does things foolishly is a wise man. Or as if a silly, deformed creature, hearing one speak of a beautiful per- son, should say that he had a mark or a scar that much disfigured him, should conclude that because he hath himself scars, and moles, and warts, he also is beautiful. If you will have evidences of your being believers, it must be from those things that constitute men believers. He that hath these things in himself may safely con- clude, " If I am a believer, I am a most miserable one."" But that any man is so, he must look for other evidences if he will have peace.
CHAPTER X,
The SECOND particular direction: Get a cleai* sense of, — 1. The guilt of the sin perplexing — Considei'ations for help therein proposed — 2. The danger mani- fold— (1.) Hardening — (2.) Temporal correction — (3.) Loss of peace and strength — (4.) Eternal destruction — Rules for the management of this con- sideration— 3. The evil of it — (1.) In grieving the Spirit — (2.) Wounding the new creature — [(3.) Taking away a man's usefulness.]
The second direction is this: Get a clear and ahiding sense upon thy mind and conscience of the guilt, danger, and evil of that sin wherewith thou art perplexed : —
1. Of the guilt of it. It is one of the deceits of a prevailing lust to extenuate its own guilt. " Is it not a little one?" " When I go and bow myself in the house of Rimmon, God be merciful to me in this thing." " Though this be bad, yet it is not so bad as such and such an evil ; others of the people of God have had such a frame ; yea, what dreadful actual sins have some of them fallen into ! " Innu- merable ways there are whereby sin diverts the mind from a right and due apprehension of its guilt. Its noisome exhalations darken the mind, that it cannot make a right judgment of things. Perplex- ing reasonings, extenuating promises, tumultuating desires, treacher- ous purposes of relinquishment, hopes of mercy, all have their share in disturbing the mind in its consideration of the guilt of a prevail- ing lust. The prophet tells us that lust will do thus wholly when it comes to the height: Hos. iv. 11, "Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart," — the heart, that is the understanding, as it is often used in the Scripture. And as they accom2)lish this work
A SENSE OF THE GUILT OF SIN REQUIRED. 51
to the height in unregenerate persons, so in part in regenerate also. Solomon tells you of him who was enticed by the lewd woman, that he was " among the simple ones;" he was " a young man void of un- derstanding," Prov. vii. 7. And wherein did his folly appear? Why, says he, in the 23d verse, " He knew not that it was for his life;" he considered not the guilt of the evil that he was involved in. And the Lord, rendering a reason why his dealings with Ephraim took no better effect, gives this account: "Ephraim is like a silly dove without heart," Hos. vii. 11 ; — had no understanding of his own miser- able condition. Had it been possible that David should have lain so long in the guilt of that abominable sin, but that he had innumer- able corrupt reasonings, hindering him from taking a clear view of its ugliness and guilt in the glass of the law ? This made the prophet that was sent for his awaking, in his dealings with him, to shut up all subterfuges and pretences by his parable, that so he might fall fully under a sense of the guilt of it. This is the proper issue of lust in the heart, — it darkens the mind that it shall not judge aright of its guilt'; and many other ways it hath for its own extenuation that I shall not now insist on.