1 1 John ii. 15.
7i MORTIFICATION OF SIN IN BELIEVERS.
conviction of some sin upon his conscience; lie hath not walked up- rightly as becometh the gospel; all is not Avell and right between God and his soul. He considers now what is to be done. Light he hath, and knows what path he must take, and how liis soul hath been formerly healed. Considering that the promises of God are the outward means of application for the healing of his sores and quiet- ing of his heart, he goes to them, searches them out, finds out some one or more of them whose literal expressions are directly suited to his condition. Says he to himself, " God speaks in this promise; here I will take myself a plaster as long and broad as my wound ;" and so brings the word of the promise to his condition, and sets him down in peace. This is another appearance upon the mount ; the Lord is near, but the Lord is not in it. It hath not been the work of the Spirit, who alone can " convince us of sin, and righteousness, and judgment,"^ but the mere actings of the intelligent, rational soid. As there are three sorts of lives, we say, — the vegetative, the sensi- tive, and the rational or intelligent, — some things have only the vege- tative; some the sensitive also, and that includes the former; some have the rational, which takes in and supposes both the other. Now, he that hath the rational doth not only act suitably to that prin- ciple, but also to both the others, — he grows and is sensible. It is so with men in the things of God. Some are mere natural and rational men; some have a superadded conviction with illumination; and some are truly regenerate. Now, he that hath the latter hath also both the former ; and therefore he acts sometimes upon the principles of the rational, sometimes upon the principles of the enlightened man. His true spiritual life is not the principle of all his motions; he acts not always in the strength thereof, neither are all his fruits from that root. In this case that I sjDoak of, he acts merely upon the principle of conviction and illumination, whereby his first naturals are heightened; but the Spirit breathes not at all upon all these waters. Take an instance : Suppose the wound and disquiet of the soul to be upon the account of relapses, — which, whatever the evil or folly be, though for the matter of it never so small, yet there are no wounds deeper than those that are given the soul on that account, nor disquietments greater; — in the perturbation of his mind, he finds out that promise, Isa. Iv. 7, " The Lord will have mercy, and our God will abimdautly pardon," — he will multiply or add to pardon, he will do it again and again ; or that in Hos. xiv. 4, " I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely." This the man considers, and thereupon concludes peace to himself; whether the Spirit of God make the aj^plication or no, whether that gives life and power to the letter or no, that he regards not. He doth not hearken
' John xvi. 8.
PRECAUTIONS AGAINST FALSE PEACE. 75
whether God the Lord speak peace. He doth not wait upon God, who perhaps yet hides his face, and sees the poor creature stealing peace and running away with it, knowing that the time will come when he will deal with him again, and call him to a new reckoning;^ when he shall see that it is in vain to go one step where God doth not take him by the hand.
I see here, indeed, sundry other questions upon this arising and interposing themselves. I cannot apply myself to them all: one I shall a little speak to.
It may be said, then, " Seeing that this seems to be the path that the Holy Spirit leads us in for the healing of our wounds and quiet- ing of our hearts, how shall we know when we go alone ourselves, and when the Spijit also doth accompany us ? "
A71S. (1.) If any of you are out of the way upon this account, God will speedily let you know it ; for besides that you have his promise, that the " meek he will guide in judgment and teach them his way," Ps. XXV. 9, he will not let you always err. He will, I say, not suffer your nakedness to be covered with fig-leaves, but take them aAvay and all the peace you have in them, and will not suffer you to settle on such lees. You shall quickly know yovir wound is not healed; that is, you shall speedily know whether or no it be thus with you by the event. The peace you thus get and obtain will not abide. Whilst the mind is overpowered by its own convictions, there is no hold for disquietments to fix upon. Stay a little, and all these rea- sonings will grow cold and vanish before the face of the first tempta- tion that arises. But, —
(2.) This course is commonly taken without waiting; which is the grace, and that peculiar acting of faith which God calls for, to be exercised in such a condition. I know God doth sometimes come in upon the soul instantly, in a moment, as it were, wounding and heal- ing it, — as I am persuaded it was in the case of David, when he cut off the lap of Saul's garment; but ordinarily, in such a case, God calls for ^waiting and labouring, attending as the eye of a servant upon his master. Says the prophet Isaiah, chap. viii. 17, "I will wait upon the Lord, who hideth his face from the house of Jacob." God will have his children lie a while at his door when they have run from his house, and not instantly rush in upon him; unless he take them by the hand and pluck them in, when they are so ashamed that they dare not come to him. Now, self-healers, or men that speak peace to themselves, do commonly make haste ; they will not tarry ; they do not hearken what God speaks, but on they will go to be healed.^