OBSTRUCTIONS TO CONCEIVED SIN. 265
God deals thus with them every day, and leaves them to pine away in their sins. They go all their days big with the iniquity they have conceived, and are greatly burdened that they cannot be delivered of it. The prophet tells us that " they practise iniquity that they had conceived, because it is in the power of their hand," Micah ii. 1. If they have power for it, they will accomplish it: Ezek. xxii. 6, " To their power they shed blood." This is the measure of their sinning, even their power. They do, many of them, no more evil, they com- mit no more sin, than they can. Their whole restraint lies in being cut short in power, in one kind or another. Their bodies will not serve them for their contrived uncleannesses, nor their hands for their revenge and rapine, nor their instruments for persecution ; but they go burdened with conceived sin, and are disquieted and tortured by it all their days. And hence they become in themselves, as well as unto others, " a troubled sea, that cannot rest," Isa. Ivii. 20.
It may be, also, in some cases, under some violent temptations, or in mistakes, God may thus obviate the accomplishment of conceived sin in his own. And there seems to be an instance of it in his deal- ing with Jehoshaphat, who had designed, against the mind of God, to join in affinity with Ahab, and to send his ships with him to Tar- shish; but God breaks his ships by a wind, that he could not accom- plish what he had designed. But in God s dealing with his in this way, there is a difference from the same dispensation towards others; for, —
1st. It is so only in cases of extraordinary temptation. When, through the violence of temptation and craft of Satan, they are hur- ried from under the conduct of the law of grace, God one way or other takes away their power, or may do so, that they shall not be able to execute what they had designed. But this is an ordinary way of dealing with wicked men. This hook of God is upon them in the whole course of their lives ; and they struggle with it, being " as a wild bull in a net," Isa. li. 20. God's net is ujDon them, and they are filled with fury tliat they cannot do all the wickedness that tliey would.
'i.dly. God doth it not to leave them to wrestle with sin, and to at- tempt other ways of its accomplishment, upon the failure of that which they were engaged in ; but by their disappointment awakens them to think of their condition and what they are doing, and so consumes sin in the ivomh by the ways that shall afterward be in- sisted on. Some men's deprivation of power for the committing of conceived, contrived sin hath been sanctified to the chansfinof of their hearts from all dalliances Avith that or other sins.
[3.] God providentially hinders the bringing forth of conceived sin by opposing an external hindering p)oiver unto sinners. He
266 THE NATURE AND POWER OF INDWELLING SIN.
leaves them their Hves, and leaves them power to do what they in- tend; only he raiseth up an opposite power to coerce, forbid, and restrain them. An instance hereof we have, 1 Sam. xiv. 45. Saul had sworn that Jonathan should be put to death ; and, as far as ap- pears, went on resolutely to have slain him. God stirs up the spirit of the people ; they oppose themselves to the wrath and fury of Saul, and Jonathan is delivered. So also, 2 Chron. xxvi. 16-20, when king Uzziah would have in his own person offered incense, contrary to the law, eiglity men of the priests resisted him, and drove him out of the temple. And to this head are to be referred all the assistances Avhich God stirreth up for deliverance of his people against the fury of persecutors. He raiseth up saviours or deliverers on mount Zion, " to judge the mount of Edom."' So, Rev. xii. 16, the dragon, and those acting under him, spirited by him, were in a furious endeavour for the destruction of the church; God stirs up the earth to her assistance, even men of the -world not engaged with others in the design of Satan; and by their opposition hinders them from the exe- cution of their designed rao^e. Of this nature seems to be that deal- ing of God with his own people, Hos. ii. 6, 7. They v.-ere in the pur- suit of their iniquities, following after their lovers; God leaves them for a while to act in the folly of their spirits ; but he sets a hedge and a wall before them, that they shall not be able to fulfil their designs and lusts.
[4.] God obviates the accomphshment of conceived sin by remov- ing or taking away the objects on whom, or about whom, the sin con- ceived was to be committed. Acts xii. 1-1 1 yields us a signal in- stance of this issue of providence. When the day was coming wherein Herod thought to have slain Petei-, who was shut up in prison, God sends and takes him away from their rage and lying in wait. So also was our Saviour himself taken away from the murderous rage of the Jews before his hour was come, John viii. 59, x. 39. Both pri- mitive and latter times are full of stories to this purpose. Prison doors have been opened, and poor creatures appointed to die have been frequently rescued from the jaws of death. In the world itself, amongst the men thereof, adulterers and adulteresses, the sin of the one is often hindered and stifled by the taking away of the other. So wings were given to the woman to carry her into the wilderness, and to disappoint the world in the execution of their rage, Rev. xii. 14.