1st. Though the course of sin may be repelled for a season by the dispensation of the law, yet the spring and fountain of it is not dried up thereby. Though it withdraws and hides itself for a season, it is, as I bave elsewhere showed, but to shift out of a storm, and then to return again. As a traveller, in his way meeting with a violent storm of thunder and rain, immediately turns out of his way to some house or tree for his shelter, but yet this causeth him not to give over his journey, — so soon as the storm is over he returns to his way and progress again; so it is with men in bondage unto sin. They are in a course of pursuing their lusts ; the law meets with them in a storm of thunder and lightning from heaven, terrifies and hinders them in their way. This turns them for a season out of their course ; they will run to prayer or amendment of life, for some shelter from the storm of wrath wliich is feared coming upon their con- sciences. But is their course stopped? are their principles altered? Not at all; so soon as the storm is over, [so] that they begin to wear
318 THE NATURE AND POWER OF INDWELLING SIN.
out tliat sense and the terror that was upon them, they return to their former course in the service of sin again. This was the state with Pharaoh once and again.
2dly. In such seasons sin is not conquered, but divey^ted. When it seems to fall under the power of the law, indeed it is only turned into a new channel ; it is not dried up. If you go and set a dam against the streams of a river, so that you suffer no water to pass in the old course and channel, but it breaks out another way, and turns all its streams in a new course, you will not say you have dried up that river, though some that come and look into the old channel may think, perhaps, that the waters are utterly gone. So is it in this case. The streams of sin, it may be, run in open sensuality and pro- faneness, in drunkenness and viciousness ; the preaching of the law sets a dam against these courses, — conscience is terrified, and the man dares not walk in the ways wherein he hath been formerly engaged. His companions in sin, not finding him in his old ways, begin to laugh at him, as one that is converted and growing precise; pro- fessors themselves begin to be persuaded that the work of God is upon his heart, because they see his old streams dried up : but if there have been only a work of the law upon him, there is a dam put to his course, but the spring of sin is not dried up, only the streams of it are turned another way. It may be the man is fallen upon other more secret or more spiritual sins ; or if he be beat from them also, the whole strength of lust and sin will take up its resi- dence in self-righteousness, and pour out thereby as filthy streams as in any other way whatever. So that notwithstanding the whole work of the law upon the souls of men, indwelling sin will keep alive in them still : which is another evidence of its great power and strength.
I shall yet touch upon some other evidences of the .same truth that I have under consideration ; but I shall be brief in them.
1. In the next place, then, the g^^eat endeavours of men ignorant of the righteousness of Christ, for the subduing and mortifying of sin, which are all fruitless, do evidence the great strength and power of it.
Men Avho have no strength against sin may yet Lc made sensible of the strength of sin. ■ The way whereby, for the most part, they come to that knowledge is by some previous sense that they have of the guilt of sin. This men have by the light of their consciences; they cannot avoid it. This is not a thing in their choice ; whether they will or no, they cannot but know sin to be evil, and that such an evil that renders them obnoxious to the judgment of God. This galls the minds and consciences of some so far as that they are kept in awe, and dare not sin as they Avould. Being awed with a sense of
POWER OF SIN IN RESISTING THE LAW. 819
the guilt of sin and the terror of the Lord, men begin to endeavour to abstain from sin, at least from such sins as they have been most terrified about. Whilst they have this design in hand, the strength and power of sin begins to discover itself unto them. They begin to find that there is something in them that is not in their own power ; for, notwithstanding their resolutions and purposes, they sin still, and that so, or in such a manner, as that their consciences inform them that they must therefore perish eternally. This puts them on self- endeavours to suppress the eruption of sin, because they cannot be quiet unless so they do, nor have any rest or peace within. Now, being ignorant of that only way whereby sin is to be mortified, — that is, by the Spirit of Christ, — they fix on many ways in their own strength to suppress it, if not to slay it ; as being ignorant of that only way whereby consciences burdened with the guilt of sin may be pacified, — that is, by the blood of Christ, — they endeavour, by many other ways, to accomplish that end in vain : for no man, by any self- endeavours, can obtain peace with God.