I shall yet touch upon some other evidences of the same truth, that I have under consideration ; but I shall be brief in them.
(3dly.) In the next place, then, the great endeavours of men ignorant of the righteousness of Christ for the subduing
202 THE NATURE AND POWER
and mortifying of sin, which are all fruitless, do evidence the great strength and power of it. :' • ' • !j m; •'• Men who have no strength against sin, may yet be 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 would. Being awed with a sense of 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 ten-ified 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 ob- tain peace with God.
Some of the ways whereby they endeavour to suppress the power of sin, which casts them into an unquiet condition, and their insufficiency for that end we must look into.
(1.) They will promise and bind themselves by vows from those sins, which they have been most liable unto, and so have been most perplexed withal. The psalmist shews this to be one great engine whereby false and hypocritical persons do endeavour to extricate and deliver themselves out of trouble and perplexity. They make promises to God,
■ OF INDWELLING SIX. 1203
which he calls flattering him with the lips, Psal. Ixxviii. 36. So is it in this case; being freshly galled with the guilt of any sin, that by the power of their temptations, they, it may be, have frequently been overtaken in, they vow and pro- mise, that at least for some such space of time as they will limit, they will not commit that sin again ; and this course of proceeding is prescribed unto them by some who pretend to direct their consciences in this duty. Conscience of this now makes them watch over themselves as to the outward act of the sin that they are galled with ; and so it hath one of these two effects ; for either they do abstain from it for the time they have prefixed, or they do not : if they do not, as seldom they do, especially if it be a sin that hath a pecu- liar root in their nature and constitution, and is improved by custom into a habit, if any suitable temptation be pre- sented unto them ; their sin is increased, and therewith their terror, and they are wofully discouraged in making any op- position to sin ; and therefore, for the most part, after one or two vain attempts, or more it may be, knowing no other way to mortify sin, but this of vowing against it, and keeping of that vow in their own strength, they give over all contests, and become wholly the servants of sin, being bounded only by outward considerations, without any serious endeavours for a recovery. Or, secondly, suppose that they have suc- cess in their resolutions, and do abstain from actual sins their appointed season ; commonly one of these two things ensue ; either they think that they have well discharged their duty, and so may a little now, at least for a season, indulge to their corruptions and lusts, and so are entangled again in the same snares of sin as formerly ; or else they reckon that their vow and promise hath preserved them, and so sacrifice to their own net and drag, setting up a righ- teousness of their own against the grace of God; which is so far from weakening indwelling sin, that it strengthens it in the root and principle, that it may hereafter reign in the soul in security. Or, at the most, the best success that can be imagined unto this way of dealing with sin, is but the restraining of some outward eruptions of it, which tends no- thing to the weakening of its power; and therefore such persons, by all their endeavours, are very far from being freed from the inward toiling, burning, disquieting, perplexing