The Great Duty of Mortification

Ezekiel Hopkins, 1633-1690

Romans 8:13, "If you live after the flesh, you shall die: but if you, through the spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live!"

 

INTRODUCTION

IN these words, without any preface or account of their coherence, are,

FIRST. A Promise: the greatest promise, that God can make, or the Scripture propound, or we embrace: You shall live: that is, first, you shall live a life of grace and comfort here; and, secondly, you shall live a life of immortality and eternal glory hereafter.

SECONDLY. We have the condition, upon which this life, both of grace and glory, is propounded: If you mortify the deeds of the body: the word signifies to kill or put to death: If you KILL the deeds of the body, you shall live. The life of sin and the life of grace and glory are utterly inconsistent and repugnant: you must live, upon the death of sin.

Now, here, we have

First. The object of this mortification: what it is, that they must put to death: and that is, the deeds of the body.

By the body we must here understand the same that the Apostle speaks of in the beginning of the verse: If you live after the flesh. Flesh and body are but equivalent terms; both of them signifying one and the same corruption of nature. Indeed, the proper seat of sin is the soul; and they are the deeds of the soul, that we must chiefly mortify: the deeds of the body are sinful but at the second hand, as they are swayed and exerted by a sinful soul; yet the Scripture does frequently call this corruption flesh, the body, the members; opposing it to the spirit, to the mind: Romans 7:23. I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind.

And this it does,

First. To denote the degrading malignity, that there is in sin.

It does unspirit and unsoul a man. A sinner is called a carnal man; a man, made up of nothing but a lump of dull flesh, kneaded together without spirit, without life. And therefore the Apostle does not bid them mortify the deeds of their souls, because wicked men act as though they had no souls, or at least not so noble a soul.

Secondly. It calls sin the deeds of the body, to denote what it is that sin tends to.

It is only to please, to pamper the body; the sensual, sordid, and baser part of man. The soul of a wicked man acts for no higher an end, than the soul of a beast does. The soul of a beast acts not for itself, but is made a drudge and underling to the body: it serves only to carry the body to and fro to its pasture, and to make it relish its food and fodder. Thus, truly, it is with the souls of wicked men: they act not for themselves, but are only their bodies' caterers; that seek out and lay in provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof: Romans 13:14.

Thirdly. Sins are called the deeds of the body, because, though the soul be the chief seat of their abode, yet the body is the great instrument of their acting.

Romans 6:19. As you have yielded your members servants.… to iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness. Indeed, there are some refined sins, that hold little communion with the body, and partake but little of that gross carnality, if I may so term it, that makes other sins swell to such a bulk; and yet these must be also mortified: and these are also the deeds of the body; because the soul, acting even these spiritual sins, acts as much below itself, as the body's actings are below the soul's.

As for the Deeds of the body, by deeds we must understand, not only the inward ebullitions and the outward eruptions of this body of sin, but also the spring and fountain itself whence these flow. The corruption of nature itself must be mortified: the body of death must be put to death. All these are called the deeds of the flesh: not only those, that the Apostle reckons up and tells us are manifest, Galatians 5:19 but also the inward motions, yes the depraved root and habit itself; which are secret, because, though these be not outward acts, yet they would be so, and sin is not perfected nor finished until it be so.

Secondly. As the deeds of the flesh are the object of mortification; so, here, we have the Persons, on whom this duty of mortification is pressed: If you, through the Spirit, do mortify: that is, you, who have received the Spirit; you, who are believers: for such are those, whom he describes in the foregoing part of the chapter, verses 1, 5, 10, 11.

Both these branches are comprehended in the condition required to life: If you.… mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live.

THIRDLY. Here is, likewise, the Way and Means, whereby believers are enabled to mortify the deeds of the body: and that is, through the Spirit: If you, through the Spirit, do mortify. Whatever other helps, either of outward or inward rigor and severity, men use against their lusts, they may indeed thereby for a time stifle and suppress them; but, if the Spirit of God do not set in with the work, it can never amount to a true mortification.

From the words thus opened many Propositions may be drawn out: as,

First. From the promise of life, if we take life for the Life of Comfort and the Life of Grace, made upon the condition of mortification, observe,

That IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THAT SOUL TO HAVE LIVELY COMFORTS AND LIVELY GRACES, WHOSE LUSTS ARE LIVELY AND UNMORTIFIED.

There is a necessity for it, that the deeds of the body be put to death, if you intend that either your grace or your comfort should survive. I do not absolutely say that grace cannot live in the children of God, under every present neglect of mortification: but yet, certainly, this will destroy their comforts; yes, and eat out the vigor, activity, and liveliness of their graces, that, though they do live, yet they will live but a lingering and decaying life: they will but live such a life, as sin does in those, who exercise a constant mortification, that is, they will but live, as it were, a dying life.

Secondly. If we take the life promised for Eternal Life, then observe,

That THE FUTURE LIFE OF GLORY IS INFALLIBLY ASSURED TO THE PRESENT DEATH OF SIN.

If you mortify, you shall live. Not that life proceeds from mortification, as the effect from the cause; but only it follows upon it, as the end upon the use of the means.

Thirdly. From the Persons, on whom this duty of mortification is pressed, observe,

That BELIEVERS THEMSELVES, WHO ARE FREED FROM THE REIGNING POWER OF SIN, HAVE YET CONTINUAL NEED TO MORTIFY THE INHERENT REMAINDERS OF IT.

Fourthly. From the Aid and Assistance, that believers must call in to this work, observe,

That WHATEVER ADVANTAGES MEN HAVE GAINED AGAINST THEIR LUSTS, EITHER IN SUPPRESSING THEIR MOTIONS, OR IN RESTRAINING THEIR ERUPTIONS; YET, IF THIS BE NOT FROM THE WORKING OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD IN THEM, IT IS NOT TRUE NOR RIGHT MORTIFICATION: If you, through the Spirit, do mortify.

I shall not handle all these Propositions, but only the Third, That the children of God have continual need to exercise mortification: and the other points will be subservient to the prosecution of this.

This the Apostle urges Colossians 3:5 where he speaks to those, that were risen with Christ; as you may see verse 1: to those, who were dead with Christ, and whose life was hid with Christ in God; verse 3: to those, who shall certainly appear with Christ in glory; verse 4: and, yet, such as these he commands to mortify their members which are upon the earth.

And it may appear strange, if you consider what members they are, which must be mortified. Not vain thoughts; deadness of heart; uneven walkings; and those inward sins, which if men did thoroughly mortify, they would be made perfect, and become even as the angels of God: but they are the great and the visible limbs of the Old Man: they are fornication, impurity, inordinate affections, evil concupiscence, and covetousness: and, in verse 8. he bids them again, put you off all these, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication, and lying. Strange it is, that believers of so eminent a rank should need calling upon to mortify such gross and foul sins as these; and yet it is no more than necessary: the best Christians on earth have a stock of corruption in them, which does habitually dispose them unto these sins, as great and heinous as they are; and the Devil will so suit his temptations, as will certainly draw forth this corruption into act, unless they keep a strict hand and a strict watch over themselves in the constant exercise of mortification. And, therefore, as we urge it upon wicked men, that they slight not sin because it is small, and say, Is it not a little one, and my soul shall live? so we must press it upon the best and greatest of saints, that they would not slight any sin because it is great and heinous; and say with themselves, "Is it not a great one, and my soul shall never commit it?" As we presume upon the pardoning mercy of God in the commission of small sins, so we are apt to presume upon our own strength to preserve us from the commission of great and crying sins; and so, by their security and carelessness, the best do sometimes find themselves surprised by them. If we should be earnest in exhorting you to beware that you murder not, that you blaspheme not, that you turn not apostates from the profession of your religion; would you not reply with Hazael, Are we dogs, that we should do this great wickedness? Yes, certainly, this great wickedness you would do, yes there is no abomination so abominable which you would not do, if you do not bring the cross of Christ into your hearts by a daily mortification.

I. But, before I can proceed farther, I must lay down this for a GENERAL PRINCIPLE, That all Mortification is the weakening of sin, in respect of some strength and power, that it formerly had over the soul.

There is, especially, a Threefold power observable in Sin.

Its Damning and Condemnatory power, whereby it makes the soul liable to wrath.

Its Ruling and Reigning power, whereby it keeps the soul under a wretched slavery and vassalage.

Its Indwelling and Captivating power, whereby, through its continual assaults, it oftentimes breaks in upon a Christian, beats him from his defense, batters his spiritual armor, routs his graces, wastes his conscience, and at last leads him into a woeful, and it may be a long captivity.

According to this Threefold Power, so we must likewise distinguish of a Threefold Mortification of Sin.

i. There is a mortification of sin, as to its CONDEMNING power.

There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them in Christ Jesus: Romans 8:1. Sin, though it may still hale us before God, and make our consciences confess guilty; yet cannot now cast and sentence us, if we believe: it is still strong enough to drag us before God, to accuse us to God, to affright and terrify conscience; but it is not strong enough to drag us into Hell, to adjudge us to everlasting wrath: it has lost its power in that respect, and is become weak and mortified. Whence is it, that sin has its condemning power, but from the Law? The strength of sin is the Law: 1 Corinthians 15:56: had not the Law threatened condemnation to the transgressor, sin could have had no strength at all to condemn him. But is this sentence of the Law still in force against believers? no, says the Apostle, we are delivered from the Law, that being dead wherein we were held: Romans 7:6 and, if the Law's power to condemn believers be dead, sin's power to condemn them, which was but only borrowed from the Law, must certainly be dead also. But how came the Law thus mortified? the Apostle tells us in Colossians 2:14 that Christ took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross: and no wonder, then, if it be dead: that is, the cross and the sufferings of Jesus Christ have so fully satisfied for those who believe, that the Law is as it were now dead, and has no strength nor power left to condemn them. But this is not that mortification of which I intend to speak, and to which my text exhorts us: therefore,

ii. There is a mortification of sin, in respect of its REIGNING power.

What says the Apostle, Romans 6:11, 12? in verse 11. says he, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin: what then? why upon this he founds an exhortation in verse 12. Let not sin reign therefore in your mortal bodies. Now this reign of sin consists not in the multitude, greatness, or prevalence of sins; for all these are consistent with a state of grace, and may be in a child of God, in whom sin does not nor cannot reign: but in the indwelling of sin without grace, whether it acts more or less violently, yes whether it acts at all or no; yet, if the habit of sin possess the soul without any principle of grace implanted which is contrary to it, that man may be said to be still under the dominion of sin. This mortification, then, of sin as to its reigning power, is completed in the first act of conversion and regeneration; for, in that very instant that any is born again, he has a principle of spiritual life put into him: the habit of supernatural grace, which lusts against the flesh, weakens the whole body of sin, and crosses and contradicts every corrupt motion; so that, though he cannot do what he would, yet he would not do what he does: and this breaks the tyranny of sin, and mortifies it as to its reigning power.

iii. There is a mortification of sin, in regard of its CAPTIVATING and INDWELLING power.

And this is that, which the text chiefly aims at.

Corruption, wherever it is, does not use to lie dormant; but, where it cannot reign, there it will molest: stir, and struggle, and fight it will; and, it may be, prevail to a victory, even over those, over whom it shall never prevail unto condemnation. This calls for a constant work of mortification: every day and hour there are corrupt propensions to be reined in, sinful thoughts to be struggled against, sinful motions to be suppressed; and it is not the mere habit and principle of grace, without a vigorous and continued exercise of it in a way of mortification: that, indeed, gave sin its death's wound in our regeneration; but still we must follow it, doubling stroke upon stroke, while it has any life and motion in it. We do not content ourselves that we crush the head of a serpent: no; but, while it stirs and writhes itself, we still lay on. So should we do with lust: it is not enough that the head of it is crushed, that its first wound in our conversion is incurable; but still, so long as it stirs and moves within us, we must be continually striking at it by continued acts of mortification: nor must all suffice, until death comes in to our part, and by one blow destroys it.

In these Three senses, sin may be said to be mortified. In its Condemning Power: and, so, it was at once mortified for all the elect, by Christ hanging on the cross: and this mortification is particularly applied to them, when they believe. In its Reigning Power: and, so, it is mortified in the first moment of regeneration, by the implantation of an active principle of grace and holiness, which dissolves its government, and frees the soul from its dominion. And, lastly, in its Captivating Power, as it rebels and makes an insurrection against the sovereignty of grace: and, so, it is mortified by weakening its forces, hindering its inroads, resisting its assaults, beating down its first risings and motions; and all this, by constant, careful, and sincere endeavors, even all our days.

II. I might now easily demonstrate, in several particulars, HOW ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY IT IS, EVEN FOR THE BEST AND HIGHEST CHRISTIANS, TO KEEP UP THE CONSTANT EXERCISE OF MORTIFICATION.

Take only some few.

i. IN AN UNMORTIFIED COURSE, YOU FRUSTRATE THE VERY END OF YOUR GRACES.

In an unmortified course, you frustrate the very end of your graces. Has God implanted in you a noble, active, and divine principle that will certainly, in the end, prove victorious if it be employed? And will you—while lusts and temptations are overrunning your souls and making a prey of you—will you, I say, check it and keep it under a restraint?

Grace has in it a natural antipathy and repugnance against sin and would, where it has its free scope, naturally and necessarily destroy it. The apostle tells us, "The flesh lusts against the Spirit" (Galatians 5:17). And, what! Does the Spirit sit down tame and quiet under such opposition? No, says he, "the Spirit" also lusts "against the flesh." It does no sooner see a corruption begin to heave and stir in the heart, but it would be presently upon it. It would beat it down and keep it under, did not your deceitful hearts betray it or did they but concur with it. Now consider,

Is not this a foul piece of ingratitude and insincerity against God, the God of all grace? He, seeing your weakness and impotence to deal with those mighty corruptions that storm, rage, and domineer within you—has sent the auxiliaries and supports of His divine grace to aid you. And you either turn treacherous and deliver them up bound to be abused, yes, if possible to be slaughtered by your lusts

Is it not desperate madness and folly to neglect or hinder that which would side with you and fight for you? Alas! The quarrel is not grace's, but yours; and it is no less than your eternal salvation or your eternal damnation about which this war is commenced. When corruption comes up against you in a full body and the devil in the head of it leading it on, do you think you can of yourself stand against these many legions? Yet shall grace stand by and offer you a sure aid, and you refuse or neglect it? What else is this, but to make void the use and office of grace and to be injurious to the goodness of God, Who has therefore given you grace to this very end that you should employ it against your lusts?

Unmortified sin does not only frustrate the end and use of grace; but, what is worse, it also miserably weakens and wastes grace. It is impossible that both grace and corruption should at once be strong and vigorous in the same soul. If the one thrive, the other must needs languish...if your soul be overspread with unmortified sins, like so many noxious and hurtful weeds sprouting up in it, grace must needs decay and wither; for your soul cannot have its sap to nourish it.

There are two things that do, as it were, nourish grace unto a mighty increase both of strength and beauty: and they are holy thoughts and holy duties.

A man ordinarily needs nothing more to strengthen him but food and exercise. Holy thoughts are, as it were, the food of grace. Holy duties are, as it were, its exercise, whereby grace is breathed and preserved in health. But an unmortified lust hinders grace from gathering strength from thoughts or duties. For,

I. An unmortified lust usually takes forcible possession of a man's thoughts to itself. How does such a lust summon all the thoughts to attend upon it! Some it sends out upon one errand, some upon another, and all must be busied about its object. Where covetousness, pride, or wantonness is the unmortified sin, how is the imagination crowded full of thoughts that are making provision for these lusts! Some fetch in their objects, and some beautify and adorn them, and some buzz and whisper the commendations of those objects to the soul. Nay, and lest any thought should be vacant, some it will employ in imagining fictions and chimeras, things that never were nor are likely to be, if they have but any tendency to feed and nourish that corruption. I appeal to your own experience for the confirmation of this.

And this indeed is a good mark, whereby we may find out what is our unmortified sin: see what it is that most of all defiles your imagination, that the stream and current of your thoughts most run out after. Do your thoughts, when they fly abroad, return home loaded with the world? Do they ordinarily present to you fantastic riches, possessions, gains, purchases, and still fill you with contrivances how to make them real? Then covetousness is your unmortified lust.

Do they dwell and pore upon your own perfections? Can you erect an idol to yourselves in your own imaginations, and then fall down and worship it? Or do your thoughts, like flies, settle only upon the sores and imperfections of others? Then your unmortified sin is pride. And the like trial may be made of the rest.

Now, I say, when an unmortified lust has thus seized all the thoughts and pressed them to the service of a corrupted imagination, grace then lacks its food: it is ready to be starved. No wonder if it languishes and decays!

II. An unmortified lust much hinders and interrupts the life, vigor, and spirituality of holy duties. This it does two ways: either by deadening the heart through the guilt of it, or by distracting the heart through the power of it.

(1) An unmortified lust deadens the heart in holy duties through the sense of the guilt of it lying upon the conscience. Alas! How can we go to God with any freedom of spirit, how can we call Him Father with any boldness, while we are conscious of an unmortified lust that lies still in the heart? Speak! Do not your consciences fly in your faces and even stop your mouths, when you are praying with some such suggestions as these? "What! Can I pray for pardon of sin, for strength against sin, though I harbor and foster a known lust unmortified? Do I beg grace against sin and yet maintain a known sin? Is not such a prayer mere hypocrisy and pretense? Will the Lord hear it? Or if He does hear it, will He not count it an abomination to Him?"

You, now, whose consciences thus accuse you, do you not find such reflections to be a great deadening unto duty? Certainly, guilt is the greatest impediment to holy duties in the whole world. It fills us with distrust, and a slavish fear of coming before God, rather as our Judge than as our Father.

(2) An unmortified lust hinders holy duty by distracting the heart through the power of it. It draws away the heart from God: it entangles the affections, it scatters the thoughts, it discomposes the whole frame of the soul, so that at best, it proves but a broken and a shattered duty.

And herein lies the cunning of Satan, that if there is any corruption in the soul more unmortified than another, that corruption, he will be sure to stir up and interpose between God and the soul in the performance of duty. Now when lust thus hinders duty, grace has not its breathing nor exercise. No wonder if it grows faint and decays!

III. Some foul and scandalous actual sin lies at the door of a neglected mortification. When we see a professor at any time break out into the commission of some notorious wickedness, what can it be imputed unto, but that corruption took advantage of his neglect of mortification? When inward motions are suffered perpetually to solicit, tempt, and beg the soul, it is a sign that lust has already gained the affections. And could conscience be laid asleep, nothing would hinder it from breaking out into open acts. And therefore beware that you do not allow corruption to stir and act within. You cannot set it bounds nor say to it, "Thus far you shall go, and no farther. You shall go as far as thoughts, as far as imagination. But, Conscience, look to it that it proceeds no farther."

If you would therefore secure yourselves from this danger, mortify lust in the very womb! Stifle and suppress the motions and risings of it. Otherwise, you know not to what a prodigious height of impiety it will grow.

The least and most inconsiderable sinful thought, tends to an infinite guilt.

An unworthy and unfitting thought concerning God, tends to horrid blasphemy.

Every lascivious thought, tends to open immorality.

Every envious thought, tends to blood murder.

Unless mortification is daily exercised to suppress and beat down these motions, you know not into how many soul-destroying sins they may hurry you.

4. One unmortified lust mightily alienates the heart from its acquaintance and communion with God.

There are but two things that keep up acquaintance between God and the soul:

1. On God's part, the gracious communications of His Spirit, through which, by enlightening, enlivening, supporting, and comforting influences, He converses with that soul to whom He grants them.

2. On our part, the spiritual frame of the heart, whereby it does with a holy delight, freedom, and frequency converse with God in the returns of sincere and cordial obedience.

But an unmortified lust breaks off this acquaintance, as to both the parts of it.

I. It provokes God to suspend the influences of His Spirit and so to cut off the fellowship on His part: "I was enraged by his sinful greed; I punished him, and hid my face in anger, yet he kept on in his willful ways." Isaiah 57:17

2. One unmortified lust mightily untunes the soul and disorders the spirituality of that frame and disposition in which it should be kept, if we would maintain communion with God.

Look how estrangement and distance grow between familiar friends. So likewise grows the estrangement between God and the soul. If a man is conscious of any injury that he has done his friend, this will make him afraid and ashamed to converse with him, less free and less frequent in his society. So it is here in this case: an unmortified lust fills the soul with a guilty shame, arising from the consciousness of an injury done to God.

Now reflect upon yourselves, you who have indulged any sin: has it not by degrees eaten out the spirituality of your hearts, and weakened the life and vigor of your communion with God? Has it not made you lethargic, cold, and indifferent unto the things and ways of God? Have you not beheld God as it were at a great distance and cared not for a closer communion with Him? Is it not high time that this lust, which has thus divided between God and your souls, should now at length be mortified; and, this hindrance being once removed, that you again should renew the nearness of your acquaintance with Him? Otherwise, let me tell you, it is sadly to be feared, lest this estrangement grows into a woeful apostasy and end in a fearful perdition!

v. One unmortified lust GIVES AN ADDITIONAL STRENGTH TO OTHERS ALSO, which of themselves were weak and impotent, and could not otherwise have such power over the soul.

And this it does, as it is the ringleading lust, that unites all others under a discipline and government: scattered enemies are not so powerful nor so formidable, as when they are combined together in a body: then their design is one, their enterprise one, and they all act as one enemy. Now an unmortified lust does, as it were, rally all the rest under a discipline: this heads them: this leads them on: and they all promote the designs, and fight under the conduct of this lust; which union adds a mighty strength and power to them. It may be, a temptation, which could not prevail for itself and upon the account of its own interest that it has in the soul, will yet certainly prevail, when it pleads its subordination and serviceableness to the unmortified sin, the master-lust. This is very remarkable: and therefore suppose, for instance, that pride be the unmortified sin, the great ringleading lust, and a temptation to covetousness assaults the soul: possibly, this being but an underling sin, and not having made so great a party for itself as the other, might be easily rejected, did it plead only for itself; but, when it pretends the interest of the master-lust, and pleads how serviceable great and rich possessions would be to the advancement of pride and ambition, this adds a double enforcement to the temptation, and thereby bears down the soul before it, as unable to make any available resistance. And thus, proportionably, it is in all other sins whatever: they have a dependence one upon another: the great sin sways principally; and cannot exist, unless provision be laid in, and a way made for it by inferior sins, which it countenances and bears out by its own authority, and derives to them the same prevalence that itself has gained over the soul. Let not men, therefore, think that their captivity to sin is more tolerable, because they find but one the most prevailing: alas! this does but serve to unite and drive the rest to a head, which perhaps otherwise would be vagrant, and wandering, and uncertain in their tempting; and, by this one unmortified lust, the Devil has gotten a fit handle to the soul, whereby he may turn and wind it to whatever other sin he pleases. It was therefore a wise command of the King of Syria to his captain, 1 Kings 22:31. to fight neither with small nor great, save only with the king of Israel: he well knew, that if the chief commander were once slain, the ungoverned army might easily be routed and put to flight. We must, in the mortifying of the deeds of the body, take the same counsel, and follow the same course; fight, if not only, yet chiefly, against the commanding lust: if that be once mortified, the rest are as an army without a head, who quickly will find themselves without hands too: otherwise, while any one lust remains unmortified, the soul is almost in as dangerous a condition, as if every lust were violent and raging.

vi. An unmortified sin WILL MOST CERTAINLY BEREAVE THE SOUL OF PEACE AND COMFORT: and hinder it from ever enjoying that Heaven upon earth, of assurance.

If you send to inquire of your souls, as Joram did of Jehu, "Soul, Is it peace?" Is not this sad answer returned, What have you to do with peace? Or, What peace, so long as your pride, your covetousness, your intemperance, while such and such a lust remains unmortified?

An unmortified lust hinders peace and comfort these Two ways.

1. As it blots our evidences for Heaven.

Let any man in the world tell me that his title to Heaven is clear and past all uncomfortable doubtings, whose conscience does not witness his sincerity to him, that he does maintain an universal opposition against all sin, and exercise a constant mortification of it; and I shall presently conclude that man's assurance to be the false and glowing presumptions of a spirit of error and delusion. We know no better test of a man's condition than what my text affords: If you mortify, you shall live. Now when any lust is allowed and indulged, will not this blast a man's comfort, and raise in him fears and jealousies concerning his eternal welfare? "Such a corruption I do not strive nor struggle against, I do not labor to beat down and keep under; and how then shall I assure myself that I am free from the reigning power of it, or shall be free from its condemning power?" Let me tell you, though freedom from the dominion of sin may possibly consist with a much-neglected mortification; yet a comfortable evidence of that freedom cannot: and, therefore, no wonder if, through the carelessness of Christians in this great work, so few attain solid and constant comfort; the most being sadly perplexed with doubts and jealousies of their hypocrisy and unsoundness, even all their days. This all rises from some unmortified lust or other, which either leaves a deep blur upon their evidences for Heaven, or else raises a thick mist before their eyes that they cannot read them.

2. An unmortified lust hinders peace by fomenting a perpetual civil war in the soul.

Sometimes so it fares, where there is no higher a principle than merely natural conscience: this strives and combats, as it is able, against the sin, before it is committed: this cries out and rages against the sinner, after it is committed. But it is always so, where there is a principle of true grace implanted, to excite and assist conscience. Let corruption be never so great, its faction never so potent; yet grace, though but mean and weak, will still fight it: it will neither give nor take truce, until, at length, the great unmortified lust be subdued, and fall conquered and slain under it. What tumults, what uproars, what bandying of affections against affections, will against will, thoughts against thoughts, do woefully disquiet that soul, where corruption will not submit, and grace cannot! There is no deliberate act, either of grace or corruption, exerted, but what must first break through a whole army of its enemies, set to oppose it. Galatians 5:17. The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.… so that you cannot do the things that you would: that is, neither can you act according to the bent of your corrupt will, nor yet of your sanctified will, without opposition and resistance from one of these two quarreling principles within, the flesh and the Spirit. Such men are like those builders in Nehemiah, that wrought with one hand, and with the other held their weapons: so, truly, if a child of God, in whom corruption is yet too prevalent, work the works of God with one hand, he must hold the weapons of his spiritual warfare in the other. This is that unpeaceable and turbulent condition, into which an unmortified lust will certainly bring you. And though, indeed, in the most mortified Christian on earth, there will sometimes be combatings between these two contrary parties; yet it is not with so much distraction, anguish, and terrors, as where corruption is more violent and outrageous.

That is the last thing.

I might add that an utter neglect of mortification binds you over to eternal condemnation: If you live after the flesh, you shall die. Your election itself cannot save you; your vocation, regeneration, and whatever else you might build the certainty of your salvation upon, are all in vain if you do not mortify. There is no other way, by which you can possibly get to Heaven, but by marching over the necks of all your lusts. But I shall insist no longer on this head.

And now, if to profess God with our mouths and to deny him with our hearts and lives, if to talk of religion and live without it, if to have a form of godliness and to deny the power of it, be indeed this necessary mortification, I need press this duty no farther: we have such mortified ones, more than enough. But, if wantonness, censoriousness, contempt of the means of grace, giddiness of opinions, libertinism, and strange large allowances, that men take to themselves in their conversations, be signs of an unmortified heart; never certainly was there any professing age in the world, that had more need to have this doctrine often pressed upon them, than that in which we live. I am not now urging you to that churlish and rigorous way of mortification, consisting only in a froward abstinence from the comforts and conveniences of this life, which some perhaps blind devotionists have too rigidly exercised themselves with: I know the maceration of the outward man is not the mortification of the Old Man; and yet were there among professors a greater moderation even in the use of the lawful comforts of this life, there would not possibly be so great an advantage given to deceivers as now there is, who, under the specious show of self-denial in these things, draw away numbers of proselytes after them, as being the only mortified men. It is the inward mortification, that we labor to press upon you, which were it once industriously exercised, outward exhorbitancies would of themselves fall into a decency and sobriety.

But, alas! when men shall talk at such a rate of spiritualness, as if some angels sat upon their tongues; and yet live at such an excess of vanity, it may be of profaneness, as if legions possessed their hearts; what shall we judge of such men? If we judge the tree by the leaves, what other can we think of them, but that they are trees of righteousness, and plants of renown? but if we look to their fruits, unprofitableness in their relations, envy, strife, variance, emulation, wrath, excessive pride, worldliness, selfishness, what can we think of them, but that Heaven and Hell are now as near together, as these men's hearts and mouths? And, truly, to let go these gross professors, have we not cause to take up sad complaints even of true Christians themselves, in whom the reigning power of sin is in their regeneration mortified? may we not take up the same speech concerning them, as Paul does concerning the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 3:3. You are yet carnal and walk as men? If the Apostle could have laid in charge against these Corinthians, not only envy, strife, and divisions; but hatred, bitterness, implacableness of spirit, brain-sick opinions, and self-seeking practices, joined with a great measure of neglect and contempt of the glory of God; as justly as we can against the Christians of our times; certainly his reproof would not have been so mild, as to tell them that they walked as men; but, rather, that they walked as devils. Would to God their miscarriages were not so generally known, as that every one could not supply the sense!

III. I have already set before you the great evils, that follow upon a neglected mortification. As to your own particulars, if that cannot affect you, there is but little ground to hope that your charity to others should prevail: yet give me leave to mention TWO GRAND EVILS, THAT HEREBY BEFALL OTHERS.

i. Hereby THEY ARE INDUCED TO THINK ALL PROFESSORS ARE BUT HYPOCRITES, AND RELIGION A MERE MOCKERY; and so come to have their hearts embittered against the ways of God, as being all but mere deceit and cozenage.

It is a sad accusation, Romans 2:24. The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you: How so? because, as in the former verses, they rested in the Law, and had a form of godliness, and were confident that they were guides to the blind, and lights to them which were in darkness: eminent professors they were, like the men of our days: but mark, You, which teach another, teach you not yourself?.… You, that make your boast of the Law, through breaking the Law dishonor you God? You, who profess mortification, do you indulge yourself in your lusts? You, who pretend to near fellowship and communion with God, do you live as one without God in the world? Tremble at it, the name of the Great God is blasphemed among wicked wretches through you: those, who were profane, you make atheistical; scoffing and deriding godliness, as an idle whimsy: and, because they see so little in their lives, they presently conclude there is no other difference between saints and sinners at all, but that the one have their tongues a little better tipped and their fancies a little higher wound, than the other. What is the common raillery of these profane persons? "Oh! this, forsooth, is a saint, and yet how covetous, how griping and greedy! Well, of all men deliver me from falling into the hands of a saint." Beware, lest these their blasphemies, be not at last charged upon you; who, through a loose, wanton, and unmortified conversation, have made religion even to stink in their nostrils. It is mortification alone, that can convince the world, that religion is anything real: but while men profess largely and live at large too, this keeps men off from religion; not because they think it a thing above them, but because they scorn it as a baseness below them, so to juggle and dissemble with the world.

ii. Hereby, also, WICKED MEN FLATTER THEMSELVES IN THEIR SINFUL ESTATE, supporting themselves upon the lives of unmortified professors, that certainly they are in as good a condition as they.

"They are proud, and impatient, and earthly: and, if these men get to Heaven, why may not I? It is true they talk of self-denial and mortification; but look into our lives, and mine is as harmless and innocent as theirs: they discourse of experiences, and communion and acquaintance with God, and a road of words that I skill not; but, certainly, if God will not condemn them, although they do nothing but talk, he will not condemn me, for not talking as they do." And thus the hands of wicked men are mightily strengthened, and hereby they fortify themselves in their unregeneracy.

Now, Christians, if you would adorn the Gospel, and bring a credit upon religion, live so that your conversations may be a conviction to all the world, that God is in you of a truth: which will be, when mortification is more endeavored and practiced. You have a principle within you, which would you exert to the utmost, mere moralists, with all their civility, and legalists, with all the forced harshness which they use to curb and restrain sin in themselves, must confess that they fall short of true mortification.

IV. Now, though there be, in the whole course of Christianity, no other duty that can plead more for itself than this of mortification; yet there is none, that has more cause to complain of a general neglect from the most of professors, than this has. A slight superficial Christianity is that, which now serves the turn; and, if men can but keep themselves from the gross and scandalous pollutions of the world, and together with that maintain a shining blaze of profession, whatever other mortification is pressed upon them, they reject as a needless rigor and severity. To INQUIRE INTO THE CAUSES WHY IT SHOULD BE SO would be to uncase a considerable part of the deceitfulness of sin, and the stratagems of Satan. I shall, therefore content myself with the discovery of some few grounds, that are more obvious and apparent.

As,

i. The HARSHNESS AND DIFFICULTY OF A THOROUGH MORTIFICATION deters many from going to the bottom of it.

If lust will take pet, and die of spite and sullenness, for a few sharp words spoken against it, or for a few hard thoughts conceived of it; then, indeed, the professors of our age are generally very mortified Christians. But, when we tell them that corruption is both tenacious and powerful, and must be dealt roughly with as a stubborn enemy; that it will cost much sweat and blood, many sad thoughts, many bitter conflicts and agonies of soul to subdue it; this frights them from so hot a service: it is a hard saying, and they cannot bear it. What says the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 9:26, 27? So fight I, not as one that beats the air: But I beat down my body, for so the word signifies, and bring it into subjection. But is there any such hardship in this? would any man be frighted with the difficulty of such a combat, wherein he may beat down his enemy, and yet suffer nothing from him? were it no more but to beat it down, trample upon it, and triumph over it, who would ever detract this spiritual warfare? See 2 Corinthians 12:7. There was sent me.… a messenger of Satan, to buffet me. Paul beats down his body, and the messenger of Satan buffets him: he and his corruption are already at blows, and the contest grows sharp between them. Hebrews 12:4. The Apostle speaks of resisting unto blood, in striving against sin. Striving against sin and mortifying it, is not so trivial and easy a work, as the generality of professors make it: it will draw tears from the eyes, and groans from the heart. Our Savior compares it (and indeed the comparison is drawn home) to plucking out the right-eye, and cutting off the right-hand: Matthew 5:29, 30.

Now there are Two things, that make this exceeding difficult.

The Pain and Anguish: and the Unnaturalness of it.

And both these are suited to a double distemper too prevalent in the best Christians, whereby the work of mortification is rendered very hard and difficult: and they are,

A sinful Niceness, Tenderness, and Delicacy, utterly unfitting spiritual soldiers; whereby they are so softened and effeminated, that they cannot endure pain or hardship.

A sinful Fondness and Compassion, which, being still in part carnal, they do bear unto their carnal part: and this makes mortification seem very unnatural.

1. Christians, through a spiritual sloth, that has seized upon them, are grown nice and delicate: and this makes the work of mortification seem very painful.

A little pain is more intolerable to men accustomed to a tender education, than torments are to others. Truly, Christians, by too much indulging their corruptions, do bring them up tenderly; seldom crossing or molesting them: so that, when they come in earnest to set upon the work of mortification, the extreme anguish and torment of it is such, that they cannot bear it; and so either they shrink from it, or else perform it very slightly. I may well say, that, through the niceness of Christians, mortification is now-a-days grown so easy and gentle, that corruption itself scarce feels it: some excrescences and superfluities of naughtiness they may possibly prune off; but when is it, that they lay the axe to the root? What is it for a man to pare the nails, or cut the hair? This goes not to the quick. Truly, that, which Christians now call their mortification, is but very little more: they do but pare away the superfluous and less sensible parts of corruptions, that, of a wild, over-grown thing, which else it would be, they may thereby reduce it to a decorum and decency. And shall I call this mortifying? or, rather, is it not an adorning, of lust? Show me the Christian, that stabs sin to the heart, and draws blood at every encounter, that cuts off limb after limb, and member after member; despising that smart and anguish, which frights tender and delicate Christians from so rough an engagement.

2. There is, in the best, too much of a sinful fondness and compassion, that makes mortification seem to be cruel and unnatural.

And how can it be otherwise, while, in the very best, there are still remainders of that other self, I mean corruption! Every Christian has a double self, his carnal and his spiritual self; and mortification is as it were self-murder: he does what in him lies to murder himself, that is his carnal self. Now look how difficult it is for a man to offer violence to himself; for the right-eye to be torne out by the right-hand, and that again to be cut off by the other, so difficult it is (abating only that it is another self that does it) for a Christian to exercise mortification; because it is a kind of self-destruction. Lust is so close and intimate with the soul, so inlaid with the principles and wrought into the very affections of it; that what the Apostle says, Ephesians 5:29. No man ever yet hated his own flesh, I may apply to this case: No man ever yet hated his fleshly part; that is, with such an utter antipathy and detestation as he ought. With what compassion, or rather with what extremity and rage of passion, would a mother see an infant of her own conception delivered up to the slaughter! truly, there is in all men somewhat of the like natural affection towards the conceptions of their own lust; so that it is with a great deal of reluctancy and violence offered to nature, that they expose their infant lusts as soon as born to the sword and slaughter of mortification. Now, until this fondness be removed, and Christians more hardened against their corruptions, (so that their hearts shall not pity them, nor their eyes spare them, though they are their own offspring: though they are so much themselves, yet they can with their own hands thrust the sword of mortification through them, and with delight look upon their gaspings and blood;) this great work can never go forward, proportionably to the great and absolute necessity of it.

That is the First particular.

ii. As the difficulty, so THE CONSTANCY, THE PERPETUITY OF THIS WORK frights many from engaging in it.

If sin would be laid dead by a blow, most men would for once strike home: but, when they think that mortification is a perpetual quarrel which they must all their lifetime prosecute, without a day's or minute's respite, that still they must be in arms, still upon the watch, and still fighting, without the truce of a breathing allowed them; this makes some give it over quite as an endless thing, and others to follow it but very remissly.

And, truly, unless this work of mortification be pursued with an indefatigable constancy, without intermission, these Two evils, will necessarily follow.

1. In the interval, Lust, after it has been defeated, will again recruit and gather head, and possibly assault the soul with a redoubled force. And

2. Grace will, for want of exercise, grow unwieldy, inactive, and less fit for service than it was.

If at any time there be a neglect of mortification, all, that was formerly done against corruption, is merely in vain, and but so much labor lost. Lust will rally, after a rout; and therefore grace, when it has defeated it, must pursue it close; still gaining upon it, and disputing its ground by inches, until it has at last quite forced it out of the soul. Men, that are to empty a pond, in which there are many springs rising, must be still casting out the water as it is still bubbling up: if they stop, the pond grows presently full, and their labor is again to begin. Truly, our hearts are like this pond, in which there are many springs still spouting out corrupt streams: mortification is the laving of this pond: if Christians do but for a while cease and give it over, the heart grows full again of all manner of wickedness, and the work is set as far back as it was at the beginning. These incessant pains few will bear; and therefore it is, that this work of mortification is generally so much neglected in the world.

iii. The many DISCOURAGEMENTS, WHICH EVEN CHRISTIANS THEMSELVES MEET WITH IN THE WORK OF MORTIFICATION, do make them backward to it, and negligent in it.

Many discouragements I might here mention, both from without and from within: as, the evil examples of unmortified professors; the auxiliaries, that lust receives from the policy and power of Satan; the manifold enforcements, which, when a temptation is in its hour, it has from objects, occasions, and such like outward advantages; the inward, secret conspiracies of the heart itself with lust: all which, and many more, are great discouragements unto Christians; making not only the hands of their enemies strong against them, but many times their own hands weak and their hearts faint: so that they are ready to say they shall one day fall by the hands of these mighty lusts; and that, therefore, it is as good to give themselves up for lost men, and never more to struggle against what they cannot possibly subdue. And, truly, did not the Spirit of God, in the midst of these sad thoughts, break in with extraordinary supports and assistances, all their hopes and confidences would here give up the Spirit; and they would abandon themselves over to the power of their lusts, to be captivated by them at their pleasure.

But, omitting these, I shall only speak to Two great Discouragements, drawn from the bad event of an endeavored mortification.

The little visible Success which they gain, after all their pains and labor.

The many sad Defeats and Foils, which, notwithstanding all, they receive from their lusts.

1. The little visible and apparent Success of the exercise of mortification, does mightily dishearten even true Christians from it.

And this discouragement is by so much the greater, if, before their conversion, conscience was tender, and lust never outrageous, nor broke out into any scandalous foul sin. Such Christians can hardly perceive the difference, between themselves now, and themselves long ago. After all the labor and toil which they have taken in mortification, they are, they think, but almost where they were: little progress have they made, little ground have they got: they are not conscious to themselves of any willful neglect: they have constantly stood upon their guard, kept their watch, carefully used the means for mortification; and yet, after all, lust, they think, is still as prevalent with them as before: and this discourages them from taking so great pains, as they think, to so little purpose.

Now there are Two grounds, why the success of mortification is not always visible and apparent.

(1) Because of the rooted permanency of every lust in the soul.

Mortification does not utterly kill, but only wound and weaken sin. And, therefore, though you single out any one particular lust, and set the whole strength of grace against it; though you do as Samuel did with Agag, hew it in pieces before the Lord, so that you would think it should never be able to stir more: yet it is in this like to worms and serpents: every piece will move: the very next temptation, object, or opportunity, will draw forth the same corruption again, which you thought you had utterly killed. Mortification does not put sin to death, so as that it shall never move more in the soul. And therefore Christians, aiming at this death and extirpation of sin, think that all their labor is but lost, when they find every one of those corruptions to stir and move as they did formerly. And this discourages them.

(2) Another thing, that hinders the visible success of mortification, is, the great variety and multiplicity of corruption.

Whereby it comes to pass, that one follows upon the neck of another; and, as soon as one is beaten down, another rises up: so that, though a Christian exercise a daily mortification, yet he can scarcely tell whether the number of his enemies be diminished or augmented: every day he fights, and every day he conquers; and, yet, every day he has as many to fight against and to conquer, as before. What a discouragement this is, any one who is reluctant to put himself to a great deal of trouble to no purpose, may easily imagine. "Oh!" says such an one, "could I perceive that I gained advantage against my corruptions, that I subdued and put to death any of them, I should count all my pains well bestowed: but, alas! there is such a lust, that I have been struggling against so long, and yet am not free from it: nay, there are so many thousand lusts, that are still rising in me; and, when I turn myself against one, another surprises me: if I oppose that, another gets within me. All my victories are in vain: my work is endless; and, still, I have as many enemies to combat with, as at the first." And, hereupon, he is strongly tempted to give over mortification, as a fruitless work.

That is the First Discouragement; the little visible success, by reason of the permanency and multitude of corruptions.

2. Another great discouragement in the work of mortification, is, the many sad Defeats and Foils, which, notwithstanding all their endeavors, even the best Christians have often received from their lusts.

Though the conquest at the last be assured, yet it is not without many doubtful trials and various successes. Paul, the greatest champion that ever fought the Lord's spiritual battles and maintained the cause of grace, yet complains of his captivity to the law of the members, Romans 7:23. David, no less a warrior against uncircumcised lusts than against uncircumcised Philistines, yet cries out of his wounds, Psalm 38:5. My wounds stink, and are corrupt; because of my foolishness. It would be a very sad and discouraging spectacle, if we could see all the spoils, which Satan and corruption have by force taken from the most eminent Christians: such a man's shield of faith lost, in such an encounter: such a man's sword of the Spirit wrested from him, in another: another loses the breast-plate of righteousness; another, the helmet of hope. Yes, there is no Christian, but is in some encounter or other despoiled of part of his armor, and himself taken prisoner. Now, hereby, they are disheartened from again attempting that enemy, whom they have found too hard for them. When they find lust to be an over-match for them, they flee and give place; and conclude it utterly in vain for them with their ten thousand, to make war with him that comes against them with twenty thousand: and so they sit down under the neglect of mortification.

These are some of the grounds, why this great duty is so little practiced among Christians. And what is at the bottom of all this, but only a great deal of spiritual sloth and laziness, that makes them reluctant to put themselves upon difficulties and hazards; yes and possibly makes them fancy more difficulties and hazards in mortification than indeed there are? Proverbs 26:13. The slothful man says, There is a lion in the way, a lion is in the streets: it is a very unlikely thing, that a lion should be in the street; yet this his sloth suggests to him, as an excuse to keep him from the labor of going abroad. Well, what does this sluggard do? in the next verse, the Wise Man tells us: As the door turns upon his hinges, so does the slothful man upon his bed: the door turns often, but gains no ground: still it is where it was. So, truly, it is with a slothful Christian, that neglects mortification for fear of difficulties: let him turn himself to whatever he will, yet still he is but upon his hinges: he gains no ground upon his lusts, nor makes any progress towards Heaven. Alas! Heaven and happiness are not to be obtained with ease: by sitting still and wishing against lust; but by a laborious contending and struggling against it. What says our Savior, Matthew 11:12? The kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. There must be a holy roughness and violence used, to break through all that stands in our way; neither caring for allurements, nor fearing opposition: but, with a pious obstinacy, and (if I may so call it) frowardness, we must thrust away the one, and bear down the other. This is the Christian, who will carry Heaven by force; when the whining, pusillanimous professor, who only complains of difficulty, but never attempts to conquer it, will be forever shut out.

V. The next thing to be inquired into, is, WHAT THIS NECESSARY AND YET MUCH NEGLECTED DUTY OF MORTIFICATION IS, AND WHEREIN IT DOES CONSIST.

An exact method would, perhaps, have called for this first; since it were in vain to press the necessity, and not to open the duty: but I know that there are few here, who, when mention is made of mortification, do not, in the general notion, apprehend it to be some earnest and constant striving against sin, so as to weaken and conquer it: which supposition is a sufficient ground for adjourning the more minute explication of this duty until now.

And herein I shall proceed,

Negatively, to show you what it is not: which is made apparent by the many counterfeit mortifications that are in the world. Either disciplinary severity, and a pontificial rigor in tormenting, rather than subjecting the outward man; or else, at best, civil morality, are rested in as true mortification. It will be, therefore, of considerable advantage, to uncase to you those appearances of mortification, which yet indeed are not it.

And

Positively, I shall endeavor to open what is necessarily required unto true mortification, and wherein that great work and duty does consist.

i. NEGATIVELY, what it is not.

And, here, I need not tell you,

1. That mortification is not the utter and total extirpation and destruction of sin's in-being in the soul.

There are a sort of fanatics, or frantics rather, risen up among us, who, by pretending to that in this life unattainable privilege of a perfect immunity from all sin, do make mortification inconsistent with mortality; and, while they promise to themselves that liberty which God never promised them, they are become the servants of corruption. John frequently gives these men the plain lie: 1 John 1:8. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us: verse 10. If we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and his word is not in us: this is that, which the manifold falls, the grievous outcries, the bitter repentings, the broken bones, and the bloodied consciences, even of the best and perfectest saints on earth, have too sadly attested beyond all contradiction; unless it be from those men, to whom customariness has made the difference between sinning and forbearing to sin unperceivable. It is, indeed, the sincere desire and endeavor of every child of God, so thoroughly to mortify corruption, that it should never more stir, nor tempt; never more move, nor break forth, unto eternity. Oh! it would be a blessed word of promise, if God should say to us concerning our lusts, as Moses did to the Israelites, "Those Egyptians, whom you have seen this day pursuing your souls, you shall see them again no more forever:" no, God is, if I may so say, more provident than to spoil Heaven, by forestalling that happiness, which makes it so infinitely desirable: and, therefore, he here suffers these Canaanites to be thorns in our eyes and scourges in our sides, to sweeten the place of our rest; and, when we are most victorious over them, all that we can do is but to make them subject and tributary: they have so possessed the fastnesses of our souls, that there is but one mortification can drive them out; and that is our dissolution. Under the Ceremonial Law, if an earthen vessel were polluted by any unclean thing, the only way of purification prescribed, was to break it: truly, we are such earthen vessels, though mortification may scour and cleanse us from much of that filth which cleaves to us; yet we can never be fully purified, until death breaks us to pieces. It was only sin, that brought death into the world; and it is only death, that can carry sin out of the world. So that every true Christian is another Sampson: he slays more of the uncircumcised at his death, than he did in all his lifetime before. It is true, God is many times pleased to grant eminent and signal successes, in a way of mortification; but yet these are but as it were pickeering small conquests, obtained by singling out some particular lusts: it is only death, that makes the general defeat and slaughter. And, therefore, as the weakest grace is sufficient to destroy the reign of sin; so the strongest grace, exercised in the most constant and severe course of mortification, is insufficient to destroy its residence.

That is the First thing.

2. A harsh severity and rigor used only towards the outward man, is not true mortification.

This is that, which blind devotionists rest upon; who, by sharp penances, long fastings, and other ways of ignorant will-worship, do go the way rather to destroy themselves than their corruptions. This churlish and rugged way of mortification is altogether as incongruous, as if a man should lay a plaster upon his clothes to cure a wound in his body. Should he tell down rivers of tears for every vain thought, should he fine himself in a thousand prayers for the commission of every sin, should he fast until his skin cleaves to his bones and his bones stare him in the face; yet all this would be as far from the mortification of sin, as it is from a satisfaction for sin: all these cannot reach that bottom and center of the soul, in which lust sits enthroned, and despises all the attempts and batteries that men make against the outworks only. But I need not insist much longer on this particular: the greater light, yes I may say the greater atheism and profaneness of our days, will discharge me from that trouble. Yes, professors themselves, by neglecting that moderation, which they should use towards the outward man, in diet, in attire, or in any other enjoyment; do omit, if not a part of, if not a means to mortification, yet certainly that sign and character, which should evidence them to all the world, to be mortified persons. The truth is, men now live, as if it nothing at all concerned their souls what their bodies do. Whatever these men pretend, yet it must needs be very difficult to believe that there can be humility and mortification in the one, where there is not sobriety and decency in the other.

I will not undertake to prescribe how far a true mortification must, in particular, reach the outward man; yet, in the general, take these Two rules.

(1) All that indulgence, which indisposeth to holy and spiritual duties, or hinders us from them or in them, must, by the exercise of mortification, be taken off and removed.

There must be rigor and severity used, even towards the body, if formerly we found the want thereof made us unfit for or remiss, in the duties of religion. It is fittest for your own Christian prudence, to descend unto particulars; and to examine what it is, that indisposeth you, either in hearing, or in praying, or in any other means of communion with God. Whatever it be, whether it proceed from infirmity or custom and habitude, if it be an occasion to hinder the life and spiritualness of our duties, mortification must be here set on work, though not without violence and regret unto the outward man. What says the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 9:27? I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: that is, he made it useful and serviceable to his soul. Where mortification is neglected, even the body, that underling and servile part of man, grows wild and unruly; rebelling against the soul, and hurrying it where itself will.

(2) All that provision, which indulgence towards the outward man lays in for the flesh to fulfill it in the lusts thereof, must be cut off by the careful exercise of mortification.

Do you find, that the pampering of the outward man, is the strengthening of the Old Man? that outward ease, plenty, or any other conveniences, are but instruments for lust to work with, or objects for it to work upon? it is high time for mortification to be exercised; even about those things, which are lawful, when once lust turns them into food and nourishment for itself. I leave it to your own experience, to frame instances, and accordingly to proceed in mortification for the future.

These two general rules being supposed, (which it were to be wished professors were more careful in observing), whatever other severity men execute upon themselves, may be called cruelty and will-worship, but cannot be reckoned for true mortification.

That is the Second thing.

3. The not-breaking-forth of corruption into a scandalous life and conversation, is no evidence of true mortification.

Many men's lusts are like secret imposthumes, that breed within the breast; which are never known, until they prove their deaths. It is not necessary, that unmortified sin should be like a running sore, offensive and noisome to others: it may rankle and fester within, until it become incurable and mortal. Lust has a large and ample dominion inwards, in the heart: there are thoughts, contrivances, desires, affections, and motions; all which may be altogether unmortified, when yet the life and conversation may be so innocent and blameless, as not to be justly chargeable with the guilt of any one notorious sin. What can we judge of such an one, but that he is a very mortified Christian? yes, but God, who knows the heart, yes and possibly his conscience, sees abundance of pride, impurity, worldliness, unbelief, contempt of God and his ways, reigning and raging within, in all that strength and power which they have gotten to themselves by so long a continuance, without the least check from mortification.

Now it may be attributed to a Threefold cause, why a lust, that is unmortified, does not always break forth into gross and scandalous sins.

(1) To that quiet, reserved temper and disposition, that some men are of.

Their very nature is such, that they will do nothing violently and outrageously; and, therefore, they will not sin so. Some men are rude sinners, and boisterously wicked: others are of a more calm and retired spirit; and yet, possibly, as far from being mortified as the other. Take a true Christian, who has often sweat and toiled in the mortifying of some particular prevailing lust and corruption to which his temper inclined him, as suppose passionateness or the like, and compare him to one of a smooth, sedate, and even temper, though altogether unacquainted with the great work of mortification; and how unlovely shall the passion of the mortified Christian appear, in comparison with the sedateness of the unmortified sinner! such is the great advantage which a man's natural inclination gives, either to the acting or suppressing of sin. And, therefore, take this rule, by the way, in examining your mortification: Never reflect upon that seeming prevalence you have over those lusts, which are not strengthened and advantaged by the bent and tendency of your natural inclination; for this will prove a very deceitful mark: rather look what success you gain over the sin of your nature, be it what it will; or against those sins, which no natural temper can ever counterfeit the mortification of, such as unbelief, hardness of heart, impenitency, and such-like spiritual sins, which are common to all men of what temper and disposition soever: otherwise, to conclude that corruption is mortified and subdued, because you break not forth into such sins to which perhaps your natural inclination is not so strongly bent, is but a false and deceitful evidence.

(2) The not-breaking-out of unmortified corruption, may often be imputed to the absence of temptations, opportunities, and occasions of sinning, and such-like outward advantages; which, were they present, would certainly draw it forth into act.

Either the Devil is wanting to men's corruptions, in fitting them with suitable temptations; or else God's providence, in fitting them with a convenient opportunity: one or both of which, is the true reason why we see no more wickedness committed in the world (though it does now too fearfully abound) and not the weakening or abating of the power and rage of it by mortification. When the Prophet told Hazael what cruelties he should act upon the Jews; what, says he, Is your servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? While he was in his private estate, he could not think his nature had been so cruel: but, when he was advanced to the kingdom of Syria, and had subdued the Israelites; then, the temptations of a conqueror assault him, and he shows that cruelty which before lay lurking and dormant. And so it was with Peter, in denying his Lord and Master. Now look inward a little: you pretend, perhaps, to be mortified persons; and why? "Oh! not any one sin, besides common failings, has broken from me so long time." Has there not? Tell me; were not temptations wanting, to provoke and draw out your corruptions? were not opportunities wanting, to let out your corruptions? If they were, this your not sinning proceeds not from a mortified heart, but from a negligent devil, or a gracious God. That man gets a good opinion of himself at too easy a rate, who thinks himself mortified for not sinning when he is not tempted.

(3) It may be imputed to a powerful restraint, laid upon the eruptions of lust.

This hinders them from breaking out into act; but, yet, this does not mortify nor weaken them. I do not now speak of that almighty restraint, that God, in his ordinary providence, lays upon the lusts of men; by which, indeed, he mortifies them, even as he mortified Jeroboam's hand, which he stretched out against the Prophet, by taking the power of sinning from them: but of that restraint, which men themselves lay upon their lusts, who yet are altogether ignorant of and inexperienced in the spiritualness of this duty of mortification. Men may lay a check and curb upon their lusts: that whereas formerly they let themselves loose unto all manner of profaneness and impiety; they may now relinquish that excess of riot, and bind their corruptions within a narrower pale and compass, and thereby appear both to themselves and others to be much mortified and changed Christians.

This Restraint may proceed from a Twofold cause.

[1] From gross Hypocrisy and deep Dissimulation, for secular ends and advantages, with which the extravagancy of wickedness possibly would not consist.

And, truly, we may justly fear, that much of that seeming mortification, which is among professors, stands only upon this bottom. Certainly, that sinful liberty, which they allow themselves where it is not prejudicial to their worldly interests, is a very sad ground to suspect all other restraints that they impose upon themselves, to be from no higher a principle, than compliance with the genius and current of the times. Such men's cursed hypocrisy shall, in Hell, bear the punishment of all those sins, that itself hindered from being committed: that is all the reward it shall have.

[2] This restraint may, likewise, proceed from the strength of Convictions, and the terrors of a Natural Conscience.

Wicked men, many times, dare not commit those sins, which yet notwithstanding their hearts and affections are bent upon: should they, conscience would hurl firebrands in their faces, and haunt them with fearful threatenings and outcries. And some there are, who, without question, do stand in as much dread of an enraged conscience, as they do of Hell itself. This keeps men in some awe and order, that they dare not commit sin, with so much impudence and greediness, as otherwise they would do; but, yet, this amounts not to a true mortification: this all proceeds from the power of conscience, forcibly reigning in corrupt nature; not from the power of grace, changing that nature. As it is with wild beasts kept up in a grate, they cannot ravin after their prey; but, still, their natures are ravenous: so it is with conscience: it many times coops up men, that they cannot ravin after their lusts, as were they free from such a restraint they would; but, still, their natures continue unsanctified, their sins unmortified, and their affections, desires, and delights eager after them, though they dare not commit them; yes and, possibly, (which is the usual effect of a forcible restraint) by so much the more violent, by how much the more debarred from them.

This is the Third thing.

4. The relinquishment and forsaking of a sin, is not an evidence of a true mortification.

I do not here mean only such a temporary forsaking of sin as theirs was in 2 Peter 2:20, who, having escaped the pollutions of the world, through lust, were again entangled: certain it is, that these men's corruptions were but for a time dissembled, and never mortified. But I take it for a perpetual relinquishment and an utter divorce, so that the soul never again returns to the commission of it, or at least not with any proportionable frequency and delight. Yet this forsaking of sin, may be without the mortification of it.

Take this, in Two cases.

(1) When men do change and barter their sins, then there is a forsaking of sin, but no mortifying of it.

Multitudes of lusts lie crowded together in the soul, and each of these must have its alternate reign; and, therefore, when one has for a while swayed and been the master-lust, it gives place to another, and that to another, until the sinner has run through the bead-roll of them. And, therefore, the Apostle, Titus 3:3 speaks of serving divers lusts and pleasures: divers, in their turns and successions. This deceives many: they find an old tyrannical lust, that has kept them under long and laborious thraldom, begin to grow weak and feeble, and hereupon they conclude it is mortified in them; but, alas! they do not observe some other lust reigning in its stead: it does but give way to make room for another; so that, though the stream of corruption be diverted and turned out of one channel, yet it runs with as full a tide in another. Let not him, who, of a sensual person, is grown a worldling; of a profane person, a hypocrite; think that he has mortified any one of these lusts. A changed man, indeed, he is; changed from one extreme to another, from sin to sin: but this change is far from mortification.

(2) When a lust rather forsakes the sinner, than he it; then there may be a perpetual separation, where there is no mortification.

There are sins, that are proper and peculiar to such an estate and season of a man's life, upon the alteration of which they vanish and disappear: the sins of youth drop off from declining age, as incongruous and unfitting: the man does, as it were, outgrow them. Now if he reflect back, to take a view of the numberless vanities and follies he has left, how deadened his heart and affections are to those things which before he delighted in, this may possibly make him think himself a very mortified man; when, alas! he has not so much forsaken his sins, as they him: so long as his natural vigor could relish the temptation, and so long as it comports with his state and condition; so long he served it, and lived in it. Let not such a man deceive himself: though now he has forsaken it, yet he never mortified it: the sin deserted him, and fell off of its own accord: this fruit of the flesh was never beaten down by mortification, but, being full ripe, fell off of itself without violence.

That is the Fourth thing.

5. Every victory and conquest gained over sin, is not a true mortification of it.

I doubt not, but many unregenerate persons have yet had eminent successes in opposing their corruptions; so as to hinder them, even when they have been raging and impetuous, from breaking forth, either to the defiling or wounding of their consciences; nay, sometimes so far as sensibly to abate the power and force of them: but all this amounts not to a true mortification.

And that, upon a double account.

(1) Because all such conquests are achieved by principles altogether foreign and extraneous unto grace.

That has no hand in the work: but natural conscience, acted by slavish fear or some other carnal consideration, manages all the fights and scuffles, that wicked men maintain against their lusts. And,

(2) Because, though by these victories lust seems to be weakened in its branches, yet it is much strengthened in its root.

If one sin be pulled down, it is that another may be advanced. All the conquests, that wicked men obtain, do not destroy the government, but only change the governors. Nay, indeed, it is only one contrary lust, that fights against the other; and, which soever of them is defeated, yet still the body of sin thrives.

That is the Last thing.

ii. Now, seeing there are so many things like true mortification in the world, it nearly concerns us to beware, lest we be deceived by them; and so flatter ourselves with a false evidence for life.

To prevent which, it will be necessary, to open to you this great duty of mortification POSITIVELY.

And in this, possibly, some useful progress may be made, when these Two things have been searched into.

Wherein it does consist.

What things are indispensably required thereunto.

1. For the first, I take the Nature of Mortification to consist in these Three things.

In weakening Sin's Root and Principle.

In suppressing its Risings and Motions. And,

In restraining its outward Actings and Eruptions.

It is the First of these, that makes the other two any parts of this true mortification. Let a man oppose himself, all his days, against the workings of corruption within, and the actings of it without; yet, unless the radical power and force of corruption be in some good measure abated, let him not think he has mortified any one lust. It is a task utterly impossible to kill it, if it be not first wounded at the heart. It were easy to demonstrate the vanity and unsuccessfulness of all endeavors, to mortify these limbs and out-parts of the Old Man, unless his vitals be first perished, and his inward strength decayed.

For,

First. Hereby you can never arrive at any comfortable issue in the work. It is but like beating down leaves from a tree, which will certainly sprout forth again: the root is still remaining in the ground, full of sap and juice; and will supply every branch of corruption with the same nourishment, and make it flourish into the same strength and verdure; which all your endeavors will but fruitlessly attempt to despoil it of.

And,

Secondly. Hereupon finding no better success, but that, after all, he sees himself deluded, and that lust is not mortified; still, as thick fogs and steams of it rise within him as ever; still, it is as unruly and boisterous as ever; and more to suppress and weaken it, in his way, cannot be done: hereupon, I say, he despairingly gives over all future contendings, and abandons himself to the power and violence of his corruptions; and those, which before he strove in vain to stop, he now spurs on and drives furiously towards perdition.

This is the fearful, and yet too frequent issue, of such endeavors, as have their beginnings merely from the convictions of natural conscience: they receive no encouragement nor recruit from the decay of corruption; and, therefore, usually expire, either in a loose formality, or in a professed dissoluteness. Very sad it is to consider how much pains and industry have been lost in struggling against sin, only upon this account; that, to all their endeavors, there has been no foundation laid, in the radical and inward weakening of the habit and body of corruption.

This inward weakening of corruption is Twofold:

The First proceeds from that mortal and incurable wound, which the body of sin received in the first implantation of grace. Then was the head of this serpent crushed; and, whereas before it had the power and authority of a king and sovereign in the soul, in that very moment it was deposed, and has ever since harassed it only as a rebel and traitor.

The Second proceeds from those redoubled strokes, with which mortified Christians follow their corruptions; whereby they every day and hour draw blood and spirits from them, and so by degrees waste and weaken them. The first, indeed, is not any part of that mortification, whereof I am now treating; but rather a necessary antecedent to it: and the latter would not be mortification, did it not presuppose the former; for therefore does a man, by opposing the motions and actings of corruption in his daily conversation, weaken the habit of it, because of that first weakening which it received in conversion. The Apostle, speaking of this weakening of sin, calls it a crucifying of it with Christ: Romans 6:6. Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed. Now look, how was Christ crucified? first he was hung upon the cross, and then pierced with a spear: so, truly, it is in the mortification of corruption: our first conversion unto God hangs it upon the cross, whence it shall never come down alive; and then our constant endeavors are as so many spears continually piercing it, until the body of this Old Man becomes all over one great wound, whence daily issue out the blood and spirit, the strength and vigor, and at length life itself. This is it, which makes the keeping under of the motions of corruption, and the keeping in of its eruptions, to be true mortification in the children of God; when yet the very same endeavors, in unregenerate men, are nothing so. Sin, in them, is upon the throne, and not upon the cross: and therefore they cannot wound, nor pierce it: they cannot weaken, nor destroy it.

"Yes," but may some say, "must there, in true mortification, be not only a striving against the motions and actings of corruption, but also the weakening of its root and principle? Alas! then I fear all my endeavors have been fruitless and in vain. Some success, indeed, I have gained against the eruptions of lust; but still I find the temptations of it as strong and violent as ever: I perceive no weakenings, no decays in it; but it rather grows more rebellious and headstrong every day than other; and, therefore, all, that I have done against them, has not been true mortification."

This, no question, is the case of many a mortified Christian: and, therefore, for answer hereunto,

First. Consider: possibly you may be herein mistaken, that you think that corruption moves stronger than before, when only you take more notice of its motions than you did before.

When the heart is made tender and soft by a long exercise of mortification, a less temptation troubles it more, than formerly a greater would. Every the least rising of corruption in the heart seems now a desperate and heinous thing; whereas, before, through the deadness and stupidity of conscience, it was made light of and scarce regarded. This seeming strength of sin is not a sign that sin is not dying; but rather a sign that you are spiritually alive, because so very sensible of its motions. The stronger the opposition is, which grace makes against sin, the stronger also will sin seem to work, though indeed it never was weaker. If a strong-natured man fall into a little sickness and distemper, it seems more violent and raging in him, than a greater would in another of a weak constitution; because the natural vigor conflicts more with the disease: he is unquiet and turbulent, and tosses to and fro, merely because the strength of nature is impatient until the sickness be removed. So is it here: if a gracious soul fall into any sinful distemper, what conflicts and agonies are there, as if he were in the very pangs of death! Does this argue the strength of corruption? No: nothing less: it rather argues the strength of grace, which makes the soul to wrestle thus impatiently, until the corruption be overcome and removed. None so much complain of the strength and power of their sins, as those, in whom it is unto some good degree mortified; because they have that contrary principle of grace in them, which makes them sensible of the least risings and motions of it.

Secondly. Consider: corruption may act strongest in the soul, then, when it is in itself weakest. It may be very strong in acting, when it is but weak in being.

You know with what a great blaze a wasted candle goes out, and with what violent pangs and strugglings men use to depart this life: so, sometimes, a mortified lust makes such a blaze, as if it would set the whole soul on fire; when, indeed, it is but expiring: it so struggles, as if it would master grace; when, indeed, it is but its last pull and death-pang. What is said of Christ when hanging on the cross, Mark 15:37. He cried with a loud voice, and then gave up the Spirit; the same may I say of corruption hanging on the cross with a loud voice in a temptation, as if it were not only alive, but strong and vigorous: yes, but this loud voice is many times its last voice; and then it gives up the Spirit, and draws its last breath crying. And,

Thirdly. Some accidental improvement may make a lust that is subdued and truly mortified, yet seem no way weakened; but rather much more active and vigorous than ever before.

Sometimes, the very crasis and temper of the body may so alter, as to cause a greater propenseness to such or such a corruption than formerly: and, sometimes, a man may lie in the way of more temptations than ever. Now, upon such advantages as these, corruption, though it be mortified, yet will be stirring: yes, and be stirring, it may be, more violently than ever it did while it was unmortified; for, though then it had more strength and power of its own, yet it had not such odds of grace, as through these external aids it has gotten. And,

Fourthly. What is abated in the strength of lust's temptations, is many times eked out by the temptations of the Devil.

And these, though they are of different kinds, yet are so closely and so indiscernibly pieced together, that the soul, not knowing what must be imputed to the strength of its own corruption, and what to the violent assaults of the Devil, ascribes all to his lust, and then sadly looks upon himself as an unmortified sinner: and unmortified sin, when it moves and tempts only of its own accord, will not seem to be so raging and impetuous, as a mortified sin will, when it is blown up by the temptations and injections of Satan: and therefore Christians, not being able to distinguish, as indeed none sufficiently can, are necessarily troubled with many fears and doubts, whether or no corruption, which acts so strongly, be at all weakened in them. And, indeed, if the Devil helps any men's corruptions by his temptations, they are especially those, which mortification has already dealt with and subdued. In wicked men, he sees lust able enough to exist of itself, and to manage the affairs of its own dominions; and therefore leaves them to the plague of their own heart to destroy them: but, in the children of God, where this enemy is broken and conquered, he backs and enforces it; lends it auxiliaries of objects, and suggestions, and numberless temptations; leads it on to the combat; and, by many wiles and methods, enables it to molest, if not to foil the most conquering and mortified Christian: hereupon the soul, finding such a wonderful recruit of strength and vigor in corruption, presently concludes it is all its own, and that certainly it was never yet subdued, never weakened in him.

That is the last thing.

So then, although where true mortification is exercised, there corruption is weakened and does decay; yet this decay is not always discernible.

And thus much shall suffice to open to you what Mortification is.

2. The next thing is, to show you what is of necessity required thereunto.

You have already heard, that mortification consists of two parts, the weakening of the Habit, and the constant endeavor of repressing the Motions and restraining the Eruptions, of sin. Accordingly, two things are thereunto necessarily required:

A vital Principle of Grace, that may weaken and destroy the habit of sin. And

The Influences of the Spirit of God, that may draw forth this inward principle of grace, and act it unto the suppressing of these motions, and the restraining of these eruptions.

(1) Therefore, there cannot be any exercise of true mortification, where there is not a vital Principle and Habit of Grace, radically to weaken and destroy it.

It is not nature, it is not conscience, it is not education, it is not conviction, nor is it any other principle, but grace alone, that is a fit match for corruption. How can it with reason be supposed, that, where there is nothing else but sin, anything should destroy the power of sin? What, though one lust quarrels with and contradicts another? and what, though conscience contradicts them both? yet the main body of lust is not concerned in these petty quarrels. Some lust or other must be chief in the soul, where grace is not advanced as the prevailing principle; and, whether this lust be set up and that pulled down, is not much material: still, the regality and tyranny of sin is equally maintained and upheld, by the one as by the other; and, until grace dissolves this government, and be laid as the axe to the root of the tree, all our endeavors after mortification will be but vain and fruitless attempts, which lust will easily baffle.

And hence, then, by way of consectary:

First. How necessary is it to our comfortable undertaking this great work of mortification, to see that the first grace of our conversion be true and saving!

Alas! where there never was conversion wrought, there never was mortification exercised. The killing of sin is not a work, that can be done by a dead, but by a living man. I should be reluctant to cast in doubts and scruples, that should more trouble than benefit you: yet give me leave to say, that, unless the evidence of the truth of your grace be in some good proportion cleared up to you, your hands must needs be faint and feeble in conflicting against your lusts: how know you, that all your strugglings and strivings are not from weak and insufficient principles, and consequently far short of mortification? I speak it, not that you should abate your endeavors; but to quicken you, to look after the truth and sincerity of grace; which when you have assured to yourselves, you may be likewise certain, that, though in all your conflicts you may not find a visible decay of the strength of sin, yet it is in the root and principle of it insensibly weakened.

Secondly. See also what the sad and deplorable condition of wicked men is, who are strangers to the life of grace.

Without mortification, no life is to be expected: without grace, no mortification can be exercised: and what does this, when it is cast up, amount to, less than the eternal damnation of such men? The war, which we are to wage against our lusts, admits of no other terms, but to kill or to be killed: either the blood of your dearest sins must be spilt, or the blood of your precious souls. Is it not now a sad thing for men, in such a merciless war, to be thrust naked upon the sharp swords of their enemies? so it is with sinners, who are many times by conscience or convictions thrust on to fight with armed and cruel lusts, and yet have neither weapons to wound them nor to defend themselves. What can be imagined more sad, than is the case of these men? on the one hand, conscience scourges them; on the other, sin wounds: conscience drives them on; corruption beats them back: and yet, in all these conflicts, never can they obtain so much success, as to subdue the least and weakest lust.

What should these men do? should they give over this opposition, such as it is; and sit still, under despair of mortification? No: let them still strive and struggle, and make what strength they can, and act as far against sin as natural conscience will carry them. Let not the doctrine which you have heard to day, of a carnal man's impotency to mortify any one sin, slacken your endeavors: still press upon it.

For,

First. Though all, that you can do without grace, will not amount to a true mortification; yet it may cause much outward reformation: though, hereby, you cannot kill corruption; yet you may mightily curb it.

It is true, this, when done, will not avail to save you; but yet, suppose the least, it will avail to mitigate your punishment, and abate the degrees of torment: and, certainly, that man never had a right apprehension of Hell, who does not account the striking off the least degree of wrath infinitely more worth, than all the pains and trouble of an endeavored mortification.

And,

Secondly. Though you cannot mortify corruption without grace, yet, when you oppose it with the power you have, God may give you in the grace that you want.

While carnal, you cannot pray, nor perform any other spiritual duty in grace; yet you may and ought to do it for grace: so, here, though your struggling against sin be not mortification, without grace; yet ought you to persist in it, that it may be mortification, through grace. How know you but that conflict, which was begun between the flesh and the flesh, may end in a victory of the spirit over the flesh? Certainly, it is far more probable, that that man should obtain true mortification, who earnestly strives against his lusts; than he, who willingly yields himself up as a slave unto them.

That is the first thing. Without grace, no one lust can be mortified; and yet wicked men are not hereby to be discouraged in their endeavors.

(2) Another requisite unto mortification, is the Influence of the Spirit of God, drawing forth this inward grace, and acting it to the suppressing of sinful motions and sinful eruptions.

And, therefore, the text tells us, If you, through the Spirit, do mortify. Though grace be wrought in the heart, yet it is not in our power to act it; but the same Spirit, that implanted it, alone must excite it: he must marshal it, and set it in array: he must head it, and lead it on; and, under his conduct, it will certainly prove victorious. I might here, at large, show you what aid, force, and recruit the Spirit brings us in for our assistance in the work of mortification, that the Apostle should here attribute it unto him. But I shall only briefly touch at this point, and so proceed.

[1] The Spirit discovers the sin, that is to be mortified.

He drags it out of its lurking holes; strips it naked to the view of the soul; uncases its deceits; discloses its methods; shows the ugliness, deformity, and hellishness of it; tells the soul what a desperate and sworn enemy it is against its eternal happiness, and what an endless train of woes, and plagues, and torments it draws after it: and, hereby, he highly exasperates the heart to a resolution, that, since it is so opportunely delivered into its hands, it shall no more escape alive. Now this assistance unto mortification the Spirit lends us, as he is the Author of Conviction: John 16:8. He shall convince the world of sin.

[2] The Spirit does inwardly and really, by the immediate working of his own power, gradually weaken and destroy the habit and principle of corruption.

He, with his own hands, wounds the Old Man, breaks the hard heart, takes out the stony heart, and gives a heart of flesh. He burns up and consumes all that dross and corruption, that lies in the heart; and is, therefore, compared unto fire: Matthew 3:11. He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire; that is, with the Holy Spirit working as fire, purifying and refining you as the fire does metals; who is therefore called, Isaiah. 4:4. The Spirit of Judgment, and of Burning. The Spirit of Judgment, that is, he judges between what is flesh and what is spirit in the heart; and separates them, the one from the other: and the Spirit of Burning; when they are so severed, he preys, as fire on stubble, upon that which is corrupt and fleshly, until he has consumed it.

[3] The Spirit brings home and applies the efficacy of the cross and death of Jesus Christ unto the soul, in which there is contained a sin-mortifying virtue.

Our Old Man was crucified with him; and, therefore, it is mortified in us. The inscription on the cross might have been, not only Jesus, the King of the Jews, but "Satan, Prince of this World, and Sin, that Tyrant of the Heart, are all here crucified." I might here insist on that influence, that the death of Christ has upon the death of sin, both as the meritorious and as the protatartical cause of it; but this I intend at large to speak of, under another head. Now what a liveless thing were a crucified Christ, if the Spirit did not act him and bring him from the cross; nay, bring him with the cross into the heart, and there conform it to the fellowship of his sufferings! Says Christ, concerning the Spirit, John 16:15. He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you. Indeed, whatever power there is, either in the death, resurrection, or intercession of Christ, to any spiritual end, it becomes effectual, only by the declaration and application of it to the soul by the Spirit.

[4] The Spirit is both the Author and Finisher of the whole work of Sanctification in us.

We are said to be sealed by him unto the day of redemption: Ephesians 4:30. Now what are the effects of a seal?

1st. It gives firmness and stability to our spiritual estate.

Having received the seal of the Spirit, we are inviolable; like that book in the Revelations, which none in Heaven, or earth, or Hell can break open.

2dly. It gives security and assurance concerning our eternal estate.

Receiving the earnest of the Spirit, we also receive our salvation ratified and confirmed to us as under God's hand and seal. But, besides this,

3dly. A seal imprints an image upon the wax, and receives the impression of it.

And, indeed, this is that, on which the two former depend. A seal adds no firmness nor assurance to a deed, unless some impression be thereby made. It is but an airy assurance, a void evidence, an insignificant charter for Heaven, which has not on it the print of the Spirit's Seal. Now the impress of this seal is the very image and superscription of God, which, when the heart is like wax made soft and pliable, is in a man's regeneration enstamped upon it, and in the continual progress of our sanctification conformed more perfectly to the similitude of God. This work of sanctification, which the Spirit begins and carries on, has but two parts: as the one is a living unto holiness, so the other is a dying unto sin; so that, if the Holy Spirit be a sanctifying, he must also be a mortifying Spirit. The image of God bears but this double aspect: the one, towards grace, which is fresh, vigorous, and lively; the other, towards sin, which is pale, ghastly, and dying: and the same Spirit imprints both these at once upon the soul; and, therefore, the death of sin is to be ascribed to him, no less than the life of grace.

What abundant support and consolation may we hence reap! Are not your hearts ready to fail and sink within you, when you see such clusters of sinful thoughts swarming about you, such violent hurries and careers of sinful desires and sinful affections, such numberless monsters of callow and unfledged lusts, such a crowd of grown and noisome temptations able and well appointed for the battle, such snares laid for you without, such treachery hatched against you within? do not your hearts, I say, sink within you, when you consider that you must break through all these: not as men that run the gauntlet, to receive a scourge from one, and a wound from another; but as triumphant, as conquerors, routing, scattering, slaughtering these forces of Hell, and, what is worse, of your own hearts? What strength can you make? will you muster up the poverty, the nakedness, the weakness, the languishment, the wounds of your souls, to achieve this great enterprise by? or, will you bring forth and marshal your graces? Alas! do you think to obtain the conquest as the Jebusites presumed, by the blind and the lame, weak and imperfect things? and yet, besides these, what other auxiliaries have you? what other, besides these! yes, the Spirit of God himself is pleased to enrol and list himself in this warfare; and, though we are weak and have no might against that great company that comes up against us; yet not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. What are the deeds of the body to the power of the Spirit? what are principalities, and powers, and spiritual wickednesses compared to that God, who is far above all principality and power, who is the Spirit of Holiness? Go forth boldly, therefore, and fight the Lord's battles against these uncircumcised, though gigantic lusts: the sons of Anak, with whom you seems to yourself but as a grasshopper, rush on you; yet the sword of the Lord and of Gideon can destroy the whole host of them. Will you shrink from this engagement, when you have so much the odds of your corruptions? when the Spirit of God stands by to encourage you, to help and assist you? The Prophet tells the Israelites, Isaiah. 31:3 that the Egyptians horses were but flesh, and not spirit, and therefore their help was but vain. I may tell you, your enemies are but flesh, fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; but your helper is the Spirit, and therefore their opposition is in vain. Never yet was it known, that that soul, who engaged the Spirit of God in the quarrel, ever came off with less than a victory. Though you have formerly gone out in your own strength, and thereby betrayed your own weakness; and have got nothing but many a deep wound, many a sad fall, many a sore bruise: yet now call in the Spirit to your assistance: he can root out and destroy every prevailing lust: he can reinforce your scattered graces: he can revive your drooping and fainting soul: he can strengthen your feeble knees, and your weak hands, and make you more than a conqueror. Have you not known? have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary?… He gives power to the faint; and to them, that have no might, he increases strength. Isaiah. 40:28, 29.

Thus you see wherein true Mortification consists; in the habitual weakening of the principle of corruption, and in the actual curbing of its motions: and what is thereunto necessarily required; the inward root of grace, and the influences of the Holy Spirit to draw it forth and act it.

VI. The next thing, that I shall proceed unto, is, to LAY DOWN SOME PARTICULARS, WHEREBY YOU MAY EXAMINE AND TRY YOUR MORTIFICATION, whether it be right and saving.

If you value eternal life itself, you will likewise value that light, though it be but in its first dawn and weakest glimmerings, that shall discover your interest in it. This interest stands upon nothing more sure than our mortification: If you mortify, you shall live. Yes, but we are in this work subject to mistakes and errors; so that it is not a more difficult thing rightly to exercise it, than it is to know when we do so. Will it not be sad and astonishing, when men, who have been professors of religion, Christians of no mean account both in their own as well as in the eyes of others; yet shall, at last, be dragged down to Hell, and there be eternally murdered by those very sins, the mortification of which they made their best and clearest evidence for Heaven? The trial, therefore, being of so vast concernment, I shall give it you in these following particulars.

i. LET YOUR CONTENDING AGAINST SIN BE WHAT IT WILL OR CAN, YET, IF IT BE NOT JOINED WITH A SINCERE ENDEAVOR AFTER AN UNIVERSAL OBEDIENCE UNTO GOD IN THE PERFORMANCE OF DUTIES, IT IS NOT, NEITHER CAN IT BE, TRUE MORTIFICATION.

This is that, in which many deceive themselves. They find a perplexing lust within, that troubles their conscience and disturbs their peace: the exceeding guilt of it fills them with bitterness, dread, and horror; and still it will be thus with them, until they have beaten it down and subdued it. They vow, and pray, and watch, and strive against it: they cut off all occasions, that should draw it forth; all provisions, that should relieve and support it; and do whatever may be done towards the killing of it. Yes, but all this while they are negligent and careless in other duties, which are not of so immediate concernment to that particular lust: they do not strive to follow God in all his ways: if they think one duty will do it, they neglect all the rest. Let not such men think that they do indeed mortify any one corruption.

This is a very common distemper; and scarcely anything is more ordinary, than for men to struggle against corruption, and yet neglect duty. If vows, purposes, and resolutions be, in their apprehension, the most opposite means for the beating down of that sin that disquiets them, these they make, and possibly keep them: but, for other duties, as prayer, meditation, reading, the keeping alive of a holy and spiritual frame of heart, and such duties as should fill up the whole course and measure of Christianity, these they live in a wretched neglect, if not contempt of.

Let such men know, that, whatever their success in this way may seem to be, yet they never truly mortified any one corruption. He only is the mortified man, who labors and endeavors after universal obedience. It is not the vehement opposition, that you make against any particular lust, that argues you to be mortified Christians; but, rather, the universal and general frame and temper of your hearts towards holiness. And therefore says the Apostle, 2 Corinthians 7:1. Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness, of the flesh and spirit: there is true mortification: Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness; that is, let us mortify in ourselves all sin and corruption. But how must this be done? why, says the Apostle, perfecting holiness in the fear of God; that is, giving holiness all its parts, that it shall not be defective in any one duty: then, and not until then, will lust be to any purpose mortified, when a perfect holiness is aimed at and endeavored, in the whole course of a man's life and conversation.

Now try yourselves by this. When you are troubled with a perplexing lust, be it what it will, which, for your own quiet, you must subdue, you use against it those means and helps, which you think are most directly destructive of it: this is well. Yes, but let me ask you, setting aside that corruption, is not the general frame and course of your lives estranged from communion with God; careless and neglectful of holy and spiritual duties; vain, earthly, sensual, carnal? If it be, however you may prevail over that particular corruption, yet, conclude upon it, you know not what true mortification means.

ii. THAT MORTIFICATION IS NOT TRUE NOR SAVING, THAT OPPOSES ITSELF AGAINST CORRUPTION, ONLY WITH THE EXCEPTION AND RESERVATION OF ONE PARTICULAR SIN.

Never deceive yourselves: though you should have contested, even all your days, against all the lusts your hearts were ever conscious unto, except one, yet you never mortified any one. One lust, that has obtained a pass from you, to go to and fro unmolested, to deal and traffic with the heart undisturbed, will be as certain perdition to your souls, as if every lust, that lies lurking within, should rage forth into act.

In a man, it is true, there are some such parts, that if you wound him there, you need not wound him any where else: if you wound the heart, you need not strike the head. But this Old Man has no such vitals: it is not sufficient to destroy him, that you wound him in any one part; but he must be made, as our natural condition is described, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, full of wounds and bruises. It is in vain to cry, with Naaman, The Lord pardon your servant in this, or in that thing. Do you know what you crave? It is not this or that sin alone, that is unmortified, but all the rest are as unmortified as these: and, should God pardon these unto you, yet those would as soon condemn you.

Now try yourselves by this. When you go forth against your sins to battle, is there no one, that your eye spares, nor your heart pities? Does the sword of mortification drink the heart-blood of every lust? When they fly for shelter into your very bosom, can you rend them from thence, and slay them before the Lord? When corruption cries out, "Oh, spare such a pleasing, delightful lust, such an advantageous and profitable sin," can you answer it, with a holy disdain, "Were it yet more pleasant, more profitable, yet die it must and shall?" Can you then cut off your right-hand, when it is lifted up to plead for mercy? can you then pluck out your right-eye, when it sheds tears to move your compassion? If so, this indeed is to exercise mortification aright. Corruption must, at last, needs fall dead at your feet, where there is no part nor member of it left unwounded. But if, in all your dealings against corruption, there be any one sin that you allow and indulgest to yourself, how great soever your wrestlings and contendings are against all other, you never yet experimentally knew what belongs to mortification. One allowed sin is vent enough for the body of corruption to take breath at; and, so long as you permittest it this breathing-place, all endeavors to destroy it are utterly frustrate and in vain.

iii. If you would judge of the truth of your mortification, then SEE WHAT THOSE ARGUMENTS AND CONSIDERATIONS ARE, WHEREBY YOU DO ACTUALLY DEAL AGAINST YOUR LUSTS.

Now these arguments belong but to two heads. Either they are legal, and such as are drawn only from a sad reflexion on the end and issue of sin; which is shame, death, Hell and destruction: or, else, they are evangelical; taken from the nature of sin, as being a transgression and offence against a gracious Father, against a crucified and bleeding Savior, against a patient and long-suffering Spirit, and many other like aggravations which work kindly and ingenuously upon the heart of a child of God.

Put it now to the question: when a temptation assaults you, with what weapons do you resist it? what considerations do you over-awe your heart with?

Do you only run down to Hell, to fetch arguments against sin from thence? Can you no where else quench these fiery darts, but in the lake of fire and brimstone? Can nothing keep you from sinning, but only the whip and the rack; wrath, vengeance, horrors, and such dreadful things, which while your conscience thunders in your ears, it makes your soul a Hell, and itself becomes your tormentor? If this be all, know that your affections are woefully entangled in the sin; and you are fully resolved upon the commission of it, if there were no punishment to follow. You may, indeed, by this means be frighted and scared from sin, but never mortified to it.

But the evangelical considerations, which a child of God makes use of to mortify sin by, though they work not with that dread and terror, yet are they far more effectual. He sees sin, in its ugly nature; in that spot, stain, and defilement, that it would bring upon his soul: and this causes in him a true hatred of it. He says under a temptation, "What! shall I subject a noble and spiritual soul, made capable of enjoying the God of Heaven? shall I prostitute it to the filthy allurements of a base lust? shall I blot out and deface the image of God enstamped upon me; and degrade myself from the glory of his resemblance, to be conformable to the Devil? Can I commit this sin, which heretofore has drawn blood from my Savior, and now seeks to draw blood from my conscience? Was not this the very sin, that squeezed clotted blood from him, and was a full load for God himself to bear? did he die to free me from its condemnation; and shall I, upon every slight temptation, rush into the commission of it? Is there any thing so attractive in it, as to counterpoise the infinite and unsearchable love of Christ? No, O Lord! your love constrains me: I cannot do this thing, and sin against so free, so rich, so infinite mercy and goodness." Thus a gracious heart argues against a temptation, and prevails unto a true mortification.

"But," may some say, "may we not make use of legal arguments, of considerations drawn from the wrath of God, the wages of sin, the everlasting damnation to which sinners are appointed, to oppose against a temptation to sin? Are these of no efficacy unto mortification?"

To this I answer:

First. You may and ought, in dealing against your lusts, to use such arguments as these. Why else does our Savior inculcate the fear of God upon his disciples, from the consideration of his wrath and power? Fear him, which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell: yes, I say unto you Fear him: and why does the Apostle, here in the text, threaten the believing Romans with death if they live after the flesh, unless these considerations may be made use of even by gracious souls against their sins? It is no other than a loose notion, to think that the only incentive to obedience, and the only check and restraint of sin, is the consideration of the love of God. It is true, these gospel arguments are most prevailing and constraining: yet let not him, with whom the fear of God's wrath has no sway to keep him from sinning, think himself a high attainer: it is rather a stupidity, until we are got past all desert of Hell to be fearless of it.

Secondly. Though these arguments and legal considerations may, of themselves, prevail to keep us from the commission of sin; yet they cannot prevail to the mortification of it. Where there are not other considerations besides these working, these never bring off the heart, but only hold the hands from sin. Nay, if, when a temptation is stirring in the children of God themselves, they only answer it by these legal considerations, that they dare not commit it for fear of Hell and wrath hereafter or of shame here; and there be no arguments drawn from the love of God and the relation which they stand in to him, from the death of Christ and the obligation which that lays upon them to obedience, from the deformity of the sin to which they are tempted, from the repugnancy and antipathy that is in their regenerate part against it; the abstaining from the commission of that sin is not mortification, but only restraint, even in the children of God themselves.

Thirdly. These legal arguments and considerations, may be of great use and moment in a subserviency unto the mortification of sin.

First. They may hold a temptation or a corruption at bay, until gospel considerations come in to beat it down. Usually, the very first rising of our hearts against a corruption is, from the dangerous consequences of it; from that wrath and vengeance, that are due to it, and will follow upon it: this stops the sin, and puts the soul to a demur; and, though this cannot destroy the corruption, yet it holds it so long, until the New Man calls in aid from gospel arguments to mortify it.

Secondly. These legal considerations, when mixed with gospel motives, make them work more strongly and more effectually unto mortification. The consideration of the infinite wrath of God heightens and aggrandises the infinite love of God in redeeming us from it, and so makes it far more enforcing unto mortification.

Fourthly. It is an ill sign, that that heart is very much unmortified, where a temptation or corruption can break through all gospel considerations used against it; and is stopped from breaking into act, only by legal arguments. When a temptation to sin assaults you, you run, it may be, to the love of God, to the death of Christ, to the ugly nature of sin, to the beautiful nature of holiness, to beat it down by these (the best and most effectual) considerations: if these do not prevail, but the lust and temptation still tumultuates, and is ready just to break forth into act, your heart is all on a flame with it; and then, possibly, a thought of Hell, of vengeance, of everlasting wrath, starts up suddenly and quashes and quenches this temptation, as water cast on a fire. If this be usual with you, your hearts are much unmortified, and your affections strongly engaged unto sin.

That is the Third trial.

iv. A TRULY MORTIFIED MAN SEES THE GREAT EVIL OF, AND CHIEFLY LABORS AGAINST THOSE LUSTS, WHICH OTHERS, WHO ACT FROM ANY OTHER PRINCIPLE LOWER THAN TRUE GRACE, EITHER TAKE NO NOTICE OF, OR ELSE DO NOT OPPOSE.

And these are,

Inward Heart Sins, and

Spiritual Wickednesses.

This is a most sure and infallible character.

1. A mortified man sets himself especially against inward Heart Sins.

Against the bubblings of sinful thoughts, and the uproars of sinful affections, and the bent of sinful desires; those lurking and invisible lusts, which though a hypocrite suffer, yes though he foster, yet may he have a very large testimonial to his saint-ship, to which almost all the world will be ready to set their hands. These, does a truly mortified Christian principally complain of, and strive against; and in this, indeed, consists the very truth and sincerity of mortification. As the Apostle says, Romans 2:28, 29. That is not circumcision, which is outward in the flesh.… but that, which is of the heart, in the spirit: so I may say, That is not mortification, which is outward in the flesh; but that, which is of the heart, in the spirit. A kind of dead palsy and numbness may seize upon the outward members of the body; when yet the heart beats strong and quick, and the brain works with sprightful and vigorous motions and conceptions: so, truly, is it in this case: the Old Man may sometimes be benumbed in his outward limbs, and deadened as to the executive part of sinning; when yet the head may work busily in molding and shaping sinful objects, and the heart may eagerly beat and pant after them. It is usually the highest result and upshot of a wicked man's care and endeavor, to keep lust from boiling over, from raising smoke and ashes about him: and, if he can attain unto this, let the heart be brimful of sin, let the thoughts steep, soak, and stew in malicious, unclean, worldly contrivances and designs; yet these inward motions and ebullitions, he laments not, he suppresses not. Now, though possibly it might seem an easy task to mortify such little, naked, infant things as thoughts are, that flutter up and down in the soul; and that a slight stroke will serve to lay them dead: yet, certainly, that Christian, who, by experience, knows what it is to deal with his own heart, finds it infinitely more difficult to beat down one sinful thought from rising and tumultuating within, than it is to keep in many a sinful thought from breaking forth into act: so that here lies the very stress and hardship of mortification, in fighting against such shadows, such apparitions, such little entities as thoughts are.

Now there are these Three things, that make this so very difficult.

(1) Because the first bubblings of these sinful emanations from the fountain and spring-head of corruption, it is not in our power to hinder.

External actions fall under deliberation, and they usually are sifted by censure, and guided by advice and counsel; and this gives us advantage, either to let them loose or to restrain them, at our pleasure: but who deliberates of thoughts, or consults of first motions? These first-born actings of the soul fall not under any previous considerations, to examine or forbid them; and, therefore, it is not in our power to make them good or evil, holy or sinful, but, according as the habit and principle within is, so they spontaneously start up; holy thoughts from a gracious principle, and sinful thoughts from a corrupt one. Nay, those things that are the best and most effectual means for mortification, yet cannot keep down sinful thoughts: they will swarm and buzz about the soul, in praying, in hearing, in the most holy and spiritual duties that we can perform; and, when we should be wholly taken up in communion with God, the whole duty, it may be, is necessarily spent in fraying these away; and, when we should be intensely and exaltedly spiritual, all, that we can do, is but to keep our hearts from being long together sinful. It fares with us, as it fared with Abraham when sacrificing: Genesis 15:11 the text tells us, when the birds came down upon the carcases of the sacrifices, that Abram drove them away. These birds are our sinful thoughts: they fly in the air, at random: we cannot hinder them from lighting; and, it may be, on our sacrifices too: all, that we can do, is to drive them away, that they may not devour, though they do and will pollute. The first rise of sinful thoughts, we cannot oppose; their continuance and abiding, we may: yes, we ought always to compose ourselves in such a frame, as that corruption may not occasionally be stirred in us; yet it is impossible, altogether to keep ourselves from the inward motions and frets of it.

(2) Sinful thoughts lie unespied and undiscerned by ourselves.

How often do they steal away the heart insensibly, and carry it very far unto sinful objects unawares! so that, when we reflect back to see the workings of our thoughts, we wonder many times how and where they crept in: we find them very busy, but when they got in, we know not; no, nor how long they have continued: unless we keep a strict guard and a narrow watch upon our hearts, these subtle and deceitful lusts will undermine us, and get within and possess us, before we can take notice of them. This is the continual vexation of the best Christians, that, even in duties, a vain and impertinent thought runs away with their hearts; that the heat and warmth of their affections, the life, vigor, and spiritualness of their souls in communion with God, are lost oftentimes before they perceive it: they, at last, perhaps, find out this thieving, deceitful thought, and mourn over it; but yet know not when or how it entered; no, nor can track it so much as by any footsteps. This lurking, deceitful abode of an unperceived thought is, or may be, the sad and just complaint of every soul among us. The Apostle cries out of it, Romans 7:21. When I would do good, evil is present with me: it is present: here I find it: but how or when it rose, that I know not. And, then,

(3) It is very difficult thoroughly to convince men of the great guilt and evil, which there is in sinful thoughts.

And this also makes it so difficult to mortify them: because they are but things of a small and minute being, therefore men think they carry in them but small guilt and little danger. Every man, that has but a remnant of conscience left in him, will beware of gross, black, and grisly sins, which carry the brand of Hell and damnation visibly stamped upon their foreheads; such, as he, who can without reluctancy commit, must needs own himself for the apparent offspring of the Devil: but for an invisible thought, a notion, an airy idea, a thing next nothing, this certainly can hurt no one: "By a malicious thought, I injure no man: by a covetous thought, I neither grind nor extort from any man: and what so great evil then can there be in this?" It is true, indeed, were you only to deal with men, whom your thoughts touch not, there were no such great evil in them: but, when you have to do with an immaterial and spiritual God, before whom your thoughts appear as substantial and considerable as your outward acts; then know, that a thought, as slight and thin a being as it is, is yet a heinous provocation of his majesty, a wretched violation of his law, and will be (if not mortified) a fearful damnation and destruction to your own soul. This does lie at the bottom of all that neglect, of which men are generally guilty in opposing sinful thoughts: they think them (which indeed is as bad a thought as any other) harmless and indifferent things. As we use to call little infants, Innocent Babes, though indeed they are born into the world with a Hell of sin in their natures; some men are apt to think the sinful thoughts, which they conceive and with which they travail, to be innocent infant things, though indeed every one of them be no other than a firebrand of Hell. Some thoughts we are accustomed to accuse and condemn, as being impertinent: the truth is, it is a name too slight and favorable: there is no such thing as an impertinent thought; no, there is not anything in your whole lives of greater concernment, and weight, and moment than your thoughts: whatever they be, their influence reaches no shorter than unto what an eternity of life or death extends to. Now if this persuasion did indeed take hold of men, were it possible, that they should thus indulge themselves in vain, frothy, idle, nay let me call them sinful and pernicious thoughts; thoughts, so effectually destructive? were it possible, that they should so closely brood on these cockatrice eggs, which bring forth nothing but serpents to sting them to eternal death? were it possible, that they should roll and toss a sin to and fro in the fancy; and, thereby, recompense the Devil and their own corruptions, for the squeamishness of conscience in hindering the commission of it? Certainly, herein men bewray great unacquaintedness with mortification, when as those sins that they dare not act, yet they dare with delight and delight contemplate and feed upon in their own thoughts. Turn, therefore, your eyes inward: when the swarm of lusts is up, and much noise and buzzing is made by corruptions, by temptations, which yet some external principles will not suffer to break forth; where then do they flutter? do they settle in the heart? do you fire them there? do your thoughts, like so many intellectual bees, fly abroad and suck sweetness out of every sinful object, to lay and hoard it up in the fancy? can you, for the satisfying of conscience, restrain the outward actings of sin; and yet, for the satisfying of corruption, tolerate and allow the inward workings of it? certain it is, you never yet knew what belongs to true and saving mortification; and it were happy for you, if such an imaginary sinner might suffer only an imaginary death.

But a truly mortified Christian, as he is watchful to keep sin from breaking forth into outward act, so is he especially careful to resist and quell the sins of the inward man, the sins of the heart. And that,

[1] Because he knows that these are the sins, which are most of all contrary to grace, and do most of all weaken and waste it.

Heart sins lie, as so many worms, beating and gnawing the very root of grace; when as outward sins, any otherwise than as they proceed from the heart, are but as caterpillars, that devour only the verdure and flourishing of grace. How can grace breathe or stir, in such a crowd of sinful thoughts and sinful affections, that oppress it? How can it grow and thrive, among such multitudes of weeds, that choke and starve it? There is no room for grace to live, at least not to act, until mortification pulls up and throws out of the heart all that trash which before filled it. And, then,

[2] He knows, likewise, that when the heart is brimful of corruption, the least jog of a temptation will make it run over. And, therefore,

[3] He looks upon it as the most easy and compendious way of mortification, to begin at the heart.

Thence it is, that all the outward sins of a man's life and conversation receive their supply. What says Christ, Matthew 15:19? Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. Whence are the streams supplied, but from the fountain? and, if this be dried up, those must of necessity fail. Those corrupt streams, that flow forth too apparently in men's actions, proceed all from that bitter fountain, which continually bubbles up in the heart; and, as the exercise of mortification dries up this fountain, so the floods of ungodliness must needs run low, by consequence. This, therefore, is very rationally the great and main care of a mortified man, to keep his heart clean from sinful thoughts, sinful desires, and sinful motions and affections. And therefore God calls upon Jerusalem, Jeremiah 4:14. O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved: that is, mortify the sins of your heart, that you may live. But what sins are these? it is intimated in the following words, How long shall your vain thoughts lodge within you? How long? truly they are likely to lodge forever within; and they are never like to lodge only within, where all endeavors of mortification are only external and outward. It is in vain to strive to keep sinful thoughts within, unless we endeavor also to destroy them within: they will else break forth, notwithstanding all the care that is used in restraint; and overrun the soul with the guilt of some scandalous, conscience-wounding sin, or other. In your strugglings, therefore, against sin, and in your endeavors for the mortifying of it, look what it is that you chiefly resist: do you not content yourselves that you have beaten corruption from the out-works into the very fort; that, whereas before it sallied forth at pleasure, wasted and havocked your consciences, gashed and wounded your souls even to the very death, triumphed over you as conquered slaves and vassals, now it is pent up in a narrower room and compass? do you not think it enough that you lay a close siege unto it by conviction, conscience, legal terrors; and, by these, so shut it up, that though it may stir and tumult within, yet it cannot easily break forth to your disturbance? is not this restraint sufficient? but must you still pursue it even into the very heart; and, when it has hid itself in a sinful thought, there stifle and kill it? This, indeed, is a sign for good, that this great work of mortification is not only begun by you, but also brought to some perfection. If I may be allowed so to express it, the very heart of sin lies in the sins of the heart: and, if we would indeed mortify it, it is there that we must both aim and strike.

That is the First part of this particular trial. He, who exercises mortification aright, does principally set himself against inward and heart sins, which an unmortified man takes least notice of, and least resists.

2. A truly mortified man is very careful and laborious in opposing and subduing Spiritual Sins and Wickednesses.

"Spiritual sins!" you will say: "why, are there any such? Graces may well be termed spiritual, being the immediate effects of the Holy Spirit of God; but are sins become spiritual too?"

By Spiritual Sins, therefore, I mean, such as principally reside in the more refined and exalted part of man, in the very flower and top of his being; called, therefore, by the Apostle, Ephesians 4:23. the spirit of the mind; the mind itself is a spiritual part, but here the Apostle makes this mind double refined, and extracts a spirit out of a spirit. So that those sins, which are chiefly conversant about the mind, the spirit of a man, and have but little commerce and fellowship with that dull dreggy part the body, these are spiritual sins: such are pride, envy, hypocrisy, unbelief, hardness of heart, a slighting of the offers of salvation made by Christ, a froward quenching of the good motions of the Holy Spirit.

These are spiritual sins; and these are the sins, which a child of God bends his strongest endeavors against in the work of mortification: and that, upon a Threefold account.

(1) Because these spiritual sins, though they are not of that gross scandal and infamy among men, yet they are sins of the deepest and blackest guilt and defilement in themselves and in the sight of God.

And, therefore, when Christ would rake up the very bottom of Hell, who lies there? not the swearer, not the drunkard, not the unclean person, not the worldling, nor any such gross and brutish sinners; but the hypocrite, that spiritual, that refined and exalted sinner: Matthew 24:51. Could we see impenitency, unbelief, hardness of heart, with the same eyes that God sees them, they would appear more ugly and deformed, than those foul and notorious wickednesses, which cause an indelible shame and reproach upon the places where such live as are guilty of them: and that, because they deface the choicest part of the image of God; that, wherein the soul does nearest resemble and transcribe its original. This, a gracious heart, in part, discovers: it sees somewhat of the loathsome nature of these spiritual sins, which before it did not; and, therefore, now so earnestly opposes them. And,

(2) Because these spiritual sins are the most dangerous and destructive of all others.

I do not say that the gross outward acts of sin do not deserve Hell: they do; yes, and a scorching portion of it too. Yet, I say, if any, who has been a sinner, though to a very high degree of scandal, does eternally perish, it is not because of those outward sins merely, but because of impenitency, of unbelief, of hardness of heart, of slighting and undervaluing Jesus Christ, and refusing the gracious terms of the Gospel. They are only these spiritual sins, that do shut men out of Heaven, and shut them up in Hell, and seal them unto everlasting condemnation. Gross sins do this meritoriously; but these alone do it eventually: these do certainly effect it, as being sins against the only remedy appointed. And, then,

(3) Because they are sins, which, of all other, are most like unto the sins of the Devil.

What are the sins of the Devil? not intemperance and luxury; those swinish and brutish lusts, wherein sensualists wallow: these are not suited to the immaterial nature of the Devil; and are so far below him, that he can neither act nor relish them. But intellectual sins, that are strained and clarified from such feculency, as pride, malice, hatred of God and goodness, stoutness and stubbornness of heart against God; these are the sins, which this great and wretched spirit does, with an implacable rage and spite, eternally commit: and, accordingly as wicked men are hellishly improved in these sins, so do they nearer resemble the Devil. And therefore a child of God is, of all others, especially watchful over and industrious against these spiritual sins.

Now try yourselves by this. You rush not, possibly, into the same excess of riot with other men: you resist temptations, and beat down motions and inclinations to outward, gross, self-condemning sins. But did you ever see, did you ever strive against the pride, the hypocrisy, the unbelief and hardness of your hearts? do you know what it is to maintain a war against these spiritual sins? can you abhor and resist a temptation to slight Christ, or to grieve his Spirit, as well as to any outward scandalous sin? If so, this is a good sign, that you do indeed rightly exercise mortification. But, if you are only cleansed from the pollutions of the flesh, and not also from the pollutions of the spirit; if, while you war and strive against fleshly lusts, these spiritual and gospel sins are harbored and nestled in your hearts, know assuredly, that, whatever seeming victories and conquests you may obtain over them, yet they are not mortified.

v. Another mark for trial may be this: IF SIN BE MORTIFIED AND DEAD IN YOU, THEN YOU ALSO ARE MORTIFIED AND DEAD UNTO SIN.

"This," you will say, "is very certain: but how shall we know whether we be dead to sin?"

In answer unto this, I shall give you these Two particulars to try it by.

1. When there is little or no suitableness between sin and your soul, then are you dead unto it.

You see no beauty, no desirableness; you taste no sweetness, find no delight in it: this is to be dead to it; and, accordingly as the degrees of this are, so are you dying unto sin. When the appetite fails, and the stomach nauseates that food which before pleased it; this is a sign that the man is sick, and, it may be, dying: so, when that appetite, which before was greedy of sin, and swallowed it down as a sweet morsel, comes not only to leave it, but to loath it; this is a good sign that the man is sin-sick: sin is, in him, decaying and dying. I am crucified to the world, and the world to me, says the Apostle: Galatians 6:14: so is a mortified Christian crucified unto sin, and sin to him. What delight or pleasure can any object bring to a crucified man? Truly, when the soul is once crucified unto sin, every sinful object is like that draught of gall and vinegar offered to Christ upon the cross: it has nothing in it but sharpness and bitterness. Now try yourself by this: Is there no more agreeableness between sin and your soul, than there is between a sick and dying man and the things of this life? can you reject those temptations, with indignation; which before you closedst with, with eagerness? does your appetite, your will and affection, loath and nauseate those sins, which formerly you swallowedst down with delight and greediness? This, indeed, is a sign that you are mortified and dead to your sins. But, if still you find as much sweetness and deliciousness in sin as ever, if you hide and rollest it under your tongue as a sweet morsel, if still it be agreeable and most pleasing to you, you may indeed be dead; dead, not unto sin, but dead in sins and trespasses.

2. If you are mortified and dead unto sin, you are then enlivened and quickened unto holiness.

What says the Apostle, Romans 6:11? Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin; but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ. To be alive unto holiness, what is that? it is to be lively in holiness; to have the heart and affections quickened to it, to be carried out strongly and vigorously in it: this is to be alive. Certainly, a lumpish, dull, heavy professor, who can hardly make a shift to jog on in a form of religion, who performs everything that belongs to holiness without life, and spirit, and vivacity, must be very much unmortified: he is not yet dead to his sins, otherwise he would be more quick and lively in his graces. It is impossible, that any man can be thus twice dead: what! dead to sin, and yet dead to holiness too! no, the death of sin is the life of grace: and, therefore, where you find the one strong and active, you may conclude the other is weak and languishing.

Now if the Old Man be indeed crucified within you, these particulars of examination do, as it were, show you the print of the nails, and of the spear that wounded it; and they bid you thrust your hands into its side, that you may be more certain of its death, and in that certainty rejoice. It were happy for us, if, without self-flattery, we could from these things draw an evidence of our mortification: but, it is to be feared, that they serve rather to show us what a strange thing it is in the world; yes, how much a stranger even in Israel. How few do at all resist the swing and career of corruption! of those that do, how few do it from a right principle, and by right means! If, perhaps, some few such there be (as certainly some such there are, though but a few) yet even their strugglings and wrestlings against corruption are so impertinent and trifling, that, did they not presume them to flow from an inward principle of grace, they could not but be ashamed either to think or call them Mortification. The generality and common huddle of the world do so securely live after the flesh, as if they were always to live in the flesh; or, as if they were already resolved rather to be cast into Hell with their Old Man whole and entire, than to enter into Heaven halt and maimed. Yes, the very best Christians do so live in the flesh, as being too well content that the flesh should also live, move, and act in them: they will not be so inhospitable as to destroy that inmate of corruption, though that lurk in them only to destroy them.

I shall not now lay Motives and Arguments before you, to press upon you this great duty: the text has given us the most effectual and brief compendium: If you mortify, you shall live; if not, you shall die. Life and death are this day set before you: and what could be spoken so much, in so little? Certainly, that man may conclude himself to be already dead, whom the consideration of life and death does not move nor persuade. "The fleshly liver, he shall die." Is that all? do we not see the most mortified Christians die too? does not the original curse take hold of them both, and tumble them alike into the dust? would not wicked men be content, would they not wish, after they have been sated and glutted with sinning, to die away, and to lie for ever in a forgotten darkness? what then is there in this dying, that should be of such force unto mortification? "The mortified Christian, he shall live." Is that all? what! to live still mortifying, still contending and fighting against his corruptions, still sighing and groaning under them in the anguish and bitterness of his soul! is there any such encouraging promise in this, that he shall still live struggling and combating against that, which makes him weary of his life, and even to long and pant after death? are these such prevailing motives to mortification? "No: the sensualist shall die; but he shall die a never-dying life of death. The mortified person shall live; but he shall live a life, wherein there shall be no more need of mortification, because no more remainders of corruption." Then all tears shall be wiped out of our eyes, and all sins wiped out of our hearts. Now is the time of our warfare, and every battle that we fight is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood: then shall we forever triumph, and sing an eternal song of victory, clothed in garments made white with the blood of the Lamb. Now we are at a perpetual discord with ourselves; thoughts bandying against thoughts; affections against affections; will against will; and all within us in an uproar and tumult: but then an eternal peace and calm shall fill our souls: not a thought shall whisper a rebellion: the whole tide and current of our wills and affections, with a full and undisturbed stream, shall run into that boundless ocean of all felicity, even God himself. But I must, though reluctant, leave the prosecution of this argument.

VII. And, now, let me suppose that the great question you would all ask is, What you should do to mortify corruption, and how you should strive against it so as to obtain conquest and victory over it. For DIRECTION, therefore, in this great work, let me propound unto you these following RULES, each of which if rightly wielded, is enough to pierce into the very affections of corruption.

i. Labor to get A FULL AND CLEAR SIGHT AND DISCOVERY OF THAT SIN ESPECIALLY, WHICH IS MOST PERPLEXING AND MOST UNMORTIFIED.

He, that would subdue his enemy, must first find him out, and consider where his strength lies, what advantages he has got against him, the manner of his warring, etc. and accordingly prepare for resistance. This must be the policy of every Christian: he must keep spies and good intelligence in his enemy's camp.

Two things he must especially know, if he would subdue his lusts.

Wherein their great Strength lies, and what Advantages they have against him.

He must always consider the Ground and Cause of the Quarrel: as, the Guilt, which it would bring upon him; and, the Danger, which it would bring him into, if committed.

This will serve to kindle a holy anger and indignation against sin, without which this great work of mortification can never go on prosperously.

1. I say, seriously consider wherein the Strength and Prevalency of your Corruption lies, from whence it has its greatest Advantage against you.

This will show you how you should particularly apply yourself to the mortification of it. If it has more than ordinary strength and power in you, your endeavors to mortify it must also be more than ordinary. If you ask, "What are those Advantages, that do give so great a prevalence unto a corruption?" I answer,

(1) Customariness and frequent relapses into the same sins; especially if they have been against strong convictions, against binding vows and promises, and manifold dealings of God both in judgment and in mercy.

Though I am far from that desperate, rabbinical conceit of the Jews, who hold the fourth relapse into the same sin unpardonable; grounding themselves upon Amos 1 where God threatens Damascus, Edom, and Ammon, that for three transgressions, and for four, he would not turn away their punishment; yet, certainly, if a particular lust, be it what it will, pride, malice, impurity, or covetousness, breaks forth frequently into act, forces all your guards, bears down all considerations that stand in the way to oppose it; I will not say your case is desperate, but yet it is very dangerous, and a sad symptom of a stubborn unruly lust that will not be mortified without extraordinary pains and care. Do you find any such old, cankering distemper within you, ripened by long continuance and habituated by custom, that has often choked conscience, stifled convictions, out-stood many dispensations of God? know that the very age and grey hairs of such a lust claim a command and authority over the soul, and that it is a task next to an impossibility to subdue it. Jeremiah 13:23. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may you also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. It is very hard to dislodge a lust, that pleads prescription for itself: it has had possession of the heart, time out of mind: can you ever remember when it had not? and therefore struggles as for its lawful right, and will not be ejected. And this is by so much the more dangerous, if it breaks out to the defiling and wounding of conscience, after deep humiliation, bitter repentance, serious resolutions, temporary reformation: if it prevail against all these, what is there in the soul that can resist it? Every spiritual distemper is dangerous, but relapses are commonly mortal and deadly: and are too clear evidences, that, when the soul was at its best estate, its wound was healed but slightly, only skinned over; while the core of corruption lay deep within, rankling and festering until it brake out more incurably.

If this be the case and condition of any here, it is possible, that as yet grace may be still in you; but it is impossible, that it should there remain, unless you use extraordinary diligence for the quelling and subduing of this unruly lust, that has so often broken loose.

Now, to help you in this, as indeed all helps against a corruption so deeply rooted are too few, consider these following particulars.

[1] Think with yourselves, if your natures be changed, your customs also must be changed.

It is a most loathsome and monstrous mixture, to have a new nature and yet old sins. Every principle will act suitably to itself. If grace be indeed in you, it will not lie sluggish and dormant: no, it is an active, vigorous, and ethereal being: it will certainly change the course and custom of your lives: it will make strange innovations; antiquating old customs, and bringing in new. Now urge this against a customary corruption: "How can I think my nature is changed, if still my life and actions be the same? I am not now the man I was; and it is most irrational, that I, regenerate, that I, sanctified and renewed, should observe the customs and usages of myself unregenerate, carnal, and profane." And,

[2] Consider, that customary and ordinary sins will call for, either extraordinary wrath, or at least more than customary repentance.

Certainly, redoubled sins will be punished with more than a single Hell. If they be pardoned, it will cost many a shower of repentant tears. Peter's thrice denial of his Master makes him weep bitterly.

[3] Customary sins carry in them a high contempt against God himself.

To sin through surprisal, inadvertency, or infirmity, is incident to all men; but, to sin the same sin frequently, to make a custom of it, must needs argue that such an one slights and despises God himself: he would else fear to provoke him the second time, by the same sin. And,

[4] Consider, custom in sinning is the ready way to final hardness and impenitency.

It is this, that turns the heart to iron, and the brow to brass; makes men resolved to sin, and impudent in sinning. It is this, that hoodwinks the understanding, blunts the edge of the sharpest convictions, sears the conscience, and brings a thick insensibleness upon that tender faculty. This makes the grossest and vilest wickedness familiar to the soul; so that, many times, sins of the most horrid and blackest guilt are rushed into without either fear or regard. And,

[5] Custom in sin will grow to a nature of sinning, if not timely prevented by a severe mortification.

It will so insinuate into the affections, and wind and twist itself about every faculty of the soul, that what at first was but use, will in process become nature. You see, then, what a great necessity there is mightily to labor and strive against these customary sins, which are as a twisted cord very hardly broken. If a corruption has once settled into a custom, it is not an ordinary endeavor that can then remove it.

That is the First thing.

(2) As a customary, so a peculiar sin requires a peculiar mortification.

It is in vain to use common and ordinary attempts against a proper sin. And therefore David does exult and glory in this as a great achievement, Psalm 18:23. I kept myself from my iniquity: Mine iniquity; not mine by election or approbation, as one picked out from the rest to reserve for himself; no, but mine by a too constant and violent bent and inclination of my corrupt heart.

[1] Now, certain it is, that every one has his peculiar sin: a sin, that he may truly call his own, that is fast riveted and deep rooted; yes, deeper rooted in his soul, than others are. I shall not now inquire whether these proper and peculiar sins arise, either from the crasis and temper of the body, or from a man's education, or from his profession and calling: whencesoever they proceed, if we would go on vigorously in the work of mortification, these are the sins which we must especially single out and deal against.

"Yes, but," you will say, "how shall I know which is my peculiar sin, that so I may set myself against it to mortify it?"

To this I answer: Were it as easy to subdue it, as it is to discover it, a great part of the difficulty of Christianity would soon be at an end. It is a sin, which cannot long lie hid: it will betray itself, if not to the observation of others, yet at least to the observation of a man's own conscience. If conscience should ask you one by one, "What is your, and your, and your iniquity?" every one would silently whisper to himself, "Oh! pride is mine:" "Hypocrisy is mine:" "Covetousness and worldliness is mine:" "Impurity is mine:" and who among us is there that could not give an answer?

Yet, for farther satisfaction, take these particulars.

1st. That sin, which does most of all employ and busy your thoughts, that is your most unmortified and peculiar sin.

Thoughts are purveyors for lust, which range abroad and bring in provision for it. Observe upon what objects they pitch: mark how they work. Do your thoughts lie continually sucking at the breasts of pleasure? are they still drenched and bathed in carnal delights? Voluptuousness is your peculiar sin. Do your thoughts continually delve and dig in the earth, and return to you laden only with thick clay? Covetousness is your peculiar sin. Do they soar and tower up to honors, dignities, preferments; and still fill you with designs and forecasts how to raise yourself to them? Pride and ambition are your sins. And so, of the rest.

2dly. The unmortified and peculiar sin is always most impatient of contradiction and opposition.

(1st) It cannot bear a reproof from others.

Let never so much be thundered against other sins, this makes no stir nor tumult: but, if the reproof fall upon his sin, you then touch the very apple of his eye; you then search him to the very quick: and this will cause some commotion and disturbance within. Hence it is, that many, who come to the word of God, sit very quiet under many a reproof and many a threatening, because they think these all fall beside them: but, if the bow drawn at a venture wound them under the fifth rib, if it strike their peculiar sin, oh! what mustering up of carnal reasonings and carnal evasions is there to shift it off! All this stir and bustle does but plainly show where the sore is. That is a galled conscience, which will not endure to be wrung by a reproof. And,

(2dly) As it cannot bear a reproof; so it cannot brook a denial, when it tempts and solicits.

Of all lusts, this tempts oftenest and most eagerly. Other corruptions are modest, compared to this; and will often desist, upon a peremptory denial: but this peculiar sin grows wild and outrageous: it will have its course, or the soul shall have no quiet: so that conscience is never harder put to it, than to stand it out against the importunity of this sin.

3dly. That corruption, which every little occasion stirs up and sets on work with more than a proportionable violence, that is the most unmortified and peculiar sin.

By more than a proportionable violence, I mean, when the object, temptation, or occasion is but slight and inconsiderable; and yet the lust, that is thereby moved, acts strongly and impetuously. And, therefore, the Apostle, Hebrews 12:1 calls it the sin, which does so easily beset us: it stands always ready and prepared, upon the least hint of a temptation, to assault us. Now look what corruption it is, that does most frequently interpose, that every little occasion stirs up and inflames to a greater height and rage than a strong temptation would another; be it passion, be it pride, or any other; this is the most unmortified and peculiar sin.

These may suffice, though others may be added, to discover what is our proper and peculiar sin; the lust, that is most natural and congenial to us.

Now since these sins have such a great advantage against us more than others have, they must therefore be more especially opposed than others. This kind, to use our Savior's words, goes not forth, but by prayer and fasting, and the most earnest endeavors of that soul, who is deeply afflicted with their power and prevalence.

[2] I shall only here offer two or three considerations, that may possibly prove subservient to the mortifying of these peculiar sins.

1st. Consider: it is no excuse or extenuation of your sin, nor do you look upon in as such, that it is natural to you; that it is the sin of your temper, complexion, or profession: but, rather, account this a heinous aggravation, that makes your sin out of measure sinful.

Some are so absurdly profane, as to make the naturalness of a sin an argument to lessen the guilt of it: they are naturally passionate and peevish, naturally high-minded and ambitious, naturally high-minded and ambitious, naturally voluptuous and sensual; and they cannot help it: it is fixed and rooted in their temper and constitution of body; and, therefore, it is no wonder if it sometimes break forth in their lives, unless they could put off the outward man as well as the Old Man. Is this, think you, an excuse? tell me, is not a toad therefore more loathsome and ugly, because its very nature and temper is venomous? And do you think it a good excuse for your sins, that you are naturally subject to them? you are therefore more loathsome in the sight of God, whose infinite holiness stands at as great an antipathy to a corrupt nature as to a sinful life. And, therefore, we find David, Psalm 51:5 aggravating his actual sins from this consideration, that he was shaped in iniquity, and conceived in sin. Certainly, original sin is no excuse, but rather an aggravation of actual; and the violent propensity of a man's nature to one sin more than another, is but an especial expression of original corruption.

2dly. Avoid, especially, those occasions, that have an especial tendency in them to draw forth your peculiar lust.

This, as it must be observed in the mortification of every sin, so must it be most carefully heeded in your dealing against your proper sin; because it will take advantage from every slight and trivial occasion to break forth and show itself in act: it watches all opportunities; and a very little spark will suffice to kindle this tinder. You complain that you can not subdue such a corruption: it will rise and tumult in you: it will still break from you. Can you ever expect it will be otherwise, while you heedlessly exposest yourself to so many occasions, on which your corruption will take hold? Oh! how easy and comfortable might Christians make this great work of mortification, if they would herein be watchful! Corruption would not stir; or if it did, might soon be quelled, did not you yourselves entice it out by giving it such fair opportunities to exert itself. What says the Wise Man, Proverbs 6:27? Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burnt? No; it is impossible: yet, truly, it is as possible for a man, that carries the prepared fuel of corruption in his heart, not to have it kindled and inflamed by his venturous running into occasions of sinning. You do but hereby provoke and dare corruption, which alas! is too apt to stir of itself. Certainly, he, who will venture on a near occasion of sinning, will venture on the sin itself; and, if he be all his days vexed and perplexed by it, it is the fault of his own carelessness.

3dly. Consider this: that proper and peculiar sins do deserve and call for proper and peculiar punishments.

Why should you think, while any unmortified lust is your own, that the punishment of it should not be your own also? Is it reason, that the sin should be peculiarly your, and yet the punishment of it Christ's? No; Christ never came into the world to take off the guilt of that sin by justification, from which he does not in some measure take off the bent and propensity of the heart by sanctification. And,

4thly. Consider: if you are saints, you yourselves are not your own: and shall any sin then be your peculiar sin?

1 Corinthians 6:19, 20. You are not your own: but you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your bodies, and in your spirits, which are God's. And shall we ourselves be God's, and yet any sin be ours? What is this less, than, by a kind of practical blasphemy, to make our sins God's also? Such-like considerations as these, should be continually present with us, when we go forth against our proper sins. It is not ordinary endeavors, that will suffice to mortify these: they are so rooted in and interwoven with the very principles of our nature, that they are the very last sins, which will quit their hold; and that, not without much difficulty and hardship.

Thus I have done with the First Branch of this Direction: To take notice of those sins, which have the greatest advantage and prevalence against us, which are customary and peculiar sins: and I have given you some particulars, to help you in the mortifying of them.

2. The other branch of this direction is, to be continually pondering and weighing the Ground and Cause of the quarrel.

This will exceedingly animate your utmost endeavors unto mortification. It is the cause, which enspirits soldiers: tell them, that they are to fight for estates, liberties, and lives; that whatever is dear to them is laid at stake, and pawned upon their valor; this will sharpen their courage, yes and their swords too, and make every stroke laid on by such considerations fatal as death. What can be more effectually pressed upon the spiritual soldier, to heighten and inflame his courage? tell him but the cause he engages for, and he must be either very much a coward, or else very treacherous against his own soul, that does not resolve to stand it out to the utmost. It is for an everlasting kingdom, a crown of glory, a precious and immortal soul; for eternal life, for God himself, you are to fight: and will you sit still, and see all these lost and taken from you? There is not a corruption or temptation that assaults you, but seeks to deprive you of Heaven and happiness, and would spill the dearest blood of your souls. A Christian's all, his nearest soul, his dearest God, the rich and inconceivable glory promised him, the few precious graces bestowed on him to bear his charges until he has attained it, are all here staked down: this is the prize you are to contend for: if you can suffer all these to be taken from you, and think them not worth the striving for, you are beyond the reach of a provocation. Let the Devil and your own lusts come armed against you, with all the strength and rage of Hell; yet, if you can but then keep up lively and distinct considerations of the vast and important concernment which depends upon the issue of the conflict, it is impossible that they should ever prevail upon you to the commission of any deliberate sin. Whenever, therefore, you are tempted, and find unmortified corruption very violent, think seriously with yourselves, what it is that you are solicited to do: is it not to provoke your God, to betray yourselves? is it not, to defile, nay to destroy your souls? "Now, sin and Satan are very earnest to have me run myself into perdition: gladly they would persuade me to forfeit Heaven, and plunge myself deep into Hell: they entice, they impel, they swell and tumult; but, if I yield, what becomes of all my hopes, of my crown of happiness, and of my own soul? It is happiness, which is the quarrel: and shall that be less dear to me, than my destruction is to Satan? Has he cause to be so active and violent for my ruin, and have I no cause to be industrious and vigilant for my salvation? Shall I sell away all the great and glorious things of eternity, at the cheap and low price of a momentary sin?" Do but actually ponder and weigh these considerations, when a corruption moves and acts in you; set them before you; say them to yourselves, and run them over in your thoughts; and let me be bold to say, Sin then, if you can.

(1) There are Two considerations especially, which will be of mighty influence to the suppressing of a corruption while it is tempting and stirring, and are the most available helps to mortification of all other.

[1] A serious consideration of the great Guilt, that sin will bring upon us.

It must be the very first work of that Christian, who will successfully attempt the work of mortification, to charge a prevailing lust home with the full guilt of it. I confess it is a ghastly sight, a spectacle full of dread and horror, to view sin in its proper colors: but it is far better for you to look sin in the face, when it tempts; than for sin to stare your conscience in the face, when it terrifies.

Carry always about you those two glasses, both of the Law and Gospel, which may represent sin aright to you.

When a glossing, flattering temptation shows it fair and beautiful, look upon your sin: see whether it can hold up its face against the Law, when the sovereignty, holiness, severity, and piercing power and energy of it come all in against it. By the Law, says the Apostle, is the knowledge of sin: Romans 3:20. Awe your conscience with the authority of God, stamped and imprinted upon his Law. "Has God, the Great Sovereign, forbidden this by a Law, and shall not I strive against it? Not to fight against this sin, were to be found a fighter against God." Provoke yourself against it, from the holiness of God, revealed in his Law? "Shall I commit that, which, for its deformity and ugliness, a Holy God has forbidden in a Holy Law?" The Law has in it, First: Such a bright and clear light, that sin cannot escape the discovery of it: it will make every spot in the soul visible; and those sins, which, through those false lights that Satan sets up, appear lovely and well featured, when the light of the Law shines into the conscience will then appear but one great misshapen blot. And, Secondly: It has in it such an absolute command and authority, that sin cannot resist nor escape the power of it. It comes into the conscience in the name of God: and makes as great a trembling in the heart, when set home in the condemning power of it; as it did in the Israelites, when delivered in that dreadful pomp from Mount Sinai. Is this holy, close, searching, authoritative Law to be broken, think you, at the will and pleasure of every temptation? Must we in every passion, with Moses, at every corrupt motion and sinful inclination, break these two tables in pieces? Nay, indeed, is it possible, that, while in a temptation you are applying the Law, you should then break it? No, certainly that man is near to a most desperate hardness, who, while he is looking upon the holiness, authority, and divinity of the Law, while he is letting in the convincing light of it to discover the guilt of sin unto him, while he is discharging the dreadful threatenings of it against his sin, yet can then commit it; I say, he is near unto a final, judicial hardness.

When you have now awhile contemplated the face of sin in the Law, remove it to the Gospel. If the Law break the heart with terror, the Gospel will melt it with love. "What! to sin not only against the authority of a God, but also against the love of a father; that parent love, from which proceeds all the good I enjoy or expect; that pardoning love, justifying, adopting, and saving love! Can I spurn against those affections, that yearn and roll towards me? Can I sin against that grace and mercy, which, should I sin against them, would yet still tender me a pardon? Can I be prodigal and lavishing of that blood, of which Christ was so free himself? Shall I despise it or trample it under foot, because it flows in so full a stream? Shall I quench and sadden the Holy Comforter; and return him grief, for all the ravishing consolations I have been filled with from him? Is this the filial disposition, the child-like ingenuity of a son, of a saint?" These, O Christian, are considerations, which must needs silence the most importunate corruptions and temptations, that they shall have nothing more to mutter. It is the Gospel, by which alone the guilt of sin is taken away, that does thus aggravate that guilt to such an excess, as proves a security from the committing of it. Tell me: did you ever know a temptation prevail over you, did you ever commit a sin in your whole lives, while such considerations as these were fresh and vigorous upon your hearts? Nay, I know it is impossible; the grace of God teaches us otherwise; yes, it not only teaches us, but enforces and constrains us otherwise. A temptation must first thrust these considerations out of the heart, before it can prevail.

This, therefore, is the first means of beating down a corruption, by the consideration of its Guilt, comparing it both with the Law and the Gospel. What better weapon can we have to fight with against corruption, than the sword of the Spirit; which, Ephesians 6:17 the Apostle tells us, is the word of God? and, Hebrews 4:12 he tells us, this word is a two-edged sword: the Law is one edge, and the Gospel another; and both these are powerful, sharp, and piercing; to the suppressing and mortifying of corruption, going to the very inwards and heart thereof.

[2] Another thing, that has great influence to the mortifying of sin, is, a serious consideration of the great danger, which it will bring us into.

1st. It were sad and dreadful, and enough to cause a trembling in us, if I should only mention unto you the danger of an Enraged and Distracted Conscience, which God may let loose upon you in all its horrors and affrights, when you let loose yourselves unto the commission of any known sin.

2dly. The danger, if not of an enraged conscience, yet of a Seared Conscience, which is worse: the danger of a judiciary curse and tradition, to be delivered up unto and sealed unto sin; that neither reproofs, nor convictions, nor judgments, nor mercies should ever more take hold, or make any impression upon you.

If I should name no more, were not here enough to stop the course of a prevailing lust? If yet you have any tenderness left in your hearts; any sense remaining in your consciences, together with their peace; would you rather hazard the loss of these, than not gratify a corruption? Say to it, "What sin is there, which can bring me in so much delight in the commission of it, as God may pour in terrors afterwards? May not God make my conscience a Hell incarnate; and empty the vials of his wrath into this vessel, while it is yet an earthly vessel? And shall I ever let a Hell break into my soul, by letting a lust break forth?" Urge against a temptation that irrefragable argument, which all the methods and sophisms of the Old Serpent shall never be able to dissolve to all eternity: "If I yield, either my conscience will be sensible of the sin, or not: if it be sensible, what is there in the sin, that can recompense this trouble of conscience? if it be not sensible, what is there in this sin, that can recompense the stupidity and deadness of conscience?" Still, either way, the danger is so great, that the Devil has scarce impudence enough importunately to urge a temptation upon that soul, which shall urge this consideration upon itself.

3dly. But, besides these, there is another danger; and that, indeed, which swallows up all the rest: and that is the danger of Eternal Damnation. I have before showed you how such a legal consideration as this is, may be, and is a fit means for mortification. Now bring and marshal even this against your lusts. Think you, that a temptation can outface Hell itself, and dare everlasting burnings? can it stand before a torrent of fire and brimstone? No, certainly this is the hardness and obdurateness of those only, who feel hell's torments, not to be deterred from sin for fear of them. Now rise up mightily against your lusts, even from this consideration: show them what they deserve, no less than damnation; from which, if any, who give way to them at any time, are rescued, it is only by the sovereign and unaccountable mercy of God. And, thus, while Satan casts fire, do you cast firebrands. This is to make Hell his second torture, that, as God makes use of it for his punishment, so you for his defeat and disappointment.

(2) For the right managing of this direction, for indeed much care and circumspection must here be had, take these following particulars.

[1] Take heed, lest, through any deceitfulness of your heart, you excuse and lessen your sin, when you should be dealing against it by a vigorous mortification.

To take off anything from your apprehensions of the guilt of sin, is to add to the power and strength of the temptation. And, therefore, take it for a sure rule, That that sin, in which you do not now see that black and horrid guilt which formerly you have done, has more power over you, and is more unmortified in you, than ever formerly it was. It is the common method of Satan, in the height and fury of a temptation, to persuade the heart, either that it is no sin, or else a small and venial one. If this deceit prevail and take place, the work of mortification can never go on vigorously. Certain it is, that, where the guilt of any sin is apprehended to be but small, there the endeavors against it will be but weak. And,

[2] Beware of weakening and enervating arguments drawn from the desert and danger of a prevailing lust, by relieving yourself with thoughts of the goodness and safety of your spiritual condition.

This is a most desperate deceit of the heart, and a ready way to undo thousands of souls. When you have made head against a temptation, by arguments drawn from the wrath of God due to it, and that eternal vengeance which will follow, have you never found your corrupt hearts replying upon you, "Yes, but I am delivered from the wrath to come: I am ransomed from that vengeance: my spiritual and eternal state is secured by the immutable promise of God, and the immortal seed of grace; and, therefore, though I do commit this sin, yet my soul shall live?" This is the common fallacy of the Devil, thus to make presumptuous applications of mercy, pardon, and free grace, to patronize the allowance of sin. If you thus argue, certain it is that you can never make good work of mortification. It is impossible to persuade that man from sin by the terrors of the Lord, who looks upon whatever is spoken of that kind, as not appertaining to him.

And, therefore, consider,

1st. To encourage yourself in sin, upon hopes of your being in a state of grace, is so rotten and unworthy a principle, as is scarce consistent with grace.

What is this, but to make use of grace against itself, against the God of Grace; a mere turning of it into wantonness, and sinning that it might abound? which, of all things in the world, is the most opposite and repugnant to the truly noble and sincere nature of a gracious heart. And,

2dly. Consider: If you should be in a state of grace, and stand accepted with God, yet you can never know yourself so to be; nay, you have all the reason in the world to judge the contrary, if this consideration embolden you to sin.

What though the perseverance of the saints unto glory be certain; yet, are they to persevere thereunto, whatever sins they commit? We find no such promise in the whole tenor of the covenant. It is, therefore, more unreasonable and absurd, to conclude from your grace that you may sin without danger; than to conclude, because you make use of such an encouragement to sin, therefore you have no grace. And,

3dly. Though you know yourself, by the highest pitch of assurance attainable, to be delivered from the wrath to come: yet still this wrath is the due desert of your sin; yes, and will be the certain punishment of it, unless it be mortified in you.

If you, you elect, you sanctified and justified ones, if you live after the flesh, you shall die. We may and ought, therefore, to denounce death and Hell to the most assured saint, if he does not mortify: for, though God has decreed to save all his elect, yet he never decreed to save any of them but through mortification. The vanity of those men is, in these our days, sufficiently discovered, who would not have believers take notice, nor make application to themselves of anything, that sounds threatening and terrible in the Scripture, as being unsuitable to their free and evangelical spirit. Let such know, that, in letting go such harsh and severe considerations, they lose a great advantage which they might have against their lusts. The holiest on earth, when God threatens sin, ought to tremble: and, whatever judgment they pass upon their persons, though they know themselves to be regenerate and elect; yet this is the judgment which they ought to pass upon their actions, that, if they be sinful, they are also damnable.

So that, whatever your condition be, yet, whenever corruption tempts and troubles you, oppose against its prevalence and seduction these affrighting considerations of wrath, Hell, and vengeance. Thus follow and ply it: thus heap coals of fire upon its head: throw a Hell between you and your lusts. This, if anything, will stop you. But, if you can frequently wade through these unto it; if you can commit it, even while the thoughts of future wrath are hot and scorching, while everlasting burnings are flaming and flashing about you; this argues a wretched obstinacy in sin, and is the sad symptom of a most dangerous, if not desperate condition.

And thus I have done with the First Direction unto Mortification. We must be well acquainted, and have a thorough insight into our sins; both to know whence they have their great strength, and also to know what the great guilt and danger of them is.

ii. Another direction, in brief, shall be this: IF YOU WOULD EFFECTUALLY MORTIFY CORRUPTION, THEN ARM YOURSELVES AGAINST IT WITH STRONG RESOLUTIONS; WITH RESOLUTIONS, FREE FROM LIMITATIONS, FREE FROM ANY SECRET RESERVATIONS.

The Apostle has given us many a tried piece of Christian armor, Ephesians 6. There we have the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit, the breast-plate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, and a complete panoply. But what are these, without resolution to use them? The shield may rust against the wall, and the sword in the sheath: grace may lie sluggish and inactive in the soul, while lust tempts, seduces, and captivates, unless holy resolution rouse it, arm it, and lead it forth to the conflict. Wherefore is it, that so many complain that their lusts and corruptions are invincible? that they cannot stand before them? what is the reason, that they are so often ensnared and so often captivated, but because they do not put on the resolutions of Men or Christians? they are not resolved to conquer: they do not fortify or steel their hearts with absolute and peremptory resolves, that, notwithstanding all the advantages any corruption has gained against them, though it has already frequently prevailed over them, though it daily and hourly tempt, entice, impel, yet they will beat it down and trample on it. Men are not thus firmly resolved, but waver and stagger in their purposes; and thereby give Satan hope and encouragement, while they thus fluctuate, to assault and prevail over them. Were they once fully resolved, they would not yield; and Satan, who can do nothing against them without their own consent, would have but small encouragement to continue tempting: he would then say, "It is in vain, to lay siege to that soul: his resolutions have fortified him, and made him impregnable: not a fiery dart will stick, but rebounds back as from a rock of adamant, and makes no impressions: he is grown obstinate against my temptations, and will hearken to none of my suggestions: he will not stand so much as to consider what a temptation can say for itself, but peremptorily refuses and rejects all: there is no hope left for me to prevail with such a soul." What David says of his enemies, Psalm 118:10, 11. All nations compassed me about: but, in the name of the Lord, will I destroy them. They compassed me about; yes, they compassed me about: but, in the name of the Lord, I will destroy them; the same must we say concerning our corruptions: though they beset us round and compass us about, though they swarm about us like bees; yet, in the name of the Lord, in the aid and assistance of the Holy Spirit, we will destroy them. You know what particular corruption it is, that does most of all perplex and prevail over you: now take up fixed resolutions for the mortifying of that sin: "Oh! never more will I give way to such a temptation: never more will I hearken to the flatteries and enticements of such a lust: never more shall this break my peace, wound my conscience, displease my God: now will I be revenged on it, and pour out the heart-blood of it before the Lord." Such absolute resolutions will be of great influence in the work of mortification. Yes, and though it may seem to be an old-fashioned, antiquated prescript; yet would it approve itself to be of singular use and advantage, if we strengthened such resolutions against sin by laying upon ourselves some binding vows and engagements against them: see how strongly David binds himself by an oath, Psalm 119:106. I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep your righteous judgments. David was resolved to keep the Law of God; but, lest that resolution should prove too weak, he strengthens it with an Oath, I have sworn, that I will keep them: yes, and as if this oath were not security enough, he backs it with another resolution, I have sworn, and I will perform it. So do you, against your sins: resolve and vow against them: enforce one by the other: lift up your hands unto God, that, in the strength of Christ and the aid of the Spirit, you will never more yield to such a temptation, give way to such a corruption, commit such a sin. This, were it more practiced among Christians, would mightily promote the great work of mortification.

"But," you will say, "what benefit can there be in this? Alas! my corruptions are so violent and outrageous, that they break through far greater engagements than my own resolutions are: neither Law nor Gospel can oppose them: they rush through commands, admonitions, threatenings, promises; and set all at nothing: and shall I think, then, that such weak and insignificant things as purposes and resolutions are of any moment?"

Be it so, that the rage of your lusts has broken through all those greater engagements, and has borne down before it whatever either Law or Gospel should say to the contrary; yet now bring against it your purposes and resolutions. Though there may be, and is, an obligation of greater authority from other considerations; yet nothing carries in it an obligation of greater efficacy than these do. There is that temper in every man's nature, that, though he struggle against an engagement which the authority of another imposes on him; yet he looks upon a voluntary engagement which he imposes on himself, as most binding, sacred, and inviolable. Certainly, did you but thus bind yourselves, and in a serious manner call God to witness and assist your resolutions, you would find that those corruptions, which have broken through all other considerations, would have a stop put to them by this.

iii. Another direction is this: RESIST STRONGLY THE FIRST MOTIONS AND FIRST RISINGS OF YOUR CORRUPTIONS.

Crush them while they are in their infancy, before they get to a head, and gather strength against you. It is folly to stay until your enemies are grown up: no; take the offspring and progeny of lust, while they are little; and deal with them, as God threatens Babel, dash those little ones against the stones.

Consider,

1. That there is not the least and most inconsiderable sinful motion, which rises in your soul, but it tends to the very utmost guilty, of which that kind of sin is capable.

You are deceived, if you think it will still be a weak, faint, languishing conception: no; corruption will lay in provision for it and nourish it, until that, which was at first but as a grain of mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, grow up and shoot forth great branches, that the prince of the air may lodge in them. You may easier set bounds to the flowing of the sea, and in a tempest command a wave in the midst of its swelling to stand fixed and not break, than to stop the course of a growing lust, and to say to it, "Hitherto only shall you come and no farther; so far as thoughts, so far as delight and delight, but never so far as act:" it is impossible. The cloud, that at first was but a hand's breadth, soon grew into a general tempest. Truly, a lust, that at first seems no more, will, if not presently scattered, soon raise a storm and tempest in the soul: and what Assurance-Office will then secure him from making shipwreck of a good conscience? These small and beginning lusts, though they may seem harmless and innocent, yet, if let alone, will stop no where short of the highest pitch of wickedness, and the lowest place of Hell: an irreverent thought of God, would stop no where short of professed atheism and flat denying of God: a hard thought against the people and the ways of God, would stop no where short of implacable hatred and bloody persecution: an envious, malicious thought, would run and seed up into murder. Ask these thoughts, therefore, where it is they tend; what period, what issue they would have: would they not end in blasphemy, in atheism, in impurity, in oppression, in murder, in the foulest and most unnatural sins imaginable? Nay, there is no such little sinful thought, but that it would, if permitted, end in that unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Spirit. And, therefore, with the same indignation and abhorrency, that you would rise against explicit and downright temptations to these sins; with the very same indignation and abhorrency, rise also against the very first stirrings and motions of your corruptions: look upon them, as if they would accomplish their very utmost effect, as if they were ready to bring upon you all that guilt which they seminally contain in them. And this will be a good means to mortification.

2. Consider: Thus to oppose the very first risings of corruption, will make the work of mortification more easy and delightful.

It is hard and difficult to purge out the dregs of a corruption, which has lain long settling in the heart. It will, by continuance, wind itself into the affections, bribe and entangle them; and this will make the work, not only more difficult, but more irksome and grievous. The farther the stream runs from the fountain, the stronger, and the more rapid and irresistible is its course: so, truly, is it with lust: that, which at first was but the weak bubbling up of corruption, easily opposed and withstood, if it run along in the heart undisturbed, will swell to such a torrent, as nothing can stand against it. Every corruption has a corroding malignity; and, though at first the wound appear but slight, yet, if neglected, it will bring the soul into the same sad condition that David was in, when he cried out, Psalm 38:5. My wounds stink and are corrupt, by reason of my foolishness. Oh! it is indeed a foolishness that will cost us bitter repentance, to dandle sinful thoughts; to trifle and dally with sinful motions and sinful desires: though they are but the first breathings of corruption, the first sproutings and buddings-forth of the root of bitterness; though now we see no such great guilt nor danger in them: yet, when these shall have exulcerated the whole soul, and made it all over one running issue of corruption, we shall then sadly complain of our gross folly, in slighting the first workings and stirrings of it. As ever you would make good work, then, of mortification, watch carefully against these and suppress them: observe where a sinful thought, where a sinful desire, does but begin to heave and lift in your heart; and beat it down, while it is yet an embryo and an unshaped birth.

iv. Another direction shall be this: SET BEFORE YOU, AND CONTINUALLY KEEP ALIVE ALL THOSE CONSIDERATIONS, THAT MAY ENCOURAGE YOUR HEARTS AND STRENGTHEN YOUR HANDS, IN THE CARRYING ON OF THIS GREAT WORK.

Many such encouragements might be propounded. As,

1. Always keep alive a sense of God's presence with you, that he eyes and beholds you.

This apprehension, if continually kept up in its life and vigor, will have a mighty influence into the work of mortification.

Consider,

(1) God eyes you, to observe how you managest your great quarrel against corruption.

As soon as you became a Christian, you became a champion: you enteredst into the list, and threwest out a bold challenge and defiance to all the powers of Hell, and the lusts of your own heart. Not only men and angels, but God himself also looks on, to see how you will make good the combat. And will not you strive and struggle to the utmost, when God himself is a spectator? will you not show your skill, and your courage, and your resolution then? Nay, consider: God is not only a spectator, but is deeply concerned in the issue of the combat: his battles you fightest, his cause you maintain; and, if you are conquered and captivated, he is dishonored as well as you endangered: if you are victorious, God the Father has the glory of the efficacy of electing grace; Jesus Christ, the Captain of our Salvation, has the glory of the efficacy of redeeming grace; and the Holy Spirit has the glory of the efficacy of his sanctifying and strengthening grace; all which are, as it were, engaged and pawned upon your mortification. Do but, therefore, think with yourselves, when a temptation assaults you, "Now God eyes me, to see how I will behave myself against this temptation: he eyes me, to crown me, if victorious: and shall I be any otherwise but victorious, while God looks on? shall I suffer myself to be foiled in his sight, whose cause I now maintain? No; God himself shall now see, what himself has given me power and ability to do." Did Christians thus consider the presence and eye of God with and upon them, they would go forth more resolutely unto the work of mortification.

(2) Consider, the eye of Jesus Christ is upon you, not only to observe, but to relieve you, and to pity you: while you wrestlest, not only against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers here on earth, he in Heaven pities you; his compassions roll towards you; he has a fellow-feeling of your miseries and infirmities.

It is a most comfortable place, Hebrews 4:15. We have not a High Priest, which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. And that other place, Hebrews 2:18. In that he himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to support them that are tempted. Oh what abundant comfort may we draw from these two breasts of consolation! Alas! a poor Christian, whom corruption within disquiets, and temptations without buffet; who is so close beset, as to be at the very point of yielding; let him look upwards, and eye that Christ by faith, who eyes him with compassion. You think yourself deserted, and left to break through the hosts of your spiritual enemies as you can; none to own you, none to stand by you: yes, Jesus Christ stands by you: he knows your weakness: he sees the power of your lusts: in all your temptations, he is tempted: and he, who knows no corruption in himself, yet feels the stirrings and the strong workings of corruption in the hearts of his; and he will support and relieve them.

What an encouragement is this! Is there any soul, that would refuse to war against his corruptions under such a Leader and Captain, who gives not only a command to fight, but might to subdue; who not only looks on the agonies and conflicts of his with compassion, but relieves and supports them with power?

That is the First encouraging Consideration: consider yourselves as always in the presence and under the eye of God, to observe, to support you.

2. Consider for your encouragement, the certainty of success in the work of mortification.

This consideration, if duly pondered, is of itself able to outface all difficulties. A Christian's victories have nothing of chance in them: it is not to be ascribed to the fortune of the day, when he prevails: success is chained to his endeavors; and, unless he betray his own soul, and will himself be vanquished, he cannot but conquer. And would you wish a greater advantage, than to have success at your pleasure? Victory itself was never yet listed under any but a Christian's command: other conquerors have found it very fickle and inconstant; but, herein is the Christian more than a conqueror, because always sure of conquest, if himself pleases. This, indeed, will cost much pains: it will make the heart pant, and the soul run down with sweat: success is certain, but not without your utmost strugglings and earnest endeavors: let not lazy Christians ever think they shall be more than conquerors, while they use only drowsy and yawning desires; and wish that such a lust were weakened, that such a corruption were mortified and subdued, but never rouse up their graces against them: it is no wonder that we see them so often foiled and captivated. Believe it, certainty of success is not entailed upon those weak velleities and effeminate wishes, that are so frequent in the mouths of many: "Oh, that I were freed from the power of such a lust! Oh, that such a temptation might never more assault me! Oh, that I might live as free from sin as the angels do in Heaven!" Truly, these are but sleepy and gaping desires, neither strong enough to lift the Old Man up to the cross, nor sharp enough to pierce him to the heart: corruption, though it be thus cursed, will live long: if this were all you could do, truly God had called you forth to a very unequal combat, even to deliver you into the hands of your lusts. Has he bestowed his grace and his Spirit upon you, for this? was it only to make the triumph of your corruptions the more conspicuous, and your defeats the more shameful? was it that you should sit still, and, by a wretched sloth, betray both yourselves and them? No, certainly: they were given you to conquer; and there is no corruption but they would conquer, if you yourselves would. It does ill become a Christian to whine and shrink at the sight of that numerous host of corruptions, which encamp against him: be but conscious of your own strength; nay, rather of the strength of God engaged for you. Do you not see more for you, than against you? There is not one of these, but you may look upon as a dead lust, delivered into your hand for the slaughter; and, if you suffer it to escape alive, God may say to you as Ahab to Benhadad, Because you have let go out of your hand a lust that I appointed to utter destruction, therefore your life shall go for the life of it. Corruption, then, is in your own power: it is delivered up to you, to be mortified: though it be in your hearts to tempt and trouble you, yet it is in your hands to slaughter it.

Consider but Three things.

(1) Corruption, be it never so strong and violent, cannot prevail over you, without first asking and waiting for the consent of your own wills.

All its victories are but precarious and beggarly achievements; gotten rather by insinuation, flattery, and importunity, than by clear force. It must solicit the affections, cozen the understanding, and ask leave of the will, before it prevail. And, therefore, the Apostle says, Romans 6:13. Neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; implying, that if they do become instruments to sin, they are voluntarily yielded up unto it. Believe it, there is no force, nor violence offered you: you are not compelled to sin: all, that a temptation can do, is, to persuade you: it cannot constrain you to sin, whether you will or no. When corruption storms most and swells highest, when Satan assaults you fiercest; yet, after all, you are free and at your own dispose, especially if sanctified; and there is no deliberate temptation unto sin, but you may resist it if you will: if you can but find in your hearts to deny a corruption, you do mortify that corruption. Now would you wish to deal with better enemies than these, that must ask us leave, before they can hurt us; that must entreat and petition us to be wounded, to be captivated, to be abused by them? Truly such are our own lusts: as terrible and as dreadful as they seem to us, yet indeed they are the most contemptible, slight, impotent adversaries in the world, were we but true to our own souls. But it is this, that gives corruption all its power: you will sin: you will yield to temptations: you will betray your souls: and then you cry out of the power of lusts; "Oh! their irresistible violence! I cannot stand against them: they will break in upon me: they will prevail: they will be obeyed, and I cannot help it." They will, and you can not help it! for shame, O Christian: if you will, you can help it. Did you ever sin, but that you were willing to it? Though there may be some renitency and reluctancy from grace; in respect of which the Apostle tells us, that he did what he would not do; yes, what he hated: Romans 7:19 yet there is also a voluntariness in every sin: you yield yourself to it; and give it leave to wound your conscience, to ruin your soul, and you will have it so. This is the strength of corruption: men will be conquered and captivated by it. Never tell me your corruptions are such as you cannot subdue: there is no such corruption: the most prevailing, the most tumultuating may be mortified by you, if you yourselves will. In a temptation, therefore, always think of this: "Why should I yield? what reason is there? what excuse can I have? I am not yet necessitated: I am not compelled to sin: my provision is not yet all spent: my heart is impregnable, unless I desert or dismantle it. I may, if I will, still stand it out, and be certain of the conquest. Shall I willfully give up my soul, my darling, to the devourer? Shall I myself open these everlasting gates, at which Satan now knocks indeed, but which he cannot force? I can choose whether this temptation shall ever prevail: an absolute denial, a peremptory No, would, now silence it." Certainly, did you but actually dwell upon this thought in a temptation, it would shame you from gratifying many a corruption that now you do. And, then,

(2) Consider the prevailing nature of grace.

It is from this, that your endeavors after mortification are accompanied with certainty of success. Grace is an immortal seed, that will certainly sprout up and flower into glory: it is a living fountain, that will certainly flow and bubble up into everlasting life: it is a ray of heavenly light, that will scatter and triumph over darkness, and wax brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. It is immortal, in a seed; victorious, in a spark; triumphant, in its dawning. It has a kind of omnipotency in it. Philippians 4:13. I can do all things, through Christ strengthening me; strengthening me, by his prevailing grace. And no wonder, since it is a particle of the divine nature itself: 2 Peter 1:4 that you might be partakers of the divine nature. It is an indelible flourish of the divine essence, which sets the gloss of the divine attributes upon the soul, and makes it of kin to God himself. Yes, take grace when it is at the weakest; when this dawn is clouded, when this spark is twinkling, when this seed seems unspirited; yet, then, it is victorious and triumphant: The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but always mighty through God: 2 Corinthians 10:4. What an over-match is this for corruption, to set grace against sin! it is to set God against Satan, Heaven against Hell, spirit against flesh. Will you desire greater advantage than this? Can you wish for greater encouragement? Oh! how faint-hearted must they needs be, whom certainty of prevailing cannot animate to contend. Who would not fight, that has such odds? "Am I certain to prevail? Have I that principle in me, which will go forth conquering unto conquer? Will it assuredly crown my soul with victory, and shall I not bring it to the trial? Here is a corruption, which molests me: shall I suffer it to captivate me, while yet I have that divine auxiliary within, which, if brought forth, would certainly overcome it? Nay, I must detain this grace in unrighteousness, I must depress it, I must keep it under by violence, if I do not prevail by it. Nay, if I strive not against my lusts, I must strive against my graces: and, what! shall I take as much pains to commit a sin, as would serve to subdue it?" O Christians! it is the greatest shame in the world, for you to be overcome and worsted: you, who have such an active, victorious principle; a principle, which you yourselves must much wrong and injure, if it does not always conquer; a principle, which rises with a natural and spontaneous force and impetus against corruption, and if but owned, if but cherished, nay if not resisted and opposed, will certainly subdue it. What shall we think, when we see such as you foiled, but that there is treachery within? you conspire against your own grace: you keep it under: you check and curb that, which would, with a sprightly and ethereal impulse, rush upon and beat down the strongest lusts that oppose it.

(3) Consider: the greatest strength and power of corruption is already destroyed, before you are put upon the mortification of it.

It has already lost its reigning power in you, and now it retains only its molesting power: it has already lost the power of a king, and now it only retains the power of a rebel: your Old Man is already crucified; it now wants nothing but piercing: it is, with Absalom, hung up; and wants nothing but to be thrust through. So tender is our God of us, that he will not venture us against corruption, while it is in its full strength: alas! while corruption is entire and unbroken, we are unable to grapple with it: he himself, therefore, crushes the head of this serpent, and breaks the teeth of this lion; and, when it is thus weakened, he calls upon us to destroy it. God might, if he had so pleased, at once have made a full end of corruption; and, in our regeneration, as perfectly have freed us from it, as we shall be hereafter in Heaven: no, but he would not so take the whole work out of our hands: we must exercise our courage, and our resolution against it; and, therefore, he so far weakened it, that it might not destroy us, though still it be left so strong and powerful as to molest and trouble us.

So that you see, in these Three things, success is assured to your endeavors: you cannot say corruption is unmatchable in its strength, irresistible in its violence, that we cannot stand before it; no, you shall certainly prevail and overcome it, if you will but encounter it: and what an encouragement is this!

3. Another encouraging consideration is this: The longer you continue mortifying, the weaker will corruption grow, and the easier you will find this great work to be.

Would you be freed from the continual vexing importunity of corruption? It now haunts and dogs you; and clamors to be gratified in this and in that sin; and you can find no rest from it: beware how you go about to satisfy it; for, believe it, that does but the more enrage it. Solomon's insatiables are moderate, in respect of this: it still cries Give, give; and, the more you give it, the louder still and the more eagerly it cries. Have you not found, that, after yielding to this importunity, corruption has been more fierce than ever before? it is an impudent craver, that knows neither bounds nor modesty. You may as well quench fire with oil, as satisfy corruption with sinning: no; if you would, in any measure, be free from this perpetual trouble, use it frowardly; deny, reject it: spurn this body of sin and death: this, at last, will discountenance and discourage it from tempting: it will, at last, leave following you, as one inexorable. Trust the experience of the children of God, in this particular: they will tell you, that such and such a prevailing lust, which did use perpetually to perplex and disquiet them, which they feared they should never master, yet, by often vexing, crossing, and contradicting it, they have at length tamed; it being brought under command, and made subject to grace: and that though, indeed, there would remain still some grudgings of the distemper; yet it has been less frequent and less violent in its working. Conclude upon it, that this you also may attain unto. Does any imperious lust perplex and trouble you? believe it, through the daily exercise of mortification you will so tire it out and spend it, that, though it may murmur and repine sometimes, and grudge that it is not satisfied; yet it shall seldom prevail to disturb your communion with God, and never so far prevail as to destroy your peace and comfort. Then,

4. Consider, that there is, in the exercise of mortification, though it be so sharp and severe a duty, an inward secret satisfaction of soul, that does more than recompense all the pains and difficulty.

There is a hidden delight, even in cutting off right-hands, and plucking out right-eyes. There is a double nature in every child of God; the divine nature, and the corrupt nature: and that, which is a torment to the one, is a pleasure to the other. The divine nature takes as much pleasure in mortifying a corruption, as the corrupt nature does in gratifying it. I wonder, therefore, how rational Christians are to be deterred from the work of mortification, by the harshness and painfulness of the work. If you have no nature in you but corrupt, how are you Christians? If you have, think you it is not as painful and as harsh to your new nature, that you yield to a lust; as it is to your corrupt nature, that you oppose and mortify it? Yes, the new nature groans, and sighs, and mourns in secret, when you sin against it: but it leaps for joy, it springs and exults in the heart, when you disappoint a temptation, and prevail against corruptions: it smiles upon you, when you return red from the slaughter. I appeal to experience: tell me, have you not found more ravishing joy and pleasure in that still insinuating soft delight, that spills itself silently through the soul, while you have been vigorously struggling against your corruptions, than ever you found in yielding to them? Though the contest be troublesome, yet what a calm follows when grace obtains the victory; not a ruffle, not a wrinkle upon the face of the soul! Oh! how sweetly does it then enjoy both itself and its God! it twines about him, closely embraces him, claspeth hands with him; and then follow those unexpressible mutual congratulations for the success: "Oh! my soul, enter you into this joy." If lust prevail, the pleasure may blaze high; but it is impure, dreggy, mixed, and has in it more of the sting than the honey, besides those many thousand stings it leaves behind in the conscience. Now baffle a corruption, by that very argument, that it does chiefly make use of. What is that, which lust uses to plead, when it tempts? is it not pleasure? this is its most taking bait: when, therefore, it tells you you shall have so much pleasure in it, it will bring you in such an overflowing measure of satisfaction and delight; then answer it; "I can have better satisfaction and more sincere delight, in mortifying it: that will bring me in pure, spiritual, clarified joy: and shall I forego this, for the muddy, impure, short blaze of sinful pleasure?" Thus encourage yourself unto this great duty.

5. Consider, for your encouragement, that this work of mortification is but for a short time; for a few stormy winter days, that will soon be blown over.

Though it must be a constant work, while it lasts; yet it is not to last long. Death, at last, will come in for our relief. Look how the scorched traveler longs for a shade to rest in, so does a truly mortified Christian long to repose himself in the shadow of death: there he shall lie free from the scorchings of temptations, and the heat and swelter of corruption. It will not, it cannot be long, before it shall be sung over us, "Your warfare is accomplished." Though now we are kicking against the prickles, yet we shall shortly be crowned with roses. Our comfort is, that not a corruption shall enter into Heaven with us, there to tempt or molest us. And, therefore, we should not faint nor be weary: though our work be sharp, yet it is but short, and our rest is everlasting.

Now be continually arming and strengthening yourselves with such encouraging considerations as these. You will find them to be of very great moment and influence, in the carrying on of the work of mortification.

That is the Fourth Direction.

v. Another direction shall be this: IF YOU WOULD MORTIFY YOUR CORRUPTIONS, THEN LABOR TO IMPROVE THE DEATH OF CHRIST UNTO THE DEATH OF SIN.

There is virtue in the blood of Christ, to staunch the bloody issue of corruption: he was wounded and crucified for sin, and sin was wounded and crucified with him. And thus Christ does, by a holy kind of revenge, repay his death upon the Old Man, that put him to death. And therefore says the Apostle, Romans 6:6. Our Old Man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed: and, in the former verses, he speaks of being baptized into the death of Christ, and of being planted together in the likeness of his death: all which intimates the death of sin, to be inflicted by the death of Christ. Look, as Moses healed the bitterness of the waters of Marah, by casting a tree into them; so, truly, that bitter fountain of corruption, which always sends forth bitter streams, is healed by the tree of the cross. Make it, therefore, your daily exercise, to bring the cross of Christ into your, hearts, to nail and fasten your lusts unto it; and you shall quickly find them languish and expire.

If you ask what influence the death of Christ has into the death of sin, I answer, it has mighty influence, especially these Two ways:

As it is the meritorious cause of mortification: and

As it is the moving cause thereto.

1. The death and cross of Christ is the Meritorious Cause of mortification.

Then was the death of sin procured and purchased. We should always have lived vassals and bond-slaves to our lusts, still subject to them and kept under by them, but that Christ by dying, has redeemed us from their power, and has laid in store for us that grace whereby we are enabled to resist and prevail. Believe it, there is not a victory, that you obtain, but it cost blood; not your own indeed, but the precious blood of Jesus Christ. What a privilege has a Christian in this! He conflicts, and conquers, and triumphs at the expense of another's blood. There is not a temptation which you resist, nor a corruption which you subdue, but the grace, that enables you thereunto, is the purchase of your Savior's death. By death, he destroyed him, that had the power of death. By faith, therefore, draw continual supplies from the death of Christ: tell him, how rebellious and headstrong your corruptions are grown, what tumults and uproars they make in your heart: tell him, it was one end and intent of his death, that they might be destroyed in you: beg of him relief and strength against them: plead with him, that, since he has procured the death of sin at so high and dear a rate as his own blood, he would not suffer it to live unmortified in you. Christ, by his sufferings, has procured grace sufficient to make us more than conquerors: now it is the skill and are of faith, to derive from this full treasury supplies for mortification.

2. The death of Christ has a mighty influence into our mortification, as it is the Moving Cause unto it.

Certainly, if you do but seriously reflect upon the death of Christ; and consider that all the pains, wrath, and curse which he then underwent, were to free you from your sins; it cannot but embitter your hearts against it: "What! shall I suffer sin in me, which would not suffer Christ to live in the world? Was he crucified for it, and shall not I be crucified unto it?" Oh! say concerning your corruptions, "It was this and that base lust of mine, which killed my Savior: it was this and that sin, which squeezed so much gall and wormwood into the bitter cup of his sufferings: I see them stained with his blood: they look guilty of his death: and shall I lodge in my heart the bloody murderers of my Savior? No; their blood certainly shall go for his." This consideration, had I time to press it upon you, would be of great moment unto the exercise of mortification.

Thus I have, at large, handled to you this great and important Duty of Mortification. It is not that, which concerns only some particular Christians: it is not that, which is to be exercised only at some particular and especial seasons: it is not that, which conduces only to the ornament and flourish of a Christian? No; it is that, which is the very life and power of Christianity, without which, whatever profession you glitter in, and dazzle the eyes of the world with, it is but empty and hypocritical. If any of these truths have taken hold upon your consciences, beware how you shift them off, lest, with them, you together shift off eternal life, and judge yourselves unworthy of it. I know it is indeed a hard duty, and I have endeavored to arm you against that prejudice: but pray tell me, is it not more hard to perish? is it not more hard to lie in Hell forever? though it be pleasing to flesh and blood to live in sin, and to give corruption scope to act unopposed and unresisted; oh! but think, will it be pleasing to flesh and blood to lie forever scorching in eternal burnings? Never flatter yourselves: you or your sins must die: If you live after the flesh, you shall die. If, after all that has been spoken, you will yet indulge your lusts, and yield to temptations, and give yourselves over to the swing of your corruptions; believe it, these sermons will rise up and witness against you at the Last Day, and leave you without excuse. You have been told what the duty is; how necessary; the way and means how you should perform it: and oh, that these things might never be objected against you for your condemnation! Oh, that they might become effectual to promote that great work in you, until that promise be fulfilled to you in the text, "If you live after the flesh, you shall die: but if you, through the spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live!"