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CHA P. VI.

Shewing indwelling fin to be to grace, what firegis to gold; and how the foundness and unfoundness of our hearts are difcovered by our carriage towards it.

SECT. I.

Rofperity and adverfity put fincerity to the trial; but nothing makes a deeper fearch into our bofoms, nothing fifts our fpirits more narrowly, or tells us what our state is more plainly, than our behaviour towards that corruption that dwells in us; the thorn is next neighbour to the rofe: Sin and grace dwell not only in the fame foul, but in the fame faculties. The collier and fuller dwell in one room; what one cleanseth the other blacks. Of all the evils God permits in this world, none is more grievous to his people than this: They fometimes wonder why the Lord will fuffer it to be fo; why, furely, among other wife and holy ends of this permiffion, these are fome.

They are left to try you, and to humble you: There is no intrinsical goodnefs in fin; but, however, in this it occafions good to us, that by our carriage towards it, we difcern our fincerity. The touchftone is a worthlefs ftone in itself, but it ferves to try the gold; 1 John iii. 9, 10." Whofoever is born "of God. doth not commit fin; for his feed remaineth in him, "and he cannot fin, because he is born of God: In this the "children of God are manifeft, and the children of the devil :" q. d. In refpect of their carriage towards fin, the one and other is plainly manifefted: This is that which feparates the drofs from the gold, and fhews you what the true state of men's per fons, and tempers of their hearts is. By not finning, we are not to understand a total freedom from it in this world, as if it implied any fuch perfection of the people of God in this world; that is the Popish and Pelagian fenfe: Nor yet must we take it in the Arminian fenfe, who, to avoid the argument of the orthodox, will understand it of the fin against the Holy Ghoft. What a ftrange thing would it be, to make that a characteristical note of distinction betwixt the godly and ungodly, which fo very few, even of the most ungodly, are ever guilty of?

But the manner of our behaviour towards fin, and our carriage towards it before, or under, or after the commission of it, in that the children of God are manifeft, and the children of the devil.

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Now, there are five things relating to fin, that discriminate and mark the state of the perfons: The difference is difcernible.

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(1.) THE grounds and motives of our abftinence do very clearly manifeft the ftate of our fouls; what they are in the regenerate and unregenerate, is our next work: And let it be confidered,

1. First, That an unfound and unrenewed heart may abstain from one fin, because it is contrary to, and inconsistent with another fin: For, it is with the fins of our natures, as it is with the diseases of our bodies: Though all diseases be contrary to health, yet fome difeafes, as the fever and palfy, are contrary to each other. So are prodigality and covetousness, hypocrify and profaneness. These oppofe each other, not for mutual deftruction, as fin and grace do, but for fuperiority, each contending for the throne, and fometimes taking it by turns. It is with fuch perfons as with that poffeffed man, Matth. xvii. 15. whom the spirit cafts fometimes into the fire, fometimes into the water: Or if one fubdue the other, yet the heart is alfo fubdued to the vaffalage of that luft that is uppermost in the foul.

2. Secondly, An unrenewed foul may be kept from the commiffion of fome fin, not because there is a principle of grace within him, but because of some providential restraint without him, or upon him: For, it often falls out, that when men have conceived fin, and are ready to execute it, providence claps on the fetters of restraint, and hinders them from fo doing.

This was the cafe with Abimelech, Gen. xx. 6, and 17. compared, I with-held thee: And though perfons fo restrained, have not the good of such providences, yet others have; for by it a world of mifchief is prevented in the world, which otherwife would break out; and to this act of providence we owe our lives, liberties, estates, and comforts in this world.

3. Thirdly, An unfound heart may not commit fome fins, not because he truly hates them, but because his conftitution in

clines him not to them: Thefe men are rather beholden to a good temper of body, than to a gracious temper of foul. Some men cannot be drunkards if they would, others cannot be covet ous and bafe; they are made e meliori luto, of a more refined metal than others; but chaste and liberal, juft and fober nature, is but nature ftill: The best nature, in all its endowments, is but nature at the best.

4. Fourthly, A graceless heart may be reftrained from fia by the force of education and principles of morality that way infilled into it. Thus Jehoah was reftrained from fin, 2 Kings xii. 2." And Jehoafh did that which was right in the fight of "the Lord, all the days wherein Jehoiadah the priest instructed "him." The fear of a parent or master will do a great deal more with fome in this cafe than the fear of God. The influence of a strict education nips off the excrefcencies of budding vice. The way we are taught when young, we keep when old: This is the influence of man upon man, not the influence of the re generating Spirit upon men.

5. Fifthly, A gracelets heart may be kept from fome fins by the fear of the events, both in this world, and that to come. Sin that is followed with infamy and reproach among men, may on this ground be forborn; not because God hath forbidden it, but because human laws will punish it, and the fober world will brand us for it: And fome look farther, to the punishment of fin in hell; they are not afraid to fin, but they are afraid to burn.

Here fin is like a fweet role in a brake of thords; fain we would have it, but we are loth to tear our flesh to come by it. It is good that fin is prevented any way; but to be kept on this ground from fia, doth not argue the eftate of the perfon to be good: And thus you fee fome of the grounds on which carnal men are reftrained; and in this "the children of the devil are "manifeft."

SECT. III.

BUT are are and succe UT there are grounds of abftinence from fin, by which

thefe that follow:

1. First, A fiacere heart dares not fin because of the eye and fear of God, which is upon him: So you find it in Job xxxi. 1, and 4. he durft not allow his thoughts to fid, because he lived under the awe of God's eye. Nehemiah durit not do as former governors, had done, though an opportunity present ed to enrich himself, because of the fear of his God, Nehem. v

15. The foul that lives under the awe of this eye will be as confcientious where no difcovery can be made by creatures, as if all the world looked on, Levit. xix. 14. "Thou shalt not "curfe the deaf, nor put a stumbling-block before the blind g "but fhalt fear thy God, I am the Lord."

What if a man do curfe the deaf, the deaf cannot hear him, and what if he do put a ftumbling-block before the blind, the blind cannot fee him: True, but God fees him, God hears him; that is enough to a man that hath the fear of the Lord upon his heart.

2. Secondly, As the fear of God, fo the love of God, is a principle of reftraint from fin to the foul that is upright. This kept back Jofeph from fin, Gen. xxxix. 9. "How can I do

this great wickedness, and fin againft God ? How can I? He fpeaks as a man that feels himself bound up from fim by the goodness and love of God, that had been manifefted to hints

d. Hath he delivered me from the pit into which my envi ous brethren caft me? Hath he, in fo miraculous a way, adtanced me to all this honour and power in Egypt? and now, after all his kindness and love to me, fhall I fin against him? O how can I do this against so good, fo gracious a God? So Pfal. xcvii. ro. Ye that love the Lord, hate evil." Love will cry out in the hour of temptation, Is this thy kindness to thy friend? Doft thou thus requite the Lord for all his kindneffes?

3. Thirdly, As the love of God, fo the intrinfical evil and Althinefs that is in fin keeps back the gracious foul from it, Rom. xii. 9. Abhor that which is evil, arosuys to #ovnpov, Hate it as hell itfelf: Or, as the French tranflation hath it, be in horror. As the apprehenfions of hell, fo the apprehenfions of fin imprefs horror upon the mind that is fanctified: Nothing more loathfome to an holy foul. Its averfations from it are with the highest indigration and loathing.

4. Fourthly, The renewed nature of a faint reftrains him from fin; Gal. v. 17. "The fpirit lufteth against the flesh, fo "that ye cannot do the thing ye would." Ye cannot, why cannot ye? Becaufe it is against your new nature.

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Beloved, This is a very remarkable thing in the experience of all renewed men, That, upon the renovation of men's principles; their delights, and their averfations and loathings are laid quite crofs and oppofite to what they were before. In their carnal ftate, vain company and finful exercifes were their delight. To be feparated from thefe, and tied to prayer, mediVOL. VII. X

tation, heavenly difcourfe and company; O what a bondage would that have been! Now to be tied to such carnal fociety, and restrained from fuch duties of godliness, and the fociety of the godly, becomes a much forer bondage to the foul.

5. Fifthly, Experience of the bitterness of fin, is a re ftraint to a gracious heart. They that have had fo many fick days and forrowful nights for fin as they have had, are loath to taste that wormwood and gall again, which their foul hath ftill in remembrance; 2 Cor. vii. 11. "In that ye forrowed "after a godly fort, what carefulness it wrought!" He would not grapple with those inward troubles again, he would not have the chearful light of God's countenance eclipfed again for all, and much more than all, the pleasures that are in fin.

6. Sixthly, The confideration of the fufferings of Chrift for fin, powerfully withholds a gracious foul from the commiffion of it; Rom. vi. 6. " Our old man is crucified with him, that "the body of fin might be destroyed, that henceforth we fhould "not serve fin." Were there a knife or fword in the house that had been thrust through the heart of your father, would you ever endure the fight of it? Sin was the fword that pierced Chrift, and fo the death of Christ becomes the death of fin in his people. Thus the children of God and the children of the devil are manifeft, in the principles and reafons of their abftinence from fin.

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SE C T. IV.

Econdly, They are alfo manifefted by their hatred of fin. This puts a clear diftinction betwixt them; for no falfe or unregenerate heart can hate fin as fin; he may indeed,

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1. First, Hate fin in another, but not in himself: Thus one proud man hates another; Calco fuperbiam Platonis, faid Diogenes, when he trampled Plato's fine clothes under foot; I fpurn the pride of Plato. Sed majori fuperbia, as Plato fmartly replied, Thou trampleft upon my pride, but it is with greater pride. Why (faith Chrift to the hypocrite) "beholdeft thou the mote in thy brother's eye, but confider"eft not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Matth. vii. 3. How quick in efpying, and rafh in cenfuring the smallest fault in another, is the hypocrite! it was but one fault, and that but a small one, but a mote that he could find in another; yet this he quickly difcerns: It may be there were many excellent graces in him, these he overlooks, but the mote he plainly difcerns.

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