state of a regenerate person is such, as to have "crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts1;" in whom sin did not reign, not only in the mind, but even also not in the mortal body; over whom sin had no dominion; in whom the old man was crucified, and the body of sin was destroyed, and sin not at all served. And to make the antithesis yet clearer, in the very beginning of the next chapter the apostle saith, "That the spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made him free from the law of sin and death *;" under which law, he complained immediately before, he was sold and killed, to show the person was not the same in these so different and contradictory representments. No man in the state of grace can say, "The evil that I would not, that I do;" if, by evil, he means any evil that is habitual, or in its own nature deadly.

9. So that now let no man pretend an inevitable necessity to sin; for if ever it comes to a custom or to a great violation, though but in a single act, it is a condition of carnality, not of spiritual life; and those are not the infirmities of nature, but the weaknesses of grace, that make us sin so frequently; which the apostle truly affirms to the same purpose : "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot (or that ye do not1) do the things that ye wouldm." This disability proceeds from the strength of the flesh, and weakness of the Spirit: for he adds, "But if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law:" saying plainly, that the state of such a combat, and disability of doing good, is a state of man under the law, or in the flesh, which he accounts all one; but every man that is sanctified under the Gospel is led by the Spirit, and walks in the Spirit, and brings forth the fruits of the Spirit. It is not our excuse, but the aggravation of our sin, that we fall again, in despite of so many resolutions to the contrary. And let us not flatter ourselves into a confidence of sin, by supposing the state of grace can stand with the custom of any sin: for it is the state either of an animalis homo, (as the apostle calls nim",) that is, a man in pure naturals,

without the clarity of Divine revelations, who " cannot perceive or understand the things of God;" or else of the carnal man, that is, a person, who, though in his mind he is convinced, yet he is not yet freed from the dominion of sin, but only hath his eyes opened, but not his bonds loosed. For by the perpetual analogy and frequent expresses in Scripture, the spiritual person, or the man "redeemed by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," is free from the law, and the dominion, and the kingdom, and the power of all sin. "For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace °."

10. But sins of infirmity, in true sense of Scripture, signify nothing but the sins of an unholy and unsanctified nature, when they are taken for actions done against the strength of resolution, out of the strength of natural appetite and violence of desire; and therefore, in Scripture, the state of sin and the state of infirmity is all one. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly," (saith the apostle P:) the condition in which we were, when Christ became a sacrifice for us, was certainly a condition of sin and enmity with God, and yet this he calls a being without strength, or in a state of weakness and infirmity; which we, who believe all our strength to be derived from Christ's death, and the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the fruit of his ascension, may soon apprehend to be the true meaning of the word. And in this sense is that saying of our blessed Saviour, "The whole have no need of a physician, but they that are weak:" for therefore "Christ came into the world to save sinners," those are the persons of Christ's infirmary, whose restitution and reduction to a state of life and health was his great design 9. So that whoever sin habitually, that is, constantly, periodically, at the revolution of a temptation, or frequently, or easily, are persons who still remain in the state of sin and death; and their intervals of piety are but preparations to a state of grace, which they may then be, when they are not used to countenance or excuse the sin, or to flatter the person. But if the intermediate resolutions of emendation (though they never run beyond the next assault of passion or desire) be taken for a state of grace, blended with infirmities of nature, they become destructive of all those purposes, through our mistake, which they might have promoted, if they had been rightly understood, observed, and cherished. Sometimes, indeed, the greatness of a temptation may become an instrument to excuse some degrees of the sin, and make the man pitiable, whose ruin seems almost certain, because of the greatness and violence of the enemy, meeting with a natural aptness: but then the question will be, whither, and to what actions, that strong temptation carries him? whether to a work of a mortal nature, or only to a small irregularity? that is, whether to death, or to a wound? for whatever the principle be, if the effect be death, the man's case was therefore to be pitied, because his ruin was the more inevitable; not so pitied, as to excuse him from the state of death. For let the temptation be never so strong, every Christian man hath assistances sufficient to support him, so as that, without his own yielding, no temptation is stronger than that grace, which God offers him; for if it were, it were not so much as a sin of infirmity; it were no sin at all. This, therefore, must be certain to us; when the violence of our passions or desires overcomes our resolutions and fairer purposes, against the dictate of our reason, that indeed is a state of infirmity, but it is also of sin and death, a state of immortification; because the offices of grace are to crucify the old man, that is, our former and impurer conversation, to subdue the petulancy of our passions, to reduce them to reason, and to restore empire and dominion to the superior faculties. So that this condition, in proper speaking, is not so good as the infirmity of grace, but it is no grace at all: for "whoever are Christ's, have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts';" those other imperfect, ineffective resolutions are but the first approaches of the kingdom of Christ, nothing but the clarities of lightning, dark as soon as light; and they therefore cannot be excuses to us, because the contrary weaknesses (as we call them) do not make the sin involuntary, but chosen and pursued, and, in true speaking, is the strength of the lust, not the infirmity of a state of grace.

11. But yet there is a condition of grace, which is a state of little and imperfect ones, such as are called in Scripture " Smoking flax and bruised reeds;" which is a state of the first dawning of the sun of righteousness, when the lights of grace new rise upon our eyes; and then indeed they are weak, and have a more dangerous neighbourhood of temptations and desires, but they are not subdued by them': 'they sin not by direct election; their actions criminal are but like the slime of Nilus, leaving rats half formed; they sin but seldom, and when they do it, it is in small instances, and then also by surprise, by inadvertency, and then also they interrupt their own acts, and lessen them perpetually; and never do an act of sinfulness, but the principle is such, as makes it to be involuntary in many degrees. For when the understanding is clear, and the dictate of reason undisturbed and determinate, whatsoever then produces an irregular action excuses not, because the action is not made the less voluntary by it; for the action is not made involuntary from any other principle but from some defect of understanding, either in act, or habit, or faculty. For where there is no such defect, there is a full deliberation according to the capacity of the man, and then the act of election that follows is clear and full, and is that proper disposition, which makes him truly capable of punishment or reward respectively. Now although, in the first beginnings of grace, there is not a direct ignorance to excuse totally; yet, because a sudden surprise or an inadvertency is not always in our power to prevent, these things do lessen the election and freedom of the action: and then, because they are but seldom, and never proceed to any length of time, or any great instances of crime, and are every day made still more infrequent, because grace growing stronger, the observation and advertency of the spirit, and the attendance of the inner man, grows more effectual and busy; this is a state of the imperfection of grace, but a state of grace it is. And it is more commonly observed to be expressed in the imperfection of our good action, than in the irregularity of bad actions:

* S. August. lib. de Gratia et liber Arbit. c. 17, et c. 29.

1

and in this sense are those words of our blessed Saviour, "The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak;" which, in this instance, was not expressed in sin, but in a natural imperfection, which then was a recession from a civility, a not watching with the Lord. And this is the only infirmity, that can consist with the state of grace.

12. So that now we may lay what load we please upon our nature, and call our violent and unmortified desires by the name of an imperfect grace; but then we are dangerously mistaken, and flatter ourselves into an opinion of piety, when we are " in the gall of bitterness;" so making our misery the more certain and irremediable, because we think it needs nothing but a perpetuity and perseverance to bring us to heaven. The violence of passion and desires is a misery of nature, but a perfect principle of sin; multiplying and repeating the acts, but not lessening the malignity; but sins of infirmity, when we mean sins of a less and lower malice, are sins of a less and imperfect choice, because of the unavoidable imperfection of the understanding. Sins of infirmity are always infirm sins, that is, weak and imperfect in their principle, and in their nature, and in their design; that is, they are actions incomplete in all their capacities; but then passions and periodical inclinations consisting with a regular, and determined, and actual understanding, must never be their principle; for whatsoever proceeds thence, is destructive of spiritual life, and inconsistent with the state of grace. But sins of infirmity, when they pretend to a less degree of malignity, and a greater degree of excuse, are such as are little more than sins of pure and inculpable ignorance; for in that degree, in which any other principle is mixed with them, in the same degree they are criminal and inexcusable. For as a sin of infirmity is pretended to be little in its value and malignity, so it is certain, if it be great in the instance, it is not a sin of infirmity, that is, it is a state or act of death, and absolutely inconsistent with the state of grace.

13. Secondly: Another principle of temptation, pregnant with sin, and fruitful of monsters, is a weaker pretence, which less wary and credulous persons abuse themselves withal, pretending, as a ground for their confidence and incorrigible pursuance of their courses, that they have a