tery of the grace of God therein.

Meditate on the vileness, the demerit, and punishment of sin, as represented in the cross, the blood, the death of Christ. Is Christ crucified for sin, and shall not our hearts be crucified with him unto sin? Shall we give entertainment to that, or hearken to its dalliances, which wounded, which pierced, which slew our dear Lord Jesus? God forbid. Fill your affections with the cross of Christ, that there may be no room for sin. The world once put him out of a house into a stable, when he came to save us; let him now turn the world out of doors, when he is come to sanctify

us.

Thirdly, Look to the vigour of the affections towards heavenly things. If they are not constantly attended, excited, directed, and warned, they are apt to decay, and sin lies in wait to take every advantage against them. Many complaints we have in the Scripture of those who lost their first love, in suffering their affections to decay. And this should make us jealous over our own hearts, lest we also should be overtaken with the same backsliding frame. Wherefore be jealous over them, often strictly examine them, and call them to account, supply to them due considerations for their exciting and stirring up to duty.

CHAPTER XII.

The conception of sin through its deceit.

Wherein it consisteth. The consent of the will to sin. The nature thereof. Ways and means whereby it is obtained. Other advantages made use of by the deceit of sin. Ignorance, errors.

THE third success of the deceit of sin, in its progressive work, is the conception of actual sin. When it hath drawn the mind off from its duty, and entangled the affections, it proceeds to conceive sin, in order to the bringing of it forth. "Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin." Now the conception of sin, in order to its perpetration, can be nothing but the consent of the will; for, as without the consent of the will, sin cannot be committed, so where the will hath consented to it, there is nothing in the soul to hinder its actual accomplishment. God doth, indeed, by various ways and means, frustrate the bringing forth of these adulterous conceptions, causing them to melt away in the womb, or one way or other prove abortive, so that not the least part of that sin is committed which is willed or conceived; yet there is nothing in the soul itself that remains to give check to it, when once the will hath given its consent. Oftentimes when a cloud is full of rain, and ready to fall, a wind comes and drives it away. And when the will is ready to bring forth its sin, God diverts it by one wind or other; but yet the cloud was as full of rain as if it

had fallen, and the soul as full of sin as if it had been committed.

This conceiving of lust or sin, then, is its prevalency in obtaining the consent of the will to its solicitations. And hereby the soul is deflowered of its chastity towards God in Christ, as the apostle intimates: "For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." To clear up this matter we must observe,

He spake truth voluntary, that if It is most true of

First, That the will is the principle, the next seat and cause of obedience and disobedience. Moral actions are to us, or in us, so far good or evil as they partake of the consent of the will. of old, who said, "Every sin is so it be not voluntary it is not sin." actual sins. The formality of their iniquity ariseth from the acts of the will in them, and concerning them, I mean, as to the persons that commit them; otherwise in itself, the formal reason of sin is, its aberration from the law of God.

Secondly, There is a two-fold consent of the will

to sin.

First, That which is full, absolute, complete, and upon deliberation. A prevailing consent, the convictions of the mind being conquered, and no principle of grace in the will to weaken it. With this consent, the soul goes into sin as a ship before the wind, with all its sails displayed, without any check or stop. It rusheth into sin like the horse into the

battle; men thereby, as the apostle speaks, "giving themselves over to sin with greediness." Thus Ahab's will was in the murdering of Naboth, he did it upon deliberation, by contrivance, with a full consent: the doing of it gave him such satisfaction, as that it cured his malady, or the distemper of his mind. This is that consent of the will which is acted in the finishing and completing of sin in unregenerate persons, and is not required to the single bringing forth of sin, whereof we speak.

Secondly, There is a consent of the will, which is attended with a secret resistance and volition of the contrary. Thus Peter's will was in the denying of his Master. His will was in it, or he had not done it; it was a voluntary action, that which he chose to do at that season. Sin had not been brought forth, if it had not been thus conceived. But yet at this very time there was resident in his will, a contrary principle of love to Christ, yea, and faith in him, which utterly failed not. The efficacy of it was intercepted, and its operations suspended actually, through the violent urging of the temptation that he was under; but yet it was in his will, and weakened his consent to sin, though it consented: it was not done with self-pleasing, which such full acts of the will do produce.

may

Thirdly, Although there may be a predominant consent in the will, which suffice for the conception of particular sins, yet there cannot be an absolute, total, full consent of the will of a believer to any sin: for,

First, There is, in his will, a principle fixed on good, on all good; "he would do good." The prin

ciple of grace in the will inclines him to all good. And this in general is prevalent against the principle of sin, so that the will is denominated from thence. Grace hath the rule and dominion, and not sin, in the will of every believer. Now that consent to sin in the will, which is contrary to the inclination, and generally a prevailing principle in the same will, is not, cannot be, total, absolute, and complete.

Secondly, There is not only a general, ruling, prevailing principle in the will against sin, but there is also a secret reluctancy in it to its own act, in consenting to sin. It is true, the soul is not sensible sometimes of this reluctancy, because the present consent carries away the prevailing act of the will, and takes away the sense of the lustings of the Spirit, or reluctancy of the principle of grace in the will. But the general rule holdeth in all things, at all times: "The spirit lusteth against the flesh;" it doth so actually, though not always to the same degree, nor with the same success. And the prevalency of the contrary principle, in this or that particular act, doth not disapprove it. It is so on the other side; there is no acting of grace in the will but sin lusts against, although that lusting be not made sensible in the soul, because of the prevalency of the contrary acting of grace, yet it is enough to keep those actings from perfection in their kind. So is it in this re

sistance of grace against the acting of sin in the soul; though it be not sensible in its operations, yet it is enough to keep that act from being full and complete. And much of spiritual wisdom lies in discerning aright between the spiritual resistance of the principle of grace in the will against sin, and