صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

tions upon their hearts, and their souls made conformable to them, they generally learn so to dispose of all truths formerly known, which were sometimes inlaid in their hearts, with more efficacy and power. This hath proved, if not the ruin, yet the great impairing of many in these days of light wherein we live. By this means, from humble close walking, many have withered into an empty, barren, talking profession. All things almost have in a short season become alike to them: have they been true or false, so they may be debating of them, and disputing about them, all is well. This is food for sin, it hatcheth, increaseth it, and is increased by it. A notable way it is for the vanity that is in the mind, to exert itself without a rebuke from conscience. Whilst men are talking, and writing, and studying about religion, and hearing preaching, it may be with great delight; conscience, unless thoroughly awake and circumspect, and furnished with spiritual wisdom and care, will be very well pacified, and enter no rebukes or pleas against the way that the soul is in. But yet all this may be nothing but the acting of that natural vanity which lies in the mind, and is a principal part of the sin we treat of. And generally this is so, when men content themselves, as was said, with the notions of truth, without labouring after an experience of the power of them in their hearts, and the bringing forth the fruit of them in their lives, on which a decay must needs ensue.

Seventhly, Growth in carnal wisdom is another help to sin, in producing this sad effect. " Thy wisdom and thy knowledge," saith the prophet, "hath perverted thee." So much as carnal wisdom increas

eth, so much faith decays. The proper work of it is, to teach a man to trust to and in himself; of faith, to trust wholly in another. So it labours to destroy the whole work of faith, by causing the soul to return into a deceiving fulness of his own. We have woful examples of the prevalency of this principle of declension in the days wherein we live. How many

a poor, humble, broken-hearted creature, who followed after God in simplicity and integrity of spirit, have we seen, through the observation of the ways and walkings of others, and closing with the temptations to craft and subtlety, which opportunities in the world have administered to them, come to be dipt into a worldly carnal frame, and utterly to wither in their profession! Many are so sullied hereby, that they are not to be known to be the men they were.

Eightly, Some great sin lying long in the heart and conscience unrepented of, or not repented of as it ought, and as the matter requires, furthers indwelling sin in this work. The great turn of the life of David, whence his first ways carried the reputation, was in the harbouring his great sin in his conscience without suitable repentance. It was otherwise we know with Peter, and he had another issue. A great sin will certainly give a great turn to the life of a professor. If it be well cured in the blood of Christ, with that humiliation which the gospel requires, it often proves a means of more watchfulness, fruitfulness, humility, and contentment, than everthe soul before obtained. If it be neglected, it certainly hardens the heart, weakens spiritual strength, enfeebles the soul, discouraging it to all communion with God, and is a notable principle of a

general decay. So David complains; "My wounds stink and are corrupt, because of my foolishness." His present distemper was not so much from his sin, as his folly; not so much from the wounds he had received, as from his neglect to make a timely application for their cure. It is like a broken bone, which, being well set, leaves the place stronger than before; if otherwise, makes the man a cripple all his days. These things we do but briefly name; and sundry other advantages of the like nature, that sin makes use of to produce this effect, might also be instanced, but these may suffice to our present purpose. Whatever it useth, itself is still the principle; and this is no small demonstration of its efficacy and power.

CHAPTER XVI.

The strength of indwelling sin manifested from its power and effects in persons unregenerate.

It is of the power and efficacy of indwelling sin, as it remains in several degrees in believers, that we are treating. Now I have elsewhere shown, that the nature, and all the natural properties of it, do still remain in them: though, therefore, we cannot prove directly what is the strength of sin in them, from what its power is in those, in whom it is only checked, and not at all weakened; yet we may, from an observation thereof, caution believers of the real power of that mortal enemy, with whom they have to do.

If the plague do violently rage in one city, destroying multitudes, and there be in another an infection of the same kind, which yet arises not to that height and fury there, by reason of the correction that it meets with from a better air, and reme'dies used; yet a man may demonstrate to the inhabitants, the source and danger of that infection got in among them, by the effects that it hath and doth produce among others, who have not the benefit of the preventatives and preservatives which they enjoy; which will both teach them to value the means of their preservation, and be the more watchful against the power of the infection that is amongst them. It is so in this case. Believers may be taught what is the power and efficacy of that plague of sin which

is in and among them, by the effects the same plague produceth in and among others, who have not those corrections of its poison, and those preservatives from death, with which the Lord Jesus hath furnished them.

Having then fixed on the demonstration of the power of sin, from the effects it doth produce, and having given a double instance hereof in believers themselves, I shall now farther evidence the same truth, or pursue the same evidence of it, by showing somewhat of the power that it hath in those who are unregenerate, and so have not the remedies against it, with which believers are furnished.

I shall not handle the whole power of sin in unregenerate persons, which is a very large field, and not the business I have in hand; but only by some few instances of its effects in them, intimate, as I said, to believers, what they have to deal with.

First, then, It appears in the violence it offers to the nature of men, compelling them to sins, fully contrary to all the principles of the reasonable nature wherewith they are endued from God. Every creature of God hath, in its creation, a law of operation implanted in it, which is the rule of all that proceedeth from it, of all that it doth of its own accord. So the fire ascends upwards; bodies that are weighty and heavy descend; the water flows: each according to the principles of their nature, which give them the law of their operation. That which hinders them in their operation, is force and violence, as that which hinders a stone from descending, or the fire from going upwards. That which forceth them to move contrary to the law of their nature, as a stone to go

« السابقةمتابعة »