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 labour 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 wilful 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 discourageth 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 doth 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 doth 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 labour is but lost, when they find every one of those corruptions to stir and move as they did formerly. And this discourageth 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 riseth 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 hath as many to fight against and to conquer, as before. What a discouragement this is, any one who is loth to put himself to a great deal of trouble

to no purpose, may easily imagine. "Oh!" saith 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 surpriseth 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 endeavours, 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, Rom. vii. 23. David, no less a warrior against uncircumcised lusts than against uncircumcised Philistines, yet cries out of his wounds, Psal. xxxviii. 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 loseth the breast-plate of righteousness; another, the helmet of hope. Yea, there is no Christian, but is in some encounter or other despoiled of part of his armour, 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

practised among Christians. And what is at the bottom of all this, but only a great deal of spiritual sloth and laziness, that makes them loth to put themselves upon difficulties and hazards; yea and possibly makes them fancy more difficulties and hazards in mortification than indeed there are? Prov. xxvi. 13. The slothful man saith, 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 labour of going abroad. Well, what doth this sluggard do? in the next verse, the Wise Man tells us: As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth 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 whatsoever 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 saith our Saviour, Matt. xi. 12? The kingdom of heaven suffereth 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 for ever shut out.

V. The next thing to be enquired into, is, WHAT THIS NECESSARY AND YET MUCH NEGLECTED DUTY OF MORTIFICATION IS, AND WHEREIN IT DOTH CON

SIST.

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,

And

Negatively, to shew 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 rigour 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.

Positively, I shall endeavour to open what is necessarily required unto true mortification, and wherein that great work and duty doth 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. St. John frequently gives these men the plain lie: 1 John i. 8. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us: v. 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 hath made the difference between sinning and forbearing to sin unperceivable. It is, indeed, the sincere desire and endeavour 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, ye shall see them again no more for ever:" 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 cleaveth to us; yet we can never be fully purified, till 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 vouchsafe 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 rigour 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 till his skin cleaveth 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 centre of the soul, in which lust sits enthroned, and despises all the attempts and batteries that men make