turn at evening, they make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city. They go up and down and belch out with their mouths, swords are in their lips;' ver. 7; and yet are not able to accomplish their designs. What tortures do such poor creatures live in? Envy, malice, wrath, revenge, devour their hearts by not getting vent. And when God hath exercised the other acts of his wise providence in cutting short their power, or opposing a greater power to them, when nothing else will do, he cuts them off in their sins, and to the grave they go full of purposes of iniquity. Others are no less hurried and diverted by the power of other lusts which they are not able to satisfy. This is the sore travail they are exercised with all their days. If they accomplish their designs they are more wicked and hellish than before; and if they do not, they are filled with vexation and discontentment. This is the portion of them who know not the Lord, nor the power of his grace. Envy not their condition; notwithstanding their outward glittering shew, their hearts are full of anxiety, trouble, and sorrow. [4.] Do we see sometimes the floodgates of men's lusts and rage set open against the church and interest of it, and doth prevalency attend them, and power is for a season on their side; let not the saints of God despond. He hath unspeakably various and effectual ways for the stifling of their conceptions, to give them dry breasts, and a miscarrying womb. He can stop their fury when he pleaseth. Surely,' saith the psalmist, 'the wrath of man shall praise thee, the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain;' Psal. lxxvi. 10. When so much of their wrath is let out as shall exalt his praise, he can when he pleaseth set up a power, greater than the combined strength of all sinning creatures, and restrain the remainder of the wrath that they had conceived. 'He shall cut off the spirit of princes, he is terrible to the kings of the earth;' ver. 12. Some he will cut off and destroy, some he will terrify and affright, and prevent the rage of all. He can knock them on the head, or break out their teeth, or chain up their wrath, and who can oppose him? [5.] Those who have received benefit by any of the ways mentioned, may know to whom they owe their preservation, and not look on it as a common thing. When you have conceived sin, hath God weakened your power for sin, or denied you opportunity, or took away the object of your lusts, or diverted your thoughts by new providences? know assuredly that you have received mercy thereby. Though God deal not these providences always in a subserviency to the covenant of grace, yet there is always mercy in them, always a call in them to consider the author of them. Had not God thus dealt with you, it may be this day you had been a terror to yourselves, a shame to your relations, and under the punishment due to some notorious sins which you had conceived. Besides, there is commonly an additional guilt in sin brought forth, above what is in the mere conception of it. It may be others would have been ruined by it here, or drawn into a partnership in sin by it, and so have been eternally ruined by it, all which are prevented by these providences, and eternity will witness, that there is a singularity of mercy in them. Do not look then on any such things as common accidents, the hand of God is in them all; and that a merciful hand if not despised; if it be, yet God doth good to others by it, the world is the better, and you are not so wicked as you would be. [6.] We may also see hence the great use of magistracy in the world, that great appointment of God. Amongst other things, it is peculiarly subservient to this holy providence, in obstructing the bringing forth of conceived sin; namely, by the terror of him that bears the sword. God fixes that on the hearts of evil men which he expresseth, Rom. xiii. 4. If thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for the power beareth not the sword in vain, for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath on them that do evil.' God fixes this on the hearts of men, and by the dread and terror of it closeth the womb of sin, that it shall not bring forth. When there was no king in Israel, none to put to rebuke, and none of whom evil men were afraid, there was woful work and havoc amongst the children of men made in the world, as we may see in the last chapters of the book of Judges. The greatest mercies and blessings that in this world we are made partakers of, next to them of the gospel and covenant of grace, come to us through this channel and conduit. And indeed, this whereof we have been speaking, is the proper work of magistracy, namely, to be subservient to the providence of God in obstructing the bringing forth of conceived sin. These then are some of the ways whereby God providentially prevents the bringing forth of sin, by opposing obstacles to the power of the sinner. And by them sin is not consumed, but shut up in the womb. Men are not burdened for it, but with it; not laden in their hearts and consciences with its guilt, but perplexed with its power, which they are not able to exert and satisfy. The way that yet remains for consideration whereby God obviates the production of conceived sin, is his working on the will of the sinners, so making sin to consume away in the womb. There are two ways in general whereby God thus prevents the bringing forth of conceived sin, by working on the will of the sinner; and they are, 1st. by restraining grace: 2dly. by renewing grace. He doth it sometimes the one way, sometimes the other. The first of these is common to regenerate and unregenerate persons, the latter peculiar to believers; and God doth it variously as to particulars by them both. We shall begin with the first of them. 1st. God doth this in the way of restraining grace by some arrow of particular conviction, fixed in the heart and conscience of the sinner, in reference unto the particular sin which he had conceived. This staggers and changes the mind, as to the particular intended, causeth the hands to hang down, and the weapons of lust to fall out of them. Hereby conceived sin proves abortive. How God doth this work, by what immediate touches, strokes, blows, rebukes of his Spirit; by what reasonings, arguments, and commotions of men's own consciences, is not for us thoroughly to find out. It is done, as was said, in unspeakable variety, and the works of God are past finding out. But as to what light may be given unto it from Scripture instances, after we have manifested the general way of God's procedure, it shall be insisted on. Thus then God dealt in the case of Esau and Jacob. Esau had long conceived his brother's death, he comforted himself with the thoughts of it, and resolutions about it, Gen. xxvii. 41. as is the manner of profligate sinners. Upon his first opportunity he comes forth to execute his intended rage, and Jacob concludes that he would'smite the mother with the children;' Gen. xxxii. 11. An opportunity is presented unto this wicked and profane person, to bring forth that sin that had lain in his heart now twenty years; he hath full power in his hand to perform his purpose. In the midst of this posture of things, God comes in upon his heart with some secret and effectual working of his Spirit and power, changeth him from his purpose, causeth his conceived sin to melt away, that he falls upon the neck of him with embraces, whom he thought to have slain. Of the same nature, though the way of it was peculiar, was his dealing with Laban the Syrian, in reference to the same Jacob, Gen. xxxi. 24. By a dream, a vision in the night, God hinders him from so much as speaking roughly to him. It was with him as in Micah ii. 1. he had devised evil on his bed, and when he thought to have practised it in the morning, God interposed in a dream, and hides sin from him, as he speaks, Job xxxiii. 15-17. To the same purpose is that of the psalmist concerning the people of God, Psal. cvi. 46. He made them to be pitied of all those who carried them captive.' Men usually deal in rigour with those whom they have taken captive in war. It was the way of old to rule captives with force and cruelty. Here God turns and changes their hearts, not in general unto himself, but to this particular of respect to his people. And this way in general doth God every day prevent the bringing forth of a world of sin. He sharpens arrows of conviction upon the spirits of men, as to the particular that they are engaged in. Their hearts are not changed as to sin, but their minds are altered as to this or that sin. They break, it may be, the vessel they had fashioned, and go to work upon some other. Now that we may a little see into the ways whereby God doth accomplish this work, we must premise the ensuing considerations. (1st.) That the general medium wherein the matter of restraining grace doth consist, whereby God thus prevents the bringing forth of sin, doth lie in certain arguments and reasonings, presented to the mind of the sinner, whereby he is induced to desert his purpose, to change and alter his mind, as to the sin he had conceived. Reasons against it are presented unto him, which prevail upon him to relinquish his design, and give over his purpose. This is the general way of the working of restraining grace, it is by arguments and reasonings rising up against the perpetration of conceived sin. (2dly.) That no arguments or reasonings, as such, materially considered, are sufficient to stop or hinder any purpose of sinning, or to cause conceived sin to prove abortive, if the sinner have power and opportunity to bring it forth. They are not in themselves, and on their own account restraining grace; for if they were, the administration and communication of grace, as grace, were left unto every man who is able to give advice against sin. Nothing is, nor can be called grace, though common, and such as may perish, but with respect unto its peculiar relation to God. God, by the power of his Spirit, making arguments and reasons effectual and prevailing, turns that to be grace, I mean of this kind, which in itself, and in its own nature, was bare reason. And that efficacy of the Spirit, which the Lord puts forth in these persuasions and motives, is that which we call restraining grace. These things being premised, we shall now consider some of the arguments which we find that he hath made use of to this end and purpose. [1st.] God stops many men in their ways upon the conception of sin, by an argument taken from the difficulty, if not impossibility, of doing that they aim at. They have a mind unto it, but God sets a hedge and a wall before them, that they shall judge it to be so hard and difficult to accomplish what they intend, that it is better for them to let it alone and give over. Thus Herod would have put John Baptist to death upon the first provocation, but he feared the multitude, because they accounted him as a prophet, Matt. xiv. 5. He had conceived his murder, and was free for the execution of it. God raised this consideration in his heart, If I kill him, the people will tumultuate, he hath a great party amongst them, and sedition will arise that may cost me my life, or kingdom. He feared the multitude, and durst not execute the wickedness he had conceived, because of the difficulty he foresaw he should be entangled withal. And God made the argument effectual for the season; for otherwise we know that men will venture the utmost hazards for the satisfaction of their lusts; as he also did afterward. The Pharisees were in the very same state and condition, Matt. xxi. 26. they would fain have decried the ministry of John, but durst not for fear of the people; and, ver. 46. of the same chapter, by the same argument were they deterred |