to prayer or amendment of life, for some shelter from the storm of wrath which is feared coming upon their consciences. But is their course stopped? are their principles altered? Not at all; so soon as the storm is over, that they begin to wear out that sense and the terror that was upon them, they return to their former course, in the service of sin again. This was the state with Pharaoh once and again. (2dly.) In such seasons sin is not conquered but diverted. When it seems to fall under the power of the law, indeed it is only turned into a new channel, it is not dried up. If you go and set a dam against the streams of a river, that you suffer no water to pass in the old course and channel, but it breaks out another way, and turns all its streams in a new course, you will not say you have dried up that river; though some that come and look into the old channel may think, perhaps, that the waters are utterly gone. So is it in this case; the streams of sin, it may be, run in open sensuality and profaneness, in drunkenness and viciousness ; the preaching of the law sets a dam against these courses; conscience is terrified, and the man dares not walk in the ways wherein he hath been formerly engaged. His companions in sin not finding him in his old ways begin to laugh at him, as one that is converted and growing precise. Professors themselves begin to be persuaded that the work of God is upon his heart, because they see his old streams. dried up; but if there have been only a work of the law upon him, there is a dam put to his course, but the spring of sin is not dried up, only the streams of it are turned another way. It may be the man is fallen upon other more secret, or more spiritual sins; or, if he be beat from them also, the whole strength of lust and sin will take up its residence in self-righteousness, and pour out thereby as filthy streams as in any other way whatever. So that notwithstanding the whole work of the law upon the souls of men, indwelling sin will keep alive in them still, which is another evidence of its great power and strength.

I shall yet touch upon some other evidences of the same truth, that I have under consideration; but I shall be brief in them.

(3dly.) In the next place, then, the great endeavours of men ignorant of the righteousness of Christ for the subduing

and mortifying of sin, which are all fruitless, do evidence the great strength and power of it.

Men who have no strength against sin, may yet be made sensible of the strength of sin. The way whereby for the most part they come to that knowledge, is by some previous sense that they have of the guilt of sin. This men have by the light of their consciences; they cannot avoid it. This is not a thing in their choice; whether they will or no, they cannot but know sin to be evil, and that such an evil that renders them obnoxious to the judgment of God. This galls the minds and consciences of some so far as that they are kept in awe, and dare not sin as they would. Being awed with a sense of the guilt of sin, and the terror of the Lord, men begin to endeavour to abstain from sin, at least from such sins as they have been most terrified about. Whilst they have this design in hand, the strength and power of sin begins to discover itself unto them. They begin to find that there is something in them, that is not in their own power; for notwithstanding their resolutions and purposes, they sin still; and that so, or in such a manner, as that their consciences inform them that they must therefore perish eternally. This puts them on self-endeavours to suppress the eruption of sin, because they cannot be quiet unless so they do; nor have any rest or peace within. Now being ignorant of that only way whereby sin is to be mortified, that is, by the Spirit of Christ, they fix on many ways in their own strength to suppress it, if not to slay it; as being ignorant of that only way whereby consciences burdened with the guilt of sin may be pacified, that is, by the blood of Christ; they endeavour by many other ways to accomplish that end in vain; for no man, by any self-endeavours, can obtain peace with God.

Some of the ways whereby they endeavour to suppress the power of sin, which casts them into an unquiet condition, and their insufficiency for that end we must look into.

(1.) They will promise and bind themselves by vows from those sins, which they have been most liable unto, and so have been most perplexed withal. The psalmist shews this to be one great engine whereby false and hypocritical persons do endeavour to extricate and deliver themselves out of trouble and perplexity. They make promises to God,

which he calls flattering him with the lips, Psal. lxxviii. 36. So is it in this case; being freshly galled with the guilt of any sin, that by the power of their temptations, they, it may be, have frequently been overtaken in, they vow and promise, that at least for some such space of time as they will limit, they will not commit that sin again; and this course of proceeding is prescribed unto them by some who pretend to direct their consciences in this duty. Conscience of this now makes them watch over themselves as to the outward act of the sin that they are galled with; and so it hath one of these two effects; for either they do abstain from it for the time they have prefixed, or they do not: if they do not, as seldom they do, especially if it be a sin that hath a peculiar root in their nature and constitution, and is improved by custom into a habit, if any suitable temptation be presented unto them; their sin is increased, and therewith their terror, and they are wofully discouraged in making any opposition to sin; and therefore, for the most part, after one or two vain attempts, or more it may be, knowing no other way to mortify sin, but this of vowing against it, and keeping of that vow in their own strength, they give over all contests, and become wholly the servants of sin, being bounded only by outward considerations, without any serious endeavours for a recovery. Or, secondly, suppose that they have success in their resolutions, and do abstain from actual sins their appointed season; commonly one of these two things ensue; either they think that they have well discharged their duty, and so may a little now, at least for a season, indulge to their corruptions and lusts, and so are entangled again in the same snares of sin as formerly; or else they reckon that their vow and promise hath preserved them, and so sacrifice to their own net and drag, setting up a righteousness of their own against the grace of God; which is so far from weakening indwelling sin, that it strengthens it in the root and principle, that it may hereafter reign in the soul in security. Or, at the most, the best success that can be imagined unto this way of dealing with sin, is but the restraining of some outward eruptions of it, which tends nothing to the weakening of its power; and therefore such persons, by all their endeavours, are very far from being freed from the inward toiling, burning, disquieting, perplexing

power of sin. And this is the state of most men that are kept in bondage under the power of conviction. Hell, death, and the wrath of God, are continually presented unto their consciences; this makes them labour with all their strength against that in sin which most enrageth their consciences, and most increaseth their fears; that is, the actual eruption of it; for, for the most part, while they are freed from that they are safe; though in the mean time, sin lie tumultuating in, and defiling of, the heart continually. As with running sores, outward repelling medicines may skin them over, and hinder their corruption from coming forth; but the issue of them is, that they cause them to fester inwardly, and so prove, though it may be not so noisome and offensive as they were before, yet far more dangerous. So is it with this repelling of the power of corruption by men's vows, and promises against it; external eruptions are it may be restrained for a season; but the inward root and principle is not weakened in the least. And most commonly this is the issue of this way; that sin having gotten more strength, and being enraged by its restraint, breaks all its bounds, and captivates the soul unto all filthy abominations; which is the principle, as was before observed, of most of the visible apostacies which we have in the world, 2 Pet. ii. 19, 20.

The Holy Ghost compares sinners, because of the odious, fierce, poisonous nature of this indwelling sin, unto lions, bears, and asps, Isa. xi. 6-9. Now this is the excellency of gospel-grace, that it changes the nature and inward principles of these otherwise passionate and untamed beasts; making the wolf as the kid, the lion as the lamb, and the bear as the cow. When this is effected, they may safely be trusted in; a little child may lead them.' But these self-endeavours do not at all change the nature, but restrain their outward violence: he that takes a lion, or a wolf, and shuts him up from ravening, whilst yet his inward violence remains, may well expect that at one time or other they will break their bonds, and fall to their former ways of rapine and violence. However, shutting them up, doth not, as we see, change their natures, but only restrain their rage from doing open spoil. So it is in this case; it is grace alone that changeth the heart, and takes away that poison and

fierceness that is in them by nature; men's self-endeavours do but coerce them as to some outward eruptions. But,

(2.) Beyond bare vows and promises, with some watchfulness to observe them in a rational use of ordinary means, men have put, and some do yet put themselves on extraordinary ways of mortifying sin. This is the foundation of all that hath a shew of wisdom and religion in the papacy; their hours of prayer, fastings, their immuring and cloistering themselves, their pilgrimages, penances, and self-torturing discipline, spring all from this root. I shall not speak of the innumerable evils that have attended these self-invented ways of mortification, and how they all of them have been turned into means, occasions, and advantages of sinning; nor of the horrible hypocrisy which evidently cleaves unto the most of their observers; nor of that superstition which gives life to them all, being a thing rivetted in the natures of some, and their constitutions; fixed on others by inveterate prejudices; and the same by others taken up for secular advantages; but I will suppose the best that can be made of it, and it will be found to be a self-invented design of men ignorant of the righteousness of God, to give a check to this power of indwelling sin whereof we speak. And it is almost incredible, what fearful self-macerations, and horrible sufferings this design hath carried men out unto: and undoubtedly their blind zeal and superstition will rise in judgment, and condemn the horrible sloth and negligence of the most of them to whom the Lord hath granted the saving light of the gospel. But what is the end of these things? The apostle in brief gives us an account, Rom. ix. 31, 32. They attain not the righteousness aimed at; they come not up unto a conformity to the law; sin is not mortified; no, nor the power of it weakened; but what it loses in sensual, in carnal pleasures, it takes up with great advantage, in blindness, darkness, superstition, self-righteousness and soul-pride, contempt of the gospel and the righteousness of it, and reigns no less than in the most profligate sinners in the world.

(3.) The strength, efficacy, and power of this law of sin, may be farther evidenced from its life and in-being in the soul, notwithstanding the wound that is given unto it,