1

fpel, and the grace of the Spirit. We muft break through a great many difficulties and terrors, ere we can come at these fins; we must commit many other, in order to commit one of these; we must deliberate long, refolve defperately, and in defiance of God and confcience; and what is the effect of habit in other inftances, is a neceffary preparative in thefe, that is, obduration. In this cafe, therefore, the unhappy man, that has been guilty of any one of these, must not look upon himself as fet free, when he is come to a refolution of never repeating it again; but then when he loaths and abhors himself in duft and afhes; when he has made the utmost reparations of the wrong he is capable of; when, if the intereft of virtue require it, he is content to be oppreffed with fhame and fufferings: when, in one word, a long and conftant course of mortification, prayers, tears and good works have washed off the ftain and guilt.

2. We must be free, not only from a habit, but from fingle acts of deliberate prefumptuous fin. The reafon is plain; mortal fin cannot be committed without wounding the confcience, grieving the fpirit, and renouncing our hopes in God through Chrift, for the time at least. The wages of fin is death, is true, not only of habits, but single acts of deliberate fin.

Death

death is the penalty, the fanction of every commandment; and the commandment does not prohibit habits only, but fingle acts too. Nor is there indeed any room to doubt or difpute here, but in one cafe; which is, if a righteous man fhould be taken off in the very commiffion of a fin, which he has fallen into. Here, indeed, much may be faid, and with much uncertainty. But the refolution of this point does not, as far as I can fee, minifter to any good or neceffary end; and therefore I will leave it to God. In all other cafes, every thing is clear and plain; for if the fervant of God fall into a prefumptuous fin, 'tis univerfally acknowledged, that he cannot recover his ftation but by repentance. If he repent prefently, he is fafe; but if he continue in his fin, if he repeat it, he paffes into a state of wickedness, widens the breach between God and his foul, declines infenfibly into a habit of fin, and renders his wound more. and more incurable. 'Tis to little purpose, I think, here to confider the vaft difference there is in the commiffion, even of the fame fin, between a child of God, and a child of wrath; because a child of God muft not commit it at all if he do, tho' it be with reluctancy; tho' it be, as it were, with an imperfect confent, and with a divided foul; tho' the awe of religion and confcience feems Ꮓ

not

not utterly to have forfaken him, even in the midst of his fin; tho' his heart fmite him the very minute it is finished, and repentance and remorfe take off the relifh of the unhappy draught; yet ftill 'tis fin; 'tis in its nature damnable: and nothing but the blood of Jefus can purge the guilt.

3. The perfect man may be fuppofed, not only actually to abstain from mortal fin, but to be advanced so far in the mortification of all his inordinate affections, as to do it with ease and pleasure, with conftancy and delight. For it must reafonably be prefumed, that his victory over ungodly and worldly luft, is more confirmed and abfolute; his abhorrence of them, more deep and fenfible, more fixt and lafting, than that of a beginner or babe in Chrift. The regenerate at firft fears the confequence of fin; but by degrees he hates the fin it felf. The purity of his foul renders him now incapable of finding any pleafure in what he doted on before; and the love of God and virtue raiseth him above the temptations which he was wont to fall by: Old things are past away, and all things

are become new.

4. Laftly, The perfect man's abstinence is not only more eafy and steady, but more intire and compleat alfo than that of others he has a regard to the end and

defign of the law; to the perfection of his nature; to the purity and elevation of his foul; and therefore he expounds the prohibitions of the law in the most enlarged fenfe, and interprets them by a fpirit of faith and love. He is not content to refrain from actions directly criminal, but shuns every appearance of evil; and labours to mortify all the difpofitions and tendencies of his nature towards it; and to decline whatever circumftances of life are apt to betray the foul into a love of this world, or the body: he has crucified the world, and the body too. That pleasure, that honour, that power, that profit, which captivates the finner, tempts, and tries, and difquiets the novice, is but a burthen, a trouble to him: he finds no guft, no relish in these things. He is fo far from intemperance, fo far from wantonnefs, fo far from pride and vanity, that could be without any disadvantage to the intereft of religion; he would imitate the meanness, the plainnefs, the laborioufness, the self-denial of our Saviour's life; not only in difpofition and affection of his foul, but even in his outward state and deportment; and would prefer it far above the pomp and fhew of life. In one word, he inquires not how far he may enjoy and be fafe, but how far he may deny himself and be wife: he is fo far from Z. 2 defiring

defiring forbidden fatisfactions, that he is unwilling and afraid to find too much fatisfaction in the natural and neceffary actions of an animal life. I need not prove this to any one who has read the foregoing chapters for it is what I have been doing throughout this treatife. It is nothing, but what is confonant to the whole tenour of the fcripture; and to the example of the best times. And 'tis conformable to what the beft authors have writ, who have any thing of life and fpirit in their works; or have any true notion of the great defign of the Chriftian religion, which is an heavenly conversation. Let any one but caft his eyes on St. Bafil, or any other after him, who aimed at the fame thing I now do, the promoting holiness in the world in the beauty and perfection of it; and he will acknowledge, that I am far from having carried this mater too high. I will

μικρὸν ἢ ἀναγκαίων ἀπτόμενον. Καὶ ὡς λειτεργίαν ἐπαχθῆ ὑποτελοῦντα τῇ φύ σει, και δυσχεραίνοντα μὲν τῷ καιρῷ τῆς πεὶ ταῦτα διατρι βες. Όροι και αλά τος. Ρ. 454

quote but one or two paffages of St. (a) Móric Bafil; (a) his defcription of the perfect man with regard to his self-denial runs thus. He is one that confults the neceffities, not the pleasure of his nature; and feems to grudge the time which he bestows on the fupport and nourishment of a corruptible body. He is fo far from looking upon eating and drinking, &c. as an enjoyment, that he rather accounts it a task or troublesome

fervice