as it were, its exercise; whereby grace is breathed and preserved in health.

But an unmortified lust hinders grace from gathering strength from thoughts or duties. For,

1. An unmortified lust doth usually sequester a man's Thoughts to itself.

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How doth such a lust summon all the thoughts to attend upon it! some it sends out upon one errand, and some upon another, and all must be busied about its object. Where covetousness, or pride, or wantonness is the unmortified sin, how is the imagination crowded full of thoughts that are making provision for these lusts! some fetch in their objects, and some beautify and adorn them, and some buz and whisper the commendations of those objects to the soul: nay, and lest any thought should be vacant, some it will employ in fancying fictions and chimæras, things that never were nor are like to be, if they have but any tendency to the feeding and nourishing of that corruption. appeal to your own experience, for the confirmation of this. And, this, indeed, is a good mark, whereby we may find out what is our unmortified sin : see what it is, that most of all defiles your fancy, that the stream and current of your thoughts most run out after. Do your thoughts, when they fly abroad, return home loaded with the world? do they ordinarily present to you fantastic riches, possessions, gains, purchases; and still fill you with contrivances how to make them real? then Covetousness is your unmortified lust. Do they dwell and pore upon your own perfections? can you erect an idol to yourselves in your own imaginations, and then fall down and worship it? or do your thoughts, like flies, pitch only upon the sores and imperfections of others? then your unmortified sin is Pride. And the like trial may be made of the rest. Now, I say, when an unmortified lust hath thus seized all the thoughts, and pressed them to the service of a corrupted imagination, grace then wants its food: it is ready to be starved; and no wonder, if it languish and decay. And,

2. An unmortified lust doth much hinder and interrupt the life, vigour, and spiritualness of Holy Duties.

And this it doth Two ways: either by deadening the heart, through the guilt of it; or, by distracting the heart, through the power of it.

(1) An unmortified lust deadens the heart in holy duties, through the sense of the guilt of it lying upon the conscience.

Alas! how can we go to God with any freedom of spirit, how can we call him Father with any boldness, while we are conscious to an unmortified lust that lies still at the bottom? Speak: do not your consciences fly in your faces, and even stop your mouths, when you are praying with some such suggestions as these? "What! can I pray for pardon of sin, for strength against sin, who yet do harbour and foster a known lust unmortified? Do I beg grace against sin, and yet maintain a known sin? What! dare I beg grace, to have it abused, to have it baffled, to have it destroyed by this sin of mine, that is yet unsubdued? Is not such a prayer mere hypocrisy and dissimulation? Will the Lord hear it? or, if he doth hear it, will he not count it an abomination to him?" You, now, whose consciences thus accuse you, do you not find such reflections to be a great deadening unto duty? such, as clip the wings of the spirit, and take off the wheels of the soul, that it can drive on but heavily and slowly? Certainly, guilt is the greatest impediment to duty in the whole world: it takes off from the freeness and filialness of our spirits; and fills us with distrust, diffidence, and a slavish fear of coming before God, rather as our Judge than as our Father.

(2) An unmortified lust hinders holy duty, by distracting the heart through the power of it.

It draws away the heart from God: it entangles the affections: it scatters the thoughts: it discomposes the whole frame of the soul: so that, at the best, it proves but a broken and a shattered duty. And herein lies the cunning of Satan, that, if there be any corruption in the soul more unmortified than another, that corruption he will be sure to stir up, and interpose betwixt God and the soul in the performance of duty. Now when lust thus hinders duty, grace hath not its breathing nor exercise; and no wonder, if it grow faint and decay.

That is the Second thing.

iii. SOME FOUL AND SCANDALOUS ACTUAL SIN LIES AT THE DOOR OF A NEGLECTED MORTIFICATION.

Do we see a professor at any time break out into the commission of some notorious wickedness, what can it be imputed unto, but that corruption took advantage of his neglect of mortification? When inward motions are suffered perpetually to solicit, tempt, and importune the soul, it is a sign that lust hath

already gained the affections; and, could conscience be laid asleep, nothing would hinder it from breaking out into act. And, alas! when all the work of restraint lies merely upon conscience, it is a great hazard to that soul, lest the violence of temptations, and the importunity of occasions, or some other advantage that lust gains, should force its guards, and break out to the eminent provocation of God and scandal of religion. And, therefore, beware you do not license corruption to stir and act within: you cannot set it bounds, nor say to it, "Thus far thou shalt go, and no farther: thou shalt go as far as thoughts, as far as fancy; but, Conscience, look thou to it, that it proceed no farther." If you would, therefore, secure yourselves from this danger, mortify lust in the very womb: there stifle and suppress the motions and risings of it, otherwise you know not to what a prodigious height of impiety it will grow. The least and most inconsiderable sinful thought tends to an infinite guilt: an unworthy and unbecoming thought concerning God tends to horrid blasphemy; every lacivious thought, to open uncleanness; every envious thought, to bloody murder: and, unless mortification be daily exercised to suppress and beat down these motions, you know not into how many soul-destroying sins they may hurry you.

iv. One unmortified lust DOTH MIGHTILY ALIENATE THE HEART

FROM ITS ACQUAINTANCE AND COMMUNION WITH GOD.

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God and the soul grow estranged, as soon as any unmortified sin and the soul grow familiar. What God saith, Ezek. xiv. 5. concerning the idols of the house of Israel, the same I may say concerning men's lusts, which, while unmortified, are as so many idols set up in the heart: They are all estranged from me through their idols. And yet these very men, of whom God thus complains as being grown strangers to him, we find in the first verse crowding about the Prophet to enquire of God by him: they come to him, and yet are estranged from him. Such is the wonderful malignity of unmortified lust, that it makes men strangers to God, even when they are nearest attendants upon him.

There are but Two things, that keep up acquaintance between God and the soul.

On God's part, the gracious communications of his

Spirit; through which, by enlightening, enlivening,

supporting, and comforting influences, he converseth with that soul to whom he vouchsafes them. And, On our part, the spiritual frame of the Heart; whereby it doth, with a holy delight, freedom, and frequency, converse with God in the returns of sincere and cordial obedience.

But an unmortified lust breaks off this acquaintance, as to both the parts of it.

1. It provokes God to suspend the influences of his Spirit, and so to cut off the intercourse on his part.

Isai. Ivii. 17. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth: so, truly, in the day of our desertion, whether it be in respect of grace or comfort, it is for the iniquity of such or such an unmortified sin, that God is wroth and hides himself. Think you that God will so debase himself, as to be in the same heart an inmate with lust; when that shall be regarded and he slighted, that attended and he neglected? will not this provoke him to call in the influences of his grace, and depart? wherefore else is it, that Christians do so often complain, that God is unto them but as a stranger, and as a wayfaring man, that turneth aside to tarry but for a night, nay for a moment? that God is not unto them, as in the days of old? that those quickenings, revivings, supports, and comforts are now lost, which before they enjoyed? and that they become as the heath and wilderness; barren as to grace, and parched as to comfort? If they look inward in this case, will they not find some iniquity regarded, some sin allowed and indulged, to be the cause of all this? Certainly, if mortification doth neither strike at this root of bitterness, nor lop off its branches, it will spread itself over the whole soul; and intercept both the light of God's countenance, and the influences of his Spirit.

2. One unmortified lust doth mightily untune the soul, and disorder the spiritualness of that frame and disposition which it should be kept in, if we would maintain communion with God.

Look how estrangement and distance grow between familiar friends, so, likewise, grows the estrangement between God and the soul. If a man be conscious of any injury that he hath done his friend, this will make him afraid and ashamed to converse with him, less free and less frequent in his society. So it is here, in this case: an unmortified lust fills the soul with a guilty shame,

arising from the consciousness of an injury done to God: this guilty shame is always joined with some degrees of a slavish and base fear of God, who is thus wronged: both these take off from that holy freedom, which reverently to use towards God, is the great privilege of a gracious heart in its communion with him: and this lessens that sweet and unspeakable delight, which formerly it could enjoy from the intimacy, freedom, and spiritualness of this fellowship: and all these do finally cause a shyness, distance, and estrangement in the soul towards God. The root of all this is still in some unmortified lust, which is the occasion of the whole breach.

Now reflect upon yourselves, you, who have indulged any sin: hath it not by degrees eaten out the spiritualness of your hearts, and weakened the life and vigour of your communion? hath it not made you dead, and cold, and indifferent unto the things and ways of God? have you not beheld God as it were at a great distance, and cared not for a nearer converse with him? Is it not high time, think you, that this lust, which hath thus divided betwixt God and your souls, should now at length be mortified; and, this make-bait being once removed, that you again should renew the nearness of your acquaintance with him? otherwise, let me tell you, it is sadly to be feared, lest this es trangement grow into a woeful apostacy, and that end in a fearful perdition.

v. One unmortified lust GIVES AN ADDITIONAL STRENGTH TO OTHERS ALSO, which of themselves were weak and impotent, and could not otherwise have such power over the soul.

And this it doth, as it is the ringleading lust, that unites all others under a discipline and government: scattered enemies are not so powerful nor so formidable, as when they are combined together in a body: then their design is one, their enterprise one, and they all act as one enemy. Now an unmortified lust doth, as it were, rally all the rest under a discipline: this heads them: this leads them on: and they all promote the designs, and fight under the conduct of this lust; which union adds a mighty strength and power to them. It may be, a temptation, which could not prevail for itself and upon the account of its own interest that it hath in the soul, will yet certainly prevail, when it pleads its subordination and serviceableness to the unmortified sin, the master-lust. This is very remarkable and therefore suppose, for instance, that pride be the