give way to make room for another; so that, though the stream of corruption be diverted and turned out of one channel, yet it runs with as full a tide in another. Let not him, who, of a sensual person, is grown a worldling; of a profane person, a hypocrite; think that he hath mortified any one of these lusts. A changed man, indeed, he is; changed from one extreme to another, from sin to sin: but this change is far from mortification.

(2) When a lust rather forsakes the sinner, than he it; then there may be a perpetual separation, where there is no mortifi

cation.

There are sins, that are proper and peculiar to such an estate and season of a man's life, upon the alteration of which they vanish and disappear: the sins of youth drop off from declining age, as incongruous and misbecoming: the man doth, as it were, outgrow them. Now if he reflect back, to take a view of the numberless vanities and follies he hath left, how deadened his heart and affections are to those things which before he delighted in, this may possibly make him think himself a very mortified man; when, alas! he hath not so much forsaken his sins, as they him: so long as his natural vigour could relish the temptation, and so long as it comports with his state and condition; so long he served it, and lived in it. Let not such a man deceive himself: though now he hath forsaken it, yet he never mortified it: the sin deserted him, and fell off of its own accord : this fruit of the flesh was never beaten down by mortification, but, being full ripe, fell off of itself without violence.

That is the Fourth thing.

5. Every victory and conquest gained over sin, is not a true mortification of it.

I doubt not, but many unregenerate persons have yet had eminent successes in opposing their corruptions; so as to hinder them, even when they have been raging and impetuous, from breaking forth, either to the defiling or wounding of their consciences; nay, sometimes so far as sensibly to abate the power and force of them: but all this amounts not to a true mortification.

And that, upon a double account.

(1) Because all such conquests are achieved by principles altogether foreign and extraneous unto grace.

That hath no hand in the work: but natural conscience, acted by slavish fear or some other carnal consideration, manageth

all the fights and scuffles, that wicked men maintain against their lusts. And,

(2) Because, though by these victories lust seems to be weakened in its branches, yet it is much strengthened in its root. If one sin be pulled down, it is that another may be advanced. All the conquests, that wicked men obtain, do not destroy the government, but only change the governors. Nay, indeed, it is only one contrary lust, that fights against the other; and, which soever of them is defeated, yet still the body of sin thrives.

That is the Last thing.

ii. Now, seeing there are so many things like true mortification in the world, it nearly concerns us to beware, lest we be deceived by them; and so flatter ourselves with a false evidence for life.

To prevent which, it will be necessary, to open to you this great duty of mortification POSITIVELY.

And in this, possibly, some useful progress may be made, when these Two things have been searched into.

Wherein it doth consist.

What things are indispensibly required thereunto.

1. For the first, I take the Nature of Mortification to consist in these Three things.

In weakening Sin's Root and Principle.

In suppressing its Risings and Motions. And,

In restraining its outward Actings and Eruptions.

It is the First of these, that makes the other two any parts of this true mortification. Let a man oppose himself, all his days, against the workings of corruption within, and the actings of it without; yet, unless the radical power and force of corruption be in some good measure abated, let him not think he hath mortified any one lust. It is a task utterly impossible to kill it, if it be not first wounded at the heart. It were easy to demonstrate the vanity and unsuccessfulness of all endeavours, to mortify these limbs and out-parts of the Old Man, unless his vitals be first perished, and his inward strength decayed.

For,

First. Hereby you can never arrive at any comfortable issue in the work. It is but like beating down leaves from a tree, - which will certainly sprout forth again: the root is still remaining in the ground, full of sap and juice; and will supply every

branch of corruption with the same nourishment, and make it flourish into the same strength and verdure; which all your endeavours will but fruitlessly attempt to despoil it of.

And,

Secondly. Hereupon finding no better success, but that, after all, he sees himself deluded, and that lust is not mortified; still, as thick fogs and steams of it rise within him as ever; still, it is as unruly and boisterous as ever; and more to suppress and weaken it, in his way, cannot be done: hereupon, I say, he despairingly gives over all future contendings, and abandons himself to the power and violence of his corruptions; and those, which before he strove in vain to stop, he now spurs on and drives furiously towards perdition.

This is the fearful, and yet too frequent issue, of such endeavours, as have their beginnings merely from the convictions of natural conscience: they receive no encouragement nor recruit from the decay of corruption; and, therefore, usually expire, either in a loose formality, or in a professed dissoluteness. Very sad it is to consider how much pains and industry have been lost in struggling against sin, only upon this account; that, to all their endeavours, there hath been no foundation laid, in the radical and inward weakening of the habit and body of corruption.

This inward weakening of corruption is Twofold:

The First proceeds from that mortal and incurable wound, which the body of sin received in the first implantation of grace. Then was the head of this serpent crushed; and, whereas before it had the power and authority of a king and sovereign in the soul, in that very moment it was deposed, and hath ever since harassed it only as a rebel and traitor.

The Second proceeds from those redoubled strokes, with which mortified Christians follow their corruptions; whereby they every day and hour draw blood and spirits from them, and so by degrees waste and weaken them. The first, indeed, is not any part of that mortification, whereof I am now treating; but rather a necessary antecedent to it: and the latter would not be mortification, did it not presuppose the former; for therefore doth a man, by opposing the motions and actings of corruption in his daily conversation, weaken the habit of it, because of that first weakening which it received in conversion. The Apostle, speaking of this weakening of sin, calls it a crucifying of it with Christ: Rom. vi. 6. Our old man is crucified with him,

that the body of sin might be destroyed. Now look, how was Christ crucified? first he was hung upon the cross, and then pierced with a spear: so, truly, it is in the mortification of corruption our first conversion unto God hangs it upon the cross, whence it shall never come down alive; and then our constant endeavours are as so many spears continually piercing it, till the body of this Old Man becomes all over one great wound, whence daily issue out the blood and spirit, the strength and vigour, and at length life itself. This is it, which makes the keeping under of the motions of corruption, and the keeping in of its eruptions, to be true mortification in the children of God; when yet the very same endeavours, in unregenerate men, are nothing so. Sin, in them, is upon the throne, and not upon the cross: and therefore they cannot wound, nor pierce it: they cannot weaken, nor destroy it.

"Yea," but may some say, "must there, in true mortification, be not only a striving against the motions and actings of corruption, but also the weakening of its root and principle? Alas! then I fear all my endeavours have been fruitless and in vain." Some success, indeed, I have gained against the eruptions of lust; but still I find the temptations of it as strong and violent as ever: I perceive no weakenings, no decays in it; but it rather grows more rebellious and headstrong every day than other; and, therefore, all, that I have done against them, hath not been true mortification."

This, no question, is the case of many a mortified Christian: and, therefore, for answer hereunto,

First. Consider: possibly thou mayest be herein mistaken, that thou thinkest that corruption moves stronger than before, when only thou takest more notice of its motions than thou didst before.

When the heart is made tender and soft by a long exercise of mortification, a less temptation troubles it more, than formerly a greater would. Every the least rising of corruption in the heart seems now a desperate and heinous thing; whereas, before, through the deadness and stupidity of conscience, it was made light of and scarce regarded. This seeming strength of sin is not a sign that sin is not dying; but rather a sign that thou art spiritually alive, because so very sensible of its motions. The stronger the opposition is, which grace makes against sin, the stronger also will sin seem to work, though indeed it never was weaker. If a strong-natured man fall into a little sickness and

distemper, it seems more violent and raging in him, than a greater would in another of a weak constitution; because the natural vigour conflicts more with the disease: he is unquiet and turbulent, and tosses to and fro, merely because the strength of nature is impatient till the sickness be removed. So is it here: if a gracious soul fall into any sinful distemper, what conflicts and agonies are there, as if he were in the very pangs of death! Doth this argue the strength of corruption? No: nothing less: it rather argues the strength of grace, which makes the soul to wrestle thus impatiently, till the corruption be overcome and removed. None so much complain of the strength and power of their sins, as those, in whom it is unto some good degree mortified; because they have that contrary principle of grace in them, which makes them sensible of the least risings and motions of it.

Secondly. Consider: corruption may act strongest in the soul, then, when it is in itself weakest. It may be very strong in acting, when it is but weak in being.

You know with what a great blaze a wasted candle goes out, and with what violent pangs and strugglings men use to depart this life: so, sometimes, a mortified lust makes such a blaze, as if it would set the whole soul on fire; when, indeed, it is but expiring: it so struggles, as if it would master grace; when, indeed, it is but its last pull and death-pang. What is said of Christ when hanging on the cross, Mark xv. 37. He cried with a loud voice, and then gave up the ghost; the same may I say of corruption hanging on the cross with a loud voice in a temptation, as if it were not only alive, but strong and vigorous: yea, but this loud voice is many times its last voice; and then it gives up the ghost, and draws its last breath crying. And,

Thirdly. Some accidental improvement may make a lust that is subdued and truly mortified, yet seem no way weakened; but rather much more active and vigorous than ever before.

Sometimes, the very crasis and temper of the body may so alter, as to cause a greater propenseness to such or such a corruption than formerly: and, sometimes, a man may lie in the way of more temptations than ever. Now, upon such advantages as these, corruption, though it be mortified, yet will be stirring: yea, and be stirring, it may be, more violently than ever it did while it was unmortified; for, though then it had more strength and power of its own, yet it had not such odds of grace, as through these external aids it hath gotten. And,