Chapter 4. The Usefulness of Mortification
The last principle; of the usefulness of mortification. The vigor and comfort of our spiritual life depend on our mortification. In what sense — not absolutely and necessarily (Psalm 88; Heman's condition). Not as the next and immediate cause. As a means: by removing the contrary. The desperate effects of unmortified lust: it weakens the soul (Psalm 38:3, 8) in sundry ways, and darkens it. All graces improved by the mortification of sin. The best evidence of sincerity.
The last principle I shall insist on, omitting 1. the necessity of mortification unto life, and 2. the certainty of life upon mortification, is:
That the life, vigor, and comfort of our spiritual life depends much on our mortification of sin.
Strength, and comfort, and power, and peace in our walking with God, are the things of our desires. Were any of us asked seriously, what it is that troubles us, we must refer it to one of these heads; either we want strength, or power, vigor and life, in our obedience, in our walking with God; or we want peace, comfort, and consolation therein. Whatever it is, that may befall a believer, that does not belong to one of these two heads, does not deserve to be mentioned in the days of our complaints. Now all these do much depend on a constant course of mortification; concerning which observe:
1. I do not say they proceed from it; as though they were necessarily tied to it. A man may be carried on in a constant course of mortification all his days, and yet perhaps never enjoy a good day of peace and consolation. So it was with Heman (Psalm 88). His life was a life of perpetual mortification, and walking with God, yet terrors and wounds were his portion all his days: but God singled out Heman, a choice friend, to make him an example to them that afterwards should be in distress. Can you complain if it be no otherwise with you than it was with Heman, that eminent servant of God? And this shall be his praise to the end of the world. God makes it his prerogative to speak peace and consolation (Isaiah 57:18, 19): I will comfort him, says God — but how? by an immediate work of the new creation: I create it, says God. The use of means for the obtaining of peace is ours; the bestowing of it is God's prerogative.
2. In the ways instituted by God for to give us life, vigor, courage and consolation, mortification is not one of the immediate causes of it. They are the privileges of our adoption, made known to our souls, that give us immediately these things. The Spirit bearing witness with our spirits that we are the children of God; giving us a new name, and a white stone; adoption and justification, that is, as to the sense and knowledge of them, are the immediate causes (in the hand of the Spirit) of these things. But this I say:
3. In our ordinary walking with God, and in an ordinary course of his dealing with us, the vigor and comfort of our spiritual lives depends much on our mortification, not only as a necessary condition, but as a thing that has an effectual influence thereinto.
First, this alone keeps sin from depriving us of the one and the other: every unmortified sin will certainly do two things:
1. It will weaken the soul, and deprive it of its vigor.
2. It will darken the soul, and deprive it of its comfort and peace.
(1.) It weakens the soul, and deprives it of its strength: when David had for a while harbored an unmortified lust in his heart, it broke all his bones, and left him no spiritual strength; hence he complained that he was sick, weak, wounded, faint; there is (said he) no soundness in me (Psalm 38:3); I am feeble and sore broken (verse 8); I cannot so much as look up (Psalm 40:12). An unmortified lust will drink up the spirit, and all the vigor of the soul, and weaken it for all duties.
1. It untunes and unframes the heart itself, by entangling its affections. It diverts the heart from that spiritual frame that is required for vigorous communion with God. It lays hold on the affections, rendering its object beloved and desirable; so expelling the love of the Father (1 John 2:1; 3:17). So that the soul cannot say uprightly and truly to God, You are my portion, having something else that it loves. Fear, desire, hope, which are the choice affections of the soul, that should be full of God, will be one way or other entangled with it.
2. It fills the thoughts with contrivances about it. Thoughts are the great purveyors of the soul, to bring in provision to satisfy its affections; and if sin remain unmortified in the heart, they must ever and anon be making provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof. They must glaze, adorn, and dress the objects of the flesh, and bring them home to give satisfaction. And this they are able to do, in the service of a defiled imagination, beyond all expression.
3. It breaks out and actually hinders duty. The ambitious man must be studying, and the worldling must be working or contriving, and the sensual vain person providing himself for vanity, when they should be engaged in the worship of God.
Were this my present business, to set forth the breaches, ruin, weakness, desolations, that one unmortified lust will bring upon a soul, this discourse must be extended much beyond my intent.
(2.) As sin weakens, so it darkens the soul. It is a cloud, a thick cloud, that spreads itself over the face of the soul, and intercepts all the beams of God's love and favor. It takes away all sense of the privilege of our adoption: and if the soul begins to gather up thoughts of consolation, sin quickly scatters them. Of which afterwards.
Now in this regard does the vigor and power of our spiritual life depend on our mortification. It is the only means of the removal of that, which will allow us neither the one nor the other. Men that are sick and wounded under the power of lust, make many applications for help; they cry to God, when the perplexity of their thoughts overwhelms them; even to God do they cry, but are not delivered; in vain do they use many remedies, they shall not be healed (Hosea 5:13). Men may see their sickness and wounds, but yet if they make not due applications their cure will not be effected.
Secondly, mortification prunes all the graces of God, and makes room for them in our hearts, to grow. The life and vigor of our spiritual lives consists in the vigor and flourishing of the plants of grace in our hearts. Now as you may see in a garden, let there be a precious herb planted, and let the ground be untilled, and weeds grow about it, perhaps it will live still, but be a poor withering, useless thing; you must look and search for it, and sometimes can scarce find it; and when you do, you can scarce know it, whether it be the plant you look for or not; and suppose it be; you can make no use of it at all. When let another of the same kind be set in ground, naturally as barren and bad as the other; but let it be well weeded, and every thing that is noxious and hurtful removed from it, it flourishes and thrives; you may see it at first look into the garden, and have it for your use when you please. So it is with the graces of the Spirit that are planted in our hearts: they abide in a heart where there is some neglect of mortification, but they are ready to die (Revelation 3:2); they are withering and decaying. The heart is like the sluggard's field, so overgrown with weeds, that you can scarce see the good corn. Such a man may search for faith, love and zeal, and scarce be able to find any; and if he does discover that these graces are there, yet alive, and sincere; yet they are so weak, so clogged with lusts, that they are of very little use. But now let the heart be cleansed by mortification, the weeds of lust constantly and daily rooted up, (as they spring daily, nature being their proper soil,) let room be made for grace to thrive and flourish; how will every grace act its part, and be ready for every use and purpose!
Thirdly, as to our peace; as there is nothing that has any evidence of sincerity without it, so I know nothing that has such an evidence of sincerity in it; which is no small foundation of our peace: mortification is the soul's vigorous opposition to self; wherein sincerity is most evident.
The second general principle, concerning the means of mortification, is proposed for confirmation. The Spirit is the only author of this work. The emptiness of Roman Catholic mortification is exposed. Many means they use were never appointed by God for this purpose. Those that were appointed by God are abused by them. The mistakes of others in this matter are also examined. The Spirit is promised to believers for this work (Ezekiel 11:19; chapter 36:26). Everything we receive from Christ comes to us through the Spirit. How the Spirit mortifies sin (Galatians 5:19-23) is explained. The various ways of His working toward this end are set out. How His work and our duty relate is considered.
The next principle concerns the supreme and sovereign cause of the mortification we are treating — which, in the words laid as the foundation of this discourse, is said to be the Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit, as was shown.
He alone is sufficient for this work. All methods and means apart from Him are as nothing, for He is the great efficient cause of mortification, working in us as He pleases.
1. People seek other remedies in vain; those remedies will not heal them. The many ways that have been prescribed for mortifying sin are well known. The greater part of Roman Catholic religion — that portion which looks most like genuine religion in their practice — consists of mistaken ways and means of mortification. This is the pretense of their rough garments by which they deceive. Their vows, orders, fastings, and penances are all built on this foundation: they are all aimed at mortifying sin. Their preachings, sermons, and books of devotion all look in this direction. Those who interpret the locusts that came out of the pit (Revelation 9:2) as the friars of the Roman Church — who are said to torment men so that they seek death but cannot find it (verse 6) — believe they did this through their stinging sermons. These sermons convicted people of sin but could not point to the remedy for healing or mortifying it, and so kept people in perpetual anguish and terror, longing to die. This, I say, is the substance and glory of their religion. But between their laboring to mortify people who are spiritually dead, their ignorance of the nature and purpose of the work, and the poison they mix into it — their claim to merit — their glory is their shame. But more on them and their mortification later.
That the ways and means invented by them for mortifying sin are still urged and prescribed for the same purpose by some who should know the Gospel better is well known. Such directions for this purpose have recently been given by some, and eagerly received by others who call themselves Protestants — directions that would have suited Roman Catholic devotion three or four centuries ago. Such outward efforts, bodily exercises, self-performed acts, and purely legal duties — with no mention whatsoever of Christ or His Spirit — are dressed up in inflated language as the only means and methods for mortifying sin. They reveal a deep-seated unfamiliarity with the power of God and the mystery of the Gospel. This was one motivation for publishing this plain and direct discourse.
The reasons why Roman Catholics can never truly mortify any sin through all their efforts include the following:
1. Because many of the ways and means they employ for this purpose were never appointed by God for it. Nothing in religion has any power to accomplish an end unless God appointed it for that purpose. Things like their rough garments, vows, penances, disciplines, and monastic life fall into this category. About all of these God will say, 'Who required these things from you?' and 'In vain do you worship Me, teaching human traditions as if they were commands from God.' Various self-imposed afflictions urged by others fall into the same category.
2. Because the things that God has appointed as means are not used by them in their proper place and order. Prayer, fasting, watching, meditation, and similar practices have their proper use in this work. But they treat these streams as if they were the fountain. These means accomplish the end only as instruments subordinate to the Spirit and to faith — yet Roman Catholics look to them as if they work by the virtue of the act itself. If they fast so much, pray so much, and keep their hours and schedules, the work is done. As the apostle says of some in another context, they are always learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth. So these are always mortifying but never arrive at any real mortification. In short, they have various means to discipline the natural man as to his natural life here, but none to mortify lust or corruption.
This is the general mistake of people who are ignorant of the Gospel on this matter, and it lies at the root of much of the superstition and self-willed worship that has been brought into the world. What dreadful self-tortures were practiced by some of the early founders of monastic devotion? What violence did they do to nature? What extreme suffering did they inflict on themselves? Search their ways and principles to the bottom, and you will find one root: in attempting rigid mortification, they fell upon the natural man instead of the corrupt old man — upon the body in which we live rather than the body of death.
The natural religious tendency found in others will not do it either. When people are stung by the guilt of a sin that has overcome them, they instantly promise themselves and God that they will never do it again. They watch themselves and pray for a season — until the heat cools and the sense of sin fades, and so the effort at mortification fades with it, and sin returns to its former dominance. Religious duties are excellent food for a healthy soul; they are no medicine for a sick one. A man who turns his food into his medicine should not expect much effect from either. Spiritually sick people cannot sweat out their sickness through striving. But this is the way of people who deceive their own souls, as we shall see later.
That none of these ways are sufficient is clear from the very nature of the work to be done. It requires such a complex of concurrent actions that no self-effort can reach it. It is the kind of work that requires almighty power for its accomplishment, as will be demonstrated later.
This work, then, belongs to the Spirit.
1. He is promised by God to be given to us for this very work. The removal of the stony heart — that is, the stubborn, proud, rebellious, unbelieving heart — is in general the work of mortification we are treating. This is precisely what is promised to be done by the Spirit (Ezekiel 11:19; Ezekiel 36:26). 'I will give My Spirit, and take away the stony heart.' This work is accomplished by the Spirit of God, even when all other means fail (Isaiah 57:17-18).
2. All our mortification comes from what Christ gives us, and everything Christ gives us comes to us through the Spirit of Christ. Without Christ we can do nothing (John 15:5). Every supply and resource He provides — whether in the beginning, increase, or exercise of any grace — comes from Him by the Spirit, through whom alone He works in and upon believers. Our mortification comes from Him: He is exalted and made both Prince and Savior to give repentance to us (Acts 5:31), and mortification is no small part of that repentance. How does He do it? Having received the promise of the Holy Spirit, He sends Him out for that very purpose (Acts 2:33).
Briefly addressing one or two questions will bring me closer to my main purpose.
The first question is:
Question: How does the Spirit mortify sin?
The answer, in general, is: in three ways.
1. By causing our hearts to abound in grace and the fruits that are contrary to the flesh and to the principles of the flesh. The apostle sets the fruits of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit in contrast: 'The fruits of the flesh are such and such,' he says (Galatians 5:19-20), 'but the fruits of the Spirit are quite different — of an entirely different kind' (verses 22-23). Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires — but how? By living in the Spirit and walking according to the Spirit (verse 25): that is, by the growing abundance of these graces of the Spirit in us, and walking in step with them. For these are opposed to one another (verse 17), so that both cannot exist together in the same person in any intense or high degree. This renewal by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5) is one great means of mortification: He causes us to grow, thrive, flourish, and abound in those graces that are directly contrary, opposed, and destructive to all the fruits of the flesh and to the health and vigor of indwelling sin itself.
2. By a real and direct work on the root and habit of sin, weakening, destroying, and removing it. For this reason He is called a Spirit of judgment and burning (Isaiah 4:4) — actually consuming and destroying our lusts. He removes the stony heart by almighty power; as He begins the work in kind, so He carries it on by degrees. He is the fire that burns up the very root of lust.
3. He brings the cross of Christ into the heart of a sinner through faith, giving us communion with Christ in His death and fellowship in His sufferings — the manner of which will be addressed later.
Question: If this is the Spirit's work alone, why are we exhorted to it? Since only the Spirit of God can do it, should the work not be left entirely to Him?
Answer: 1. It is the Spirit's work in no different sense than all graces and good works in us are His. He works in us both to will and to do according to His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). He works all our works in us (Isaiah 26:12), including the work of faith with power (2 Thessalonians 1:11; Colossians 2:12). He causes us to pray and is a Spirit of supplication (Romans 8:26; Zechariah 12:10) — and yet we are exhorted to pray, and rightly so.
2. He works our mortification in such a way as to keep it still an act of our own obedience. The Holy Spirit works in us and upon us in ways fitting to our nature — that is, in ways that preserve our liberty and free obedience. He works on our understandings, wills, consciences, and affections in ways appropriate to their own natures. He works in us and with us, not against us or without us. His assistance therefore encourages us in doing the work and gives us no excuse to neglect it. I must pause here to lament the endless and futile labor of poor souls who, being convicted of sin and unable to withstand the force of their convictions, set themselves through countless exhausting methods and duties to suppress sin — but being strangers to the Spirit of God, accomplish nothing. They fight without victory, wage war without peace, and live as slaves all their days. They spend their strength for what is not bread, and their labor for what profits nothing.
This is the most pitiful warfare any poor creature can be engaged in. A soul under the driving force of the law's conviction is pressed to fight against sin but has no strength for the battle. Such people cannot help but fight, yet they can never win. They are like men thrust onto their enemies' swords, destined to be slain. The law drives them on, and sin beats them back. Sometimes they think they have overcome sin — but they have only raised a cloud of dust so thick they cannot see it. They stir up their natural emotions of fear, sorrow, and anguish, which makes them believe sin is conquered when it has not been touched at all. Once the heat of emotion cools, they must return to the battle, and the lust they thought was dead shows itself completely unwounded.
If the case is so desperate for those who do labor and strive and yet do not enter the kingdom, what is the condition of those who despise all this? Those who are permanently under the power and dominion of sin, who love it, and whose only frustration is that they cannot make enough provision for the flesh to satisfy all its lusts?
