Book 7

Romans 8:7. The wisdom of the flesh, is enmity against God, it is not subject to the Law, neither indeed can be.

We heard there were three particulars wherein the dispensation and God's manner of working upon the soul when he will prepare it for himself was discovered.

1 The soul naturally is settled in the security of a sinful estate. And of that before. 2 That being thus lodged in his lust, and brought [reconstructed: to bed] in his sinful distempers, it's wholly unwilling to be severed from them. 3 By a holy kind of violence (as it were) the soul is driven out of this condition, and drawn [reconstructed: to] the Lord Christ by God the Father.

We are now to attend the discovery of this second divine truth; the explication of which makes way for the mysterious manner of God's dealing with the sinner when he would bring him from under the power [reconstructed: of] his lusts. And for this purpose we have chosen this text, as that which will afford us foothold for our following discourse.

The aim and scope of the words is by force of argument to fortify the conclusion formerly expressed in the foregoing verse, that is, to mind the things of the flesh, is death, which is thus proved: That which is enmity against God, will undoubtedly bring death, as opposing the God of Life and Comfort, but the wisdom of the flesh, is enmity against God, therefore to mind this, or to be led by this, is present death. The minor is thus again confirmed, because it submits not to the Law, and that is not for a present push only, and out of a surprise of some temptation, but it's certain it will never, or rather, it can never be other, because it's beyond its power, or rather, cross to its nature so to do, so that it has no ability nor will to do it, nor can it of itself attain any sufficiency to that.

To make way for the collection of the point of which we purpose to speak, there be two words in the text to be attended for explication sake.

1 What is meant by the wisdom of the flesh, or to be carnally minded: The original word [illegible], is of large compass, and in truth comprehends in this place the frame of the reasonable faculties, the understanding and will in the extent of their full work, what he understands and plots by reason, the will effects, and this latter of necessity implies the other, for so the word from where it comes is taken.

1 For the work of the understanding (Acts 28:22). We desire to know what you think: they would understand his opinion and judgment touching the way of Christianity, so the Apostle speaks when he would confine our reason to the compass of the wisdom of the Scripture, and God's counsel revealed in it; he advises, We should not be wise above that which is written (1 Corinthians 4:6). 2 Again, it's used, and that often, to express the work of the will, and therefore it is [reconstructed: also] translated by care (Philippians 4:10). I rejoiced that your care of me again flourishes: Sometimes by the work of seeking, If you be risen with Christ, [reconstructed: seek] those things which are above (Colossians 3:1). Or by the act of tasting or savoring (Matthew 16:21). Get behind me, Satan, you do not savor the things [reconstructed: that] be of God: And therefore Beza is constrained to paraphrase, and lay out the compass of it in a [reconstructed: number] of words: That which the carnal man savors, is enmity, that is the frame of the plotting of the minds and affecting of the hearts of carnal men is enmity against God.

2 Enmity, as we say in the abstract, made up of nothing but malice and hatred, and that in an extreme manner against the Lord, more than against anything in the world: And if it be inquired, how that does appear, and can be proved? The evidence is added in the next words; It is not subject to the Law: As the heart is to the Law, so it is to the Lord; as it is to the Word of God, so it is to God himself. It wholly shakes off the sovereignty and authority of the Law; and it is not a pang only of a temptation that carries it, nor a push or [reconstructed: fit] of some present infirmity that overbears it, but in truth it is the very nature of a naughty and [illegible]; That which is born of the flesh is flesh (John 3:6), and nothing else but [reconstructed: flesh], and therefore it can do nothing but oppose the Spirit, and the Law which is spiritual; every thing will do, and in [reconstructed: truth] can do no [reconstructed: thing] but its nature. And this denial [reconstructed: not] only of the act of subjection, but the very power of subjection shows the height of that opposition, that is in the heart against the Law, and so against [reconstructed: the] Lord himself, for subjection is one degree lower [reconstructed: than] obedience; it's possible for a servant not to [reconstructed: obey] the command of his master, and yet he may in [reconstructed: silence] and subjection submit himself to his authority, to bear what he will inflict upon him with [reconstructed: patience], though not to do what he requires of him: A patient may be subject in silence and meekness to [reconstructed: bear] the lancings of the surgeon, to cut him and so cure him when he can in no way help [reconstructed: himself]: and yet a carnal heart will not do this, for his [reconstructed: denial] of subjection implies.

1 It does not acknowledge the authority and [reconstructed: power] of the Law. 2 It will not obey the rule of it. 3 It will not bear the power of it; whereby it would redress the sinfulness of our hearts, and reform the disorders and miscarriages of our lives, and pluck away that sin from us that would pluck away our hearts from God. He has no right to challenge [reconstructed: any] sovereignty, no reason to exercise it, no lawful power but usurped that does maintain it; and [reconstructed: so] I do not acknowledge this right, nor obey that rule, nor bear that power, says the will, it would take away my lusts, and so take away my contentment [reconstructed: of] life, and I will rather die than yield, rather be [illegible] than abide my pleasing distempers to be crossed by the Law. Hence then the point is plain.

The frame of the whole heart of a natural man, is wholly unwilling to submit to the work of the Lord that would sever him from his sins.

I say the frame of the whole man, to the words of the Text, and interpretation of them, each plotting of the Mind, each affecting of the Will, the [illegible] current of the carriage of the inward man; and [illegible] is not only unable to follow the direction of the Law and of the Lord, but not willing to bear the power thereof, to force it to the reformation of those [illegible] and sins to which it subjects itself, and sets itself resolutely to keep. So the Lord professed of Nimrod and his company when they had set themselves upon the building of Babel, out of their pride and self confidence (Genesis 11:6): Now nothing will [illegible] restrained from them which they have imagined to do, let us go down and confound their language: It's in vain to persuade them, in vain to send messengers and show arguments never so sad and weighty to stop them, only confound their language that they may not be able to do what they would. It's the scope of that parable (Matthew 21:33-41), wherein the waywardness of the hearts of the sons of men, and their desperate unteachableness is apparently discovered: messenger is sent after messenger, all variety of means provided and continued, they beat one, evil entreat another, slay a third; and when the Son himself is sent, that reason would have concluded that which the master of the vineyard conceived, they will reverence my Son; they were most outrageous against him, because happily he was more instant and importunate, to press them to sanctification, the rendering of the fruit (your fruit in holiness, and the end eternal life, Romans 6:22) they express greater opposition against him because he most of all opposed their sins, Come, say they, this is the Heir, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours. Nor was this the guise of some graceless forlorn persons, but the disposition of all men; it's part of that curse we inherit from the loins [illegible] our first parents (Genesis 6:5): The frame of the imagination of our hearts are evil, and only evil, and that continually: It's part of that image received from the first Adam, and that seed of wickedness in which we were warmed, which was born with us, and grows up with us, and will go to our graves with us, and to Hell afterwards unless the Lord relieve and deliver. And therefore [illegible] expresses the pedigree of this perverseness of spirit (Acts 7:51): You stiff-necked and hard-hearted, you have ever resisted the Spirit of God, as your Father did, so do you.

See this unwillingness expressing itself in the several degrees of it.

A carnal heart is unwilling to make out after the discovery of the truth, and like bats, live most at ease when they have least light, fly abroad in the night: the less knowledge they have, the less trouble they find, and therefore they are willing to make no inquiry to know that they are not willing to do (Romans 3:11): It's one part of the description of a natural man's condition, There is none that understands, none that seeks after God: or if they do sometimes seem to express some pains this way, to seek after the truth, it is as a coward pursues his enemy: he is afraid to find, and therefore keeps aloof off, not willing to take notice of that which may be troublesome, and therefore looks after that which least concerns him, for the rest, he lets it lie by (2 Peter 3:3): They are willingly ignorant, content not to know, that which they will not do if they did know.

If yet the Lord bring home wholesome counsels and directions even to their doors, sends out the light of his truth by the ministry of his faithful servants, to shine in their faces, and the sound thereof to beat in his ears, they are loath to hear of the ear, loath to show their unfeigned acceptance, and readiness of spirit to take acquaintance of the truth: As you may have seen sometimes a churl, when he has seen somebody coming that might happily have deserved entertainment, and the law of honesty and common humanity might have caused him to lodge them, he presently slips aside and turns away, that he may not meet them, and see them, and salute them, lest he be forced to receive them: So these men when they perceive the evidence of some troublesome truths are like to meet with them in the mouth (as we say) they are not able to avoid the power of them, and yet not able to take up the practice of them, like troublesome guests put them to charges, and lie heavy upon them, they are desirous to make an escape from the power of such arguments, play least in sight, and loath they are to meet a truth that comes attended with constraining reasons (Job 22:14): They say to the Almighty depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of your [illegible]: indeed (Isaiah 30:10-11) They say to the seers, see not, and to the prophets, [illegible] not, cause the holy One of Israel to cease from us: the presence of the truth is marvelous grievous, they look at it as an overpassing burden, as he of Elias, Have you found me O [illegible] Enemy? Were it not for shame they could be willingly content to give a discharge, and pass, for its departure; as he to Amos (Amos 7:12): [illegible] away to your own country and prophesy there.

If yet the Lord will continue the truth, and him under it, he begins to clip the wings of the truth, and breaks as it were the strength of the blow, that it may not enter so deep, to the dividing of the marrow and the [reconstructed: soul], and take away such secret and sweeter evils, stops as it were the passage of the truth, that it cannot proceed so far, and prevail so much as it would: they will keep the truth in a [reconstructed: hold] as we [reconstructed: keep] prisoners at a door, look abroad, but not at liberty; so they are not willing the truth should be at liberty; as they dealt with our Savior, he made as though he would have gone further, but they [reconstructed: constrained] him, and as it were withheld him by force: So men deal with the truth which is of a large extent, and would go through a man's life in his several occasions, these men are not willing to serve the truth, but make it serve [reconstructed: themselves], and their turns: Thus many hold general rules, but bring such down to particular practices, in the several branches, there they are not willing the jurisdiction of the truth should extend so far: Thus corrupt hearts deal with the truth, as sick men of weak and sick eyes deal with the light, some light they would have, but to have it come clearly and [reconstructed: shine] upon them, they are not able to brook that, therefore they say, draw the curtain, there the Sun comes full in mine eyes; Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess (Ephesians 5:18), they yield to the evidence of the text, and letter of the Scripture, therefore be not drunk with the world, do not affect that too much, [reconstructed: but] stay there. To take and detain another man's goods is open theft [reconstructed: by] the acknowledgment of all, You shall not steal; therefore to covenant, and not to keep; to borrow, and not to return; to owe, and not to pay, is [reconstructed: to] detain that which is not [reconstructed: yours], therefore it's [reconstructed: also] theft; [reconstructed: but] draw the curtain, let not the Sun [reconstructed: shine] full in my face (Deuteronomy 12:31). You shall not worship the Lord your God as the heathen idolaters — let the truth have his full scope now, therefore not as [reconstructed: they do]; [reconstructed: but] draw the curtain a little [reconstructed: toward] that way: Fashion not yourselves according to the world (Romans 12:2), [reconstructed: Not] in loose locks and long hair, therefore not in your garments neither, why should you imitate their vanity in the one, or in the other, since both are worldly? (Luke 24:28-29)

If yet the power of the truth, and the evidence of the argument take off all these pretences, and would seem to compel the judgment, then a corrupt heart calls in all forces, levies new armies of arguments to maintain its own station, and withstand the [reconstructed: truth], and therefore though the thing be plain, and he sees it, yet he will not be satisfied, but seeks [reconstructed: further] as hoping to [reconstructed: find] some dispensation for itself, or some evasion out of the Word; Numbers 23: Balaam consults again with God after he sufficiently understood the mind of God. Now therefore I pray you stay with me this night that I may know what the Lord will say to me more: why, he knew before, and the Lord had told him plainly, you shall not go, you shall not curse; he well understood God's mind, but he would have had him of another mind; therefore he devises ways still to try, verse 14, here he must have seven altars; if he might bribe God with his sacrifices to give him leave to go and curse them. But if he can find no allowance to dispense with the truth, then he begins to invent cavils and carnal reasonings against it: he cannot get it by running, he will get it (if he can) by doubling; he is not willing to yield, therefore is resolved to quarrel and wind away from under the force of the argument, and to make an escape (Acts 17:18). They encountered Paul, they came into the field with cavils against his doctrine: observe how careful an unwilling heart is to invent a shift, and how content to take it; and if yet he fail of his hopes, and is not able to make his party good with the [reconstructed: truth], he unlocks all the Devil's chests, and [reconstructed: racks] his skull for devices; and though the reasons be of no weight nor worth, nor strength, yet he is well [reconstructed: content] to be deceived with them, though there be scant any appearance of a pretence, when the young man had professed all readiness to follow the command of the Lord, and saw nothing would serve turn unless he sold all, overpowered with the authority of the truth, he left it in the plain field, and went away sorrowful. (Matthew 19:21-22)

If yet the [illegible] that's rivetted in his resolution to hold his own, cannot [illegible] the Truth, then he falls to flat opposing of it (Jeremiah 44:16). As for the word which you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to it — that is the short and the long: they then began to be plain and peremptory (Jeremiah 18:12). They said there is no [reconstructed: hope], but we will do after our devices, and we will walk every man after the imagination of his own heart. If they cannot undo the bonds, they will break the bonds of God's commands — Come (say they, Psalm 2:2) let us break [reconstructed: their] bonds, and [reconstructed: cast away] their cords from us. Thus the Jews, when they saw the Word of the Lord to prosper in the [reconstructed: ministry of Paul and Barnabas], they were filled with envy, and [reconstructed: spoke] against those things that were spoken by Paul, contradicting and [reconstructed: blaspheming] — insomuch that Paul professed they put away the [reconstructed: word] that would have plucked away their sins [reconstructed: from] them (Acts 13:46). John must [reconstructed: lose his head] rather than Herod will part with his harlot. When [reconstructed: Balaam] cannot get leave of God to do what he desired, he goes without leave (Numbers 24:1) — he [reconstructed: set his face toward the wilderness], as if he would prevent God's [illegible], and curse [reconstructed: Israel] before God [reconstructed: could] be aware of it. To have their [reconstructed: consciences] tormented and kept upon the [reconstructed: rack], and themselves crossed in their corrupt courses, so that either they dare not keep their lusts, or else have no quiet if they do — they fly in the face of the Truth: it's a hard saying, who can hear it? Who can [reconstructed: bear] it? Acts 19:28 — see what an uproar, and what a dust Demetrius raises against Paul's doctrine: Masters, you know, that by this craft we get our living — therefore what they wanted in argument, they would carry it in clamors. There was an [illegible] for the space of two hours: Great is Diana of the Ephesians. So they dealt with the two [reconstructed: witnesses] (Revelation 11:10) — they were never content before they were removed; they could not have their [reconstructed: hearts] in quiet, as long as they had their lives, for they tormented them with their witness. The Truth is dreadful, and torments carnal men, that cannot bear the light and power of it.

If yet the conscience be not seared with a hot iron, but there remain any sense of common principles in it, they will be daily quickened and awakened by the power of the Word — and that will be daily vexing, provoking, and pressing the heart. You know, says Conscience, this is the command, your duty, and will be your comfort to yield obedience to it; you may oppose, but you will perish for it; you may do what you please, but it will be your destruction — God will require it at your hands when you will not be able to answer for what you have done, nor bear what God will inflict. The [reconstructed: sinner] then endeavors to still the clamors, and to stop the mouth of conscience, and to weary it out with impudency in wickedness, and stifling the [illegible] of it, and not suffering it to take place, and so by custom in sinning, he takes away the sense of sin — and so it befalls them as those the Apostle speaks of: they become past feeling (Ephesians 4:19). This is to hold [reconstructed: down] the Truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). Truth is pressing — this ought, this should, this must be done, or else you die for it; you see the Word pregnant, the way plain, the duty undeniable; say nothing, says unrighteousness in the heart, I do love it, I must follow it, therefore speak not a word more, I cannot hear it, nor bear it — as they said (Judges 18:25) when [reconstructed: Micah ran] after them for his gods: Let not your voice be heard among us, lest angry fellows fall upon you. Thus you see how this unwillingness to be subject to the Truth shows itself. They seek it not, receive it not, stop the passage of it, defeat the power and evidence of it, they professedly oppose it, and secretly stifle the [illegible] of the Truth which may trouble them in sinning, until their [reconstructed: consciences] be without sense, and they without care, or purpose to reform their evil ways.

But are not the wicked many times willing to part with their corruptions? See how far they speak, how freely they profess (Deuteronomy 5:27): All that you have spoken, we will do. (Jeremiah 42:5) The Lord be judge [reconstructed: between] you and us, enquire at the mouth of the Lord for us, and whatever it be, whether good or evil, we will do it — what more can be desired? What more could be expressed?

I answer in three things.

The text denies not, nor does the doctrine, that natural men are willing to profess subjection to the law of God — but that they neither do, nor can, nor will do what they say. Therefore it is added in Deuteronomy 5:28-29: This people have said well, but O that there were such a heart in them — there were good words, but they wanted good hearts; they said well, but their wills and endeavors were not answerable; they professed fair with their lips, but dissembled with their hearts. So the prophet Jeremiah told them to their faces: You dissembled in your hearts, when you said enquire of the Lord for us (Jeremiah 42:20).

It's possible, indeed ordinary, for a corrupt heart when it does most reform sin outwardly to then most of all love and give himself to the practice of some sin secretly — because then all the streams are turned into one channel; he neglects all other that he may wholly bestow and lay out his heart upon that one. And when he professes against sin, he conceives he may sin without suspicion and distraction — without suspicion from others, and without distraction in himself — when by confessions and reformations, he will put in bail upon his conscience, and agree with it as bankrupts use to do with their creditors.

When it comes to a strait and a jostle, that the Word meets him (as the Angel met Balaam) he cannot pass unless he part with his beloved lust, his Isaac, his [illegible], his [illegible] — he will then show and discover his falseness.

But are not the servants of the Lord many times unwilling to bid adieu to their special and ancient [illegible], that have been bred and born with them, brought up and lived with them a long time together?

There are two men in a regenerate man, a heart and a heart, a will and a will (Romans 7, last verse) — Paul delighted in the law of God after the inward man, but in his lust after the corrupt man; With my mind I serve the law of God (says he) but with my [reconstructed: flesh I serve] the law of sin; or as our Savior, The Spirit [reconstructed: is] willing, but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41). The spiritual part is ever pressed, and ready, and wholly willing for good, for he that is born of God so, sins not, and Paul professes, it's not I, but sin in me; but says he, The good that I would, I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do (Romans 7:18). Still the heart and will of a regenerate man stands God-ward, against every sin, and for every good that he is convinced of.

The reasons of the point are four, and they are of great weight.

The first is taken from the nature of the will of man, which since the fall, is wholly tainted, and totally infected with corruption, which universally overspreads the whole man; as he in another case, the whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint, the whole man wholly possessed with sin, no sound part. As Job's contagion wherewith the Devil infected his body and natural man (Job 2:7), he was all one botch from the crown of the head, to the sole of the foot: so in regard of the spiritual man, the whole man is as it were a man of sin, called therefore the old man (Ephesians 4:22). As though a corrupt heart were made up of nothing else but apostasies, backslidings, and departings from God, and swervings from his righteous law, Whatever is born of the flesh, is flesh, that is sinful and sensual (John 3:6), and we are all of us altogether so born, and have nothing of the Spirit of Grace in us; so the Apostle Jude (Jude 19), These are sensual, having not the spirit. The sons of Adam are (all of us) partakers of his image, and hence also called the seed of the serpent (Genesis 3:15), that as each creature and plant answers the seed whereof it is made, has no more in it but that; so men's hearts are only framed and constituted out of that corrupt [reconstructed: seed] whereby Satan carried aside our first parents. Paul so professes of himself, In me ([reconstructed: that] is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing (Romans 7:11), nothing that is spiritually, savingly, and [reconstructed: truly] good; and therefore in the old law, our corrupt nature is signified by the leprosy, which overspread the whole man. The sin of Adam had in it this peculiar to itself more than any, in fact, I may [reconstructed: even] say more than all the sins that ever were committed, in that it was the disordering of the whole nature of man, and that against the whole law of God. For Adam did not sin as a particular man (so as all the sons of Adam do sin) but as a common stock, as one who was in the room of all, and had the human nature as the common stock of all mankind; so that the nature of man, as one would say humanity in Adam, as it was under the covenant of the law, so it went wholly against the holy and righteous law of God, and therefore the whole nature of man broke when it made a breach upon the law. As he that jostles his finger against a rock breaks that only, he that runs his hand unjoints that; but if the whole body falls from a steep place upon it, it breaks the whole frame of nature in pieces. So it is comparatively between the sin of Adam, and the sin of any of the sons of Adam: they sin personally; one is unjust, and he makes a breach against justice, and so far that disposition of heart is perverted, and so unfitted for the work of justice; but in Adam the whole nature of mind, and will, and affections, which was the subject of all grace, it comes against the law, and so brings a ruin upon the whole frame of grace. Add to this (to make up the evidence) that this was indeed against the whole law; as that wherein he neither loved God nor himself, nor [reconstructed: his] neighbor. But take it here, he made a breach upon the seal of the covenant, and trampled that under foot, and so consequently made void and [reconstructed: null] upon the covenant wholly, and cast it behind his back as not worth caring for. Now reason [reconstructed: teaches] that as the seal confirms and ratifies the [reconstructed: covenant], and all the conditions of it jointly, so the [reconstructed: breaking] of that nullifies and makes void the whole covenant. So that this transgression of Adam let [reconstructed: in] a deluge of sin, that as in Noah's flood when the windows of heaven were opened, and the great depths were broken up, the waters covered the face of the whole earth that no dry land appeared: so [reconstructed: it] is here, when the deeps are broken up (as it were) the whole law opposed by the whole nature of man, the deluge of corruption spreads itself over the whole face and frame of nature. Therefore the Apostle first summarily gives in his judgment, in (Romans 3:9), that all are under sin: and then particularly, They are all become abominable, there is none that does good, no not one, their throat is an open sepulcher, vents nothing but venomous steams of deadly distempers; the poison of asps is under their tongues, their feet swift to shed blood (Romans 3:12-15). And if all the parts be such, what is the heart within that acts all, vents all, fills all these? That as it befell the temple of Jerusalem, after the destruction of it, there was not a stone left upon a stone; so with the soul in regard of that glorious frame of grace which was in it in the first creation, there is not a stone left upon a stone; nothing but pollution and corruption remains in the whole nature of every man.

But you will say, Are there no relics left of that glorious image of God in the will and understanding?

There is something left of the Law, but nothing left whereby a man can be enabled to do anything as an act of spiritual life that may be acceptable to God: In a word, there are these two things to be attended, and may be observed in every man naturally at the lowest and the worst (as I look at these poor Indians, among whom we live, as the very ruins and rubbish of mankind, the forlorn posterity of Adam.) 1 They are made for another, and for a better. 2 They ought to yield obedience to that other, and better: But to know the will of God and do it, to be able to close with God, and to do that which is acceptable to him, this is far estranged from all the sons of men by nature. If a man came where the Temple of Jerusalem was, and saw some ruins of the buildings, and the rubbish of it, he would say, This was a glorious Temple, and here was the holy of holies, and it was thus, and so specious and beautiful, though it be not so now: So when we look upon the rubbish of the image of lost Adam, we may say so, and conclude so, There was a glorious image of God here, and by that which is left, we may see, That man is made for another, and a better; for this man rules all the creatures, they all serve him, and therefore he should serve another and a better; the whole frame of the soul tells a man this: But to have any ability to close with God, and to be subject to him, that is not to be found in the nature of lost man.

That soul which is wholly acted and carried by the power of sin, is not, cannot be willing to be severed from it, But so it is with the soul. That's the first reason.

The second reason is taken from the revenging justice of God, which having been dishonored and [illegible] by the sin and apostasy of Adam, it has delivered up the soul (according to his just judgment, and the soul's just desert) to the [illegible] of sin: Thus the Lord rewards man according to his works, and recompenses his own ways upon his own head. They would none of God, they should none of him then, they would have their sins, and they should have them. And as the Lord [illegible] in another like case, Man receives a righteous and proportionable recompense to his own proceedings.

Adam turned from God to the creature (there was in his sin, Aversio a Deo & Conversio ad Creaturam) God also turned from him, and left him to the creature: He would act from himself, and the Lord left him to himself to settle upon the deluded conceit of his own sufficiency. Adam went away from God, God withdrew himself from him, and took away that wisdom which he despised and would not follow, and took away that holiness and righteousness by which he would not be ruled: He plucked his livery over his ears (as they say) because of his rebellion and treachery: Stripped him naked of those glorious ornaments of his image, wherewith he had at the first beautified and honored him.

But that's not all.

Adam by his transgression coming in opposition to his holy and righteous will, by the strength of his infinite justice the Lord pushed him away from him, and delivered him wholly to the [illegible] and authority of his apostasies and distempers of his spirit: As if he had said, You will not be guided by my wisdom, but have followed the temptation of Satan, and your own device; be you therefore forever deluded, and blinded; take him ignorance and folly, and take possession of him forever: You will not be ruled and governed by my holy and just will, be you therefore forever perverted, and led captive, by the wayward stubbornness and rebellion of your own will, take him perverseness and stiffness of spirit, and take possession of him forever: Thus sin comes armed with commission from divine justice, to do what it will, and wholly to captivate the soul to itself: Thus it is said, God made man right, fitted for himself and his righteous will, and ready to be acted by it; and while he had gone under the stream of his providence, he should have hit the right way, and arrived at the right end. But he found out many inventions, He would not follow God's invention and the way that he had found out, that he might have found rest and peace in himself, for peace shall be upon all those that walk according to this rule (Galatians 6:16). But he found out many findings, ways of his own fancying, and finding; and God fills him full of these findings and devices of his; and hence it is that each man is led by his own self-deluding spirit to his own end.

It was a deep and a sweet speculation of Austin, It was in the power of the mutability of Adam's will, to have used his will either well or ill, God would not hinder him and his work, and no creature could hinder him: and because he did use this liberty and mutability ill, therefore God put him under the power of that perverted mutability [illegible] he never should, nor could do anything but evil. It was not a fault to be mutable, had he kept himself under the stream of God's holy and [illegible] will, he had never been hurt; but he that will pervert his own mutability to go against the Law, he shall ever be perverted by it. This is the full and proper meaning of that text, which carries a mysterious [illegible] with it (Romans 7:8), Sin taking occasion by the Commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, for without the Law sin was dead: Namely, when Adam went against the Law (and to God's justice) the Lord by an almighty revenging act of justice, in way of contrary, broke him in [illegible], turned him aside, pushed him away from him, bade his blindness and stubbornness take full commission, and exercise authority over him forever: Sin takes this occasion, steps in, and while God is pushing of him away, takes advantage, and carries headlong the sinner from God, to act all manner of evil upon all [illegible]. Here belongs that also (Romans 6:14), Sin shall not have [illegible] over you, because you are not under the law, but under grace: that is, You are not under the covenant of the Law broken, for that gives commission to sin to exercise sovereign jurisdiction over the sinner.

The glass that is brittle, yet does not break; [illegible] does not prevail against it while it is in a man's [illegible] and kept from harm, but if it falls against a stone, the hardness of the stone severs the parts of it, brittleness takes occasion by that blow, and steps in and shatters it all in pieces: it breaks because brittle, for things that are not such, though they do fall, do not break; but that would not domineer and prevail but because of that blow: so it was with Adam, a glassy [illegible], a mutable man, he falling against the Law; that opposing, pushes him aside and delivers him up to the power of his corruptions, and they have dominion over him by reason of that act of the Law delivering him up to his sins. [illegible] is also the meaning of that place (1 Corinthians 15:56): The strength of sin is the Law: sin is as strong as the provoking and opposing power of the Law, for it falls in with it, and takes occasion to act the soul by it; and therefore it is you shall ever find it, so far as we act by our own principles as under a Covenant of works, so far sin ever prevails. This lastly is the meaning of that text (Romans 7:6), wherein a man is said to be married to his sin, for the comparison holds. As long as the husband lives, so long the wife is bound, and is subject to him: so while we remain in our natural condition, under the Covenant of Works, we are in Covenant with our sins, and married to them so, that we cannot be to any other, we are hand-fasted and cannot part. 1. Sin claims a propriety in the soul. 2. Takes possession of it. 3. It wholly orders and acts it (as the woman has not power over herself but the man). On the [illegible] side the soul: 1. Gives itself away to it. 2. Submits to the authority of it. And 3. Is wholly acted by it.

Therefore it is, that they that are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:8). The act of sin cannot please, but the spiritual [illegible] of the soul is acted by sin; therefore it cannot please God while a man is in his [illegible].

This key will open many doors.

Therefore it follows, original sin is not a mere privation, or want of original righteousness, but an active [illegible], or running wrong of all (the wheels) the faculties of the soul of man — [illegible] not only take away his image, but [illegible] up the soul to the power of corruption, and [illegible] its discovered by the actions of fighting (Galatians 5:7): The flesh lusts against the Spirit; [illegible] (Romans 7:21): The law of flesh [illegible] against the law of my mind, captivating the [illegible], erecting and setting up a sovereignty, and height [illegible] jurisdiction in the soul, there is a law of sin and [illegible] (Romans 8:2).

As Adam actually by his own fault and folly [illegible] away the holiness and righteousness of God, [illegible] himself to the sinful distemper of his own [illegible], so he does also meritoriously work — that is, by [illegible] sin deserve that God should take away the one, [illegible] deliver up to the power of the other. And if [illegible], then also actually; for to work a [illegible] meritoriously, is so to do a thing according to [illegible] of Covenant ourselves, and that we should [illegible] another should do to us, or for us, what is suitable [illegible] the Covenant either broken or kept. In a word, as Adam works his own death by [illegible], so also [illegible] procures both the loss of the image of God, and the [illegible] of corruption to take possession of him and [illegible], for both these are included in that: "Your [illegible] is of yourself, Oh Israel" (Hosea 13:9).

Therefore also it comes about, that the law is the [illegible] of sin (1 Corinthians 15:56), and sin as strong as the Law, because the Law of God gives [illegible] to sinful distempers to take possession of it. So [illegible] look what power the king's commission is of in [illegible] hand of the High Sheriff, the same power has [illegible] Sheriff when he has that commission. So look what strength there is in the commission from divine justice, the same strength sin has, which has that commission.

Therefore again, all sins — original and actual which follow from it — are punishments of the [illegible] of Adam, as they come from God. It is [illegible] with God, that he that will reject his wisdom [illegible] holiness, should be deprived of it: it is just, that [illegible] that will choose his own delusions and [illegible] before God's directions and Covenant, should be delivered up to the power of them, and staked [illegible] in them. You would be so, why remain so [illegible]: and every putting forth of original corruption takes occasion from this act of revenging [illegible] pushing the soul away from him. But as they [illegible] from Adam, so they are sins properly called. For Adam does not properly punish himself, he [illegible] not the execution of any act of justice, [illegible] is it [illegible] that he does evil, but it is his delight, [illegible] takes content therein, even to depart from God, which is the sentence of the second death.

Therefore lastly, there is no possibility that a [illegible] should be recovered by any power he has, or by [illegible] virtue of any creature, to deliver the will of a [illegible] from under the power of his sin, or from [illegible] carried with it: because he is sealed up under [illegible] by the curse of the Covenant broken, and the [illegible] of it in a righteous course. For as [illegible] could be no other reward of a good work, but to [illegible] immutably carried by the Spirit of the Lord, and enabled to work so forever. (We can go no farther than the last end; to please God is the last end [illegible] chief good of the creature, the immutable [illegible] and constancy in that, is all the good we [illegible] have. Do, and live: that is, do and do; [illegible] me once, and please me forever; that is, you shall be enabled forever to please me, and to be happy in so doing.)

So contrary wise, the curse of the breach of the Covenant is forever to be acted by the power of sin, [illegible] break it: do not, and die — that is, displease [illegible] by disobedience and be so accursed, that you [illegible] ever displease me.

The just punishment which is answerable to our [illegible] of the Lord, and our chief good is, that [illegible] shall ever reject it. For if a man could please God and so [illegible] his end after his disobedience and [illegible] of Covenant, he might then be happy, and [illegible] be in his sin, and so never be punished for it, which is impossible.

The sum of this argument in short returns to thus much: that if the will of a man be under commission of divine justice, and is delivered up to [reconstructed: the] power of sin to be possessed of it, and acted by it; therefore it is not, no, cannot be willing to be [reconstructed: freed] from its sins.

The third reason of the doctrine is taken from the power which Satan has to lead, and so to [reconstructed: govern] all sinners wholly according to his own desire, [reconstructed: for] the Lord has given him allowance thereto. As [reconstructed: God] said to Satan touching Job, All that he has is in your hand (Job 2:6). So all these that will not be my subjects, but are turned traitors, lo they be in [reconstructed: his] hand, they shall be his slaves. Thus he rules in the children of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2). Thus he [reconstructed: leads] them at his will (2 Timothy 2, last verse). He is the strong man that maintains possession in the soul, and the sinner goes as he is led (2 Corinthians 12:2). Malefactors are the king's prisoners, but under the keeping of the [reconstructed: jailer]: so sinners have their mittimus, and they are put into Satan's hand, he keeps them in the chains of [reconstructed: darkness], and reserves them to the [reconstructed: judgment] of the [reconstructed: great] day, if they be not rescued out of his hand by Jesus Christ.

The last reason is taken from the naturalness and near alliance there is between our hearts and our lusts, that we count it death to part with them; no, we cannot be without them: hence in Scripture they are called as the members of our body (Colossians 3:5, mortify your members) and those the dearest and tenderest, the right eye, and the right hand (Mark 9:43, 47). They are as the skin of our hearts (Jeremiah 4:4, circumcise your hearts). They are as ourselves, hence we are commanded to deny ourselves, that is our lusts (Matthew 16:24): If any man will be my [reconstructed: disciple], let him deny himself; the old man. (Romans 6:6) Our old man is crucified. No, they are our very lives (1 Timothy 5:6): they that live in sin: our very heaven and happiness; the young man went away sorrowful when he should exchange his possessions for the Kingdom of Heaven. So that first the corrupt will must cease to be, or else it cannot but be willing to maintain its distempers, for every thing labors to preserve itself, for to destroy itself is to be contrary to itself, and therefore the corrupt will cannot but preserve its corruption, for it is itself, and it cannot destroy itself. So that now to gather up all,

If the dominion of sin wholly possesses the soul, the power of Satan wholly leads it, the naturalness of sin wholly contents it; then it is not possible that ever the carnal heart should be willing to part with his corruptions. Here is a dominion that cannot be gainsaid, a power that cannot be opposed, a contentment that cannot be bettered; therefore there is no other expectation but that the corrupt will should be unwilling to be severed from its sins.

Hence we may learn: It is the heaviest plague in the world for a natural man to have his own will. It is the direful dread of the vengeance of the Lord when he delivers a man up to the distemper of his own heart, to follow it, and to have it, and to be under the power of it; and that follows thus. To be severed from God, and never to be severed from his sins, is the greatest plague in the world: But [reconstructed: a] man naturally will never be severed from his sins, this is the desire of his heart: therefore to have this, is the heaviest plague that can befall a man in this world. As it is in (Psalm 81:11): Israel would none of me, so I gave them up to the lusts of their own hearts, to walk in their own counsels. Is it so? That as they did, you do; and as they would, you would; that you professed the same inwardly, I will none of the ways of God, but I will have my own will and my own lusts, then this is the plague of God upon your soul, you shall have your [reconstructed: lusts], and hell with them too; you shall have nothing of God, nothing of his grace here, nor of his glory hereafter. Has the Lord so ordered it toward you, that as it is said of David, he never displeased Adonijah, never crossed him of his will, so you have had your will still, and have prospered in a [reconstructed: sinful] course, this is a sign that God never intends good to your soul, that he has thus delivered you up to the distempers of your own heart. When physicians give men for gone, they leave them, and say, Let him eat what he will, if he calls for milk, or drink, let him have it, he is but a dead man, live he cannot. Is it so with you? That God has given you over, and left you to yourself, that now you have what you will, and do what your corrupt will carries you to. This is the most dreadful plague of all: you do walk in the counsels of your own heart, to your own eternal ruin.

Hence it is also clear: the will of a natural man is the worst part about him. The worst thing he has, and the greatest enemy he has, is his own heart and will. It follows thus: it is that which maintains all the sinful distempers of his soul; it keeps the whole army of corruptions all in their ranks, that victuals them, and provides for them, that hinders a man from using the means, or from getting good by all the means of grace. It is the corrupt will of a man that keeps him under the power of his sin, and keeps off the power of an ordinance, that would procure his everlasting good. I speak it the rather to dash that dream of wicked men, when they do ill, and speak ill; yet (say they) my heart is good. It is true, I cannot speak so well, nor do so well, nor make such a show as others can, but my desires are good. No truly, if your life be bad, your heart is worse. It is the worst thing you have about you. (Matthew 12:34-35) Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks: and an evil man out of the evil treasure of [reconstructed: his] heart brings forth evil things. There is a treasury of evil in your heart, variety and abundance of wickedness there: the heart is the storehouse, a man's carriage in his life is but the shop; men do not use to bring out all into their shop, but keep it in their storehouse that is full still. So be it known to you, you who in your speeches and carriages discover it, you are desperately proud, and worldly, and carnal, and profane; there is a thousand times more of that wickedness in your hearts; there is a treasury, a storehouse of all abominations. In fact, the deceitfulness of the heart is above all; the masterfulness of the heart is beyond all that we can conceive: a man may discern a man's life, and perceive what is there suitable, or cross to the will of God; but the heart is desperately deceitful, who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9) The will of man is uncontrollable. That which the Apostle James speaks of the tongue, that it is an unruly evil full of deadly poison, none can tame it (James 3:8), is much more true of the heart, for whatever wickedness is vented by the tongue, it is first in the heart; and it is there much more. Men may gag a man's mouth, and fetter his hands and feet, but oh the corrupt will of man, who can restrain that? The truth is, it will stand out against all reasons and arguments, and nothing can move the will except God work upon it. As they said (1 Samuel 8:19), when Samuel gave them reasons against monarchy; they say not, your reasons are not good, we will answer them, and bring better reasons for what we desire; no, but we will have a king. And as the Lord says to the house of Israel (Ezekiel 33:11), turn, turn from your evil ways, why will you die? Give me the reason of it: it is not my will you should die, I forbid it; it is not suitable to reason, that gainsays it; it is not agreeable to nature that abhors it, to have your sins, and to have the plagues of them forever. In fact, we will have our sins whatever come of it. This is the nature of the corrupt will of every carnal man.

Hence again we may see how contrary to reason and common sense the corrupt behavior of ungodly men is, when they are left to their own wills: we look at it, not as a part of weakness, but a madness in truth; if a malefactor will lie in the dungeon, when means of deliverance is afforded; for a man to choose his fetters, and to keep on his chains and bolts, when he may be freed: yet this is the case and condition, yea the disposition of men who are not willing to be severed from their sins, nor to be set free from those chains of darkness with which they are fettered, and go up and down imprisoned in the world. Sin is compared to a deadly poison; the poison of asps is under their tongue (Romans 3:13), that is, such [reconstructed: poison] which is deadly and venomous which admits no remedy, no cure, no recovery. Now, should you see a patient that should be offended with the medicine that would cure him, or with the physician that would counsel him, and recover him out of [reconstructed: his] disease? Or take it heinously, and grievously that any should keep him from drinking the poison that would destroy him? Each man would conclude that his brain were more distempered than [reconstructed: his] body, as doing that which is directly contrary even to nature, which desires the preservation of itself, even in unreasonable creatures. Turn but the tables as we say, consider aright your own behavior, [reconstructed: and] you will confess it is your case, you are the man. You are poisoned with the loathsome, and [reconstructed: corrupt] lusts of your own heart, which threaten your everlasting ruin, and that beyond recovery in [reconstructed: the] course of ordinary means. You are not able [reconstructed: to] hear the counsel that would direct you for [reconstructed: the] cure, nor bear a savory and seasonable [reconstructed: word] which would take away the poison of those [reconstructed: sinful] distempers. You cannot endure to be severed from that which will sever your soul from God. [reconstructed: You] cannot abide the Word, or the messengers [reconstructed: who] would take away from you that which will take [reconstructed: a]way your peace, your comfort, your happiness. Thus Herodias waited for the Baptist's life, [reconstructed: because] he endeavored to cross her in her incestuous [reconstructed: lusts] and loathsome abominations (Mark 6:19). Therefore Herodias had a quarrel, a secret grudge against him, and would have killed him: she lay at [reconstructed: watch]; she was watchful and eager to observe and [reconstructed: seize] any hint of opportunity offered to do him harm, because he desired, and endeavored to do her the greatest good that he could. A type of this we may [reconstructed: see] in the Israelites when their own hearts could tell them, and their own experience could testify, and that to their own sense, it was the greatest pressure that ever they found, the [reconstructed: fury] of the wrath of Pharaoh, and that they sighed under it, and their groans went up to heaven. And yet they would return to their own ruin, and to the house of bondage: And, 'Would God,' said they, 'we had died in Egypt.' Egypt typified the kingdom of darkness, the state of sin and death; and Pharaoh was a type of Satan, who exercises the fierceness of his fury upon the souls of those that are under his power. Sometimes men will cry to the Lord by reason of the hard usage they find from sin and Satan, yet when God comes by his Word and the counsels of his servants to pluck them out of their sins, and out of their bondage, they cannot endure that, they will rather return again to, and lie down under the bondage of sin and Satan, than be delivered from it.

John 5:40: Our Savior Christ tells the Jews there, 'You will not come to me, that you might have life.' Christ has purchased it, and promised it, and offered it; yet he says, 'You will not come to me, you will not, though you may have life and happiness for the coming for.'

Here is also a ground of trial. We may hence discern, and that undeniably, and easily, what our condition is, whether we are yet in our natural estate, so far from the interest and possession of Christ, or any saving work of his Spirit, as that indeed we have not attained any thorough preparation to this.

We need not send up to Heaven to look into the cabinet counsels of God's everlasting decrees [reconstructed: to learn] what is [reconstructed: decreed] concerning us. Descend into your own soul, you have that in your bosom which will be the best discovery of your condition. Ask but honestly, plainly, and in earnest your own heart, and that will cast the balance, and that beyond all question. Such as your will is, such is your condition; look what you would be, that you are in truth, and in the account of the Almighty. The Lord cares [reconstructed: not] for all the court compliments you can express in the ways of Christianity; he [reconstructed: cares] not for [reconstructed: all] your fair [reconstructed: words], and the quaint appearances of [reconstructed: religion]; were your behavior gilded over with the most glorious shows of godliness, and your tongue tipped with the language of heaven; this will not do the deed. This would not answer the Lord's expectation, nor your own hopes and comforts in the end. It was said concerning Eliab, David's elder brother, when it was conceived that he should be the man appointed for the kingdom, and indeed holy Samuel was deceived in his goodly stature, 'Surely this is the Lord's Anointed.' The Lord himself checks his judgment, 'Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart' (1 Samuel 16:7). Let us then look as God looks, and judge as he judges, if we would have comfort and truth in our judgment, that we may not fail in that, and so our hopes and happiness and all fail in the end. You say, your [reconstructed: speech] is savory and free, your understanding large, you are able to search the mysteries of grace, you know in a great [reconstructed: measure] the things of grace, and are able fully to express what you know; and you pretend readiness and zeal for the service of the Lord. You [reconstructed: say] all these are thus. And I say, What is your heart you look to in these things? I say, look to your heart, and then to these — that is God's way. The people in (Deuteronomy 5:28) made as full and free a profession as all the world could desire, but the Lord desired somewhat more, [reconstructed: and] went further, 'They have well said, but oh that [reconstructed: there] were such a heart in them' (verse 29). It is the heart then that gives the casting evidence of a man's condition, and will not deceive.

The woman that has two suitors that make love and express their [illegible] to her, if she ask her own spirit, that will easily speak which is the man that must be her husband; the answer which will [illegible] it is this: Such a one has her heart, he has got her good will, and therefore has gained the woman, [illegible] is his; to give one all good language, and [illegible] entertainment, that is nothing, if another has the heart. So if the question be (which is indeed a question of the greatest consequence in the world) Whether you are to be matched to your sin, or to your Savior? To your lusts, or to the Lord Jesus? This will put it beyond doubt: has some bosom lust got the will of your soul, and holds it to this day? You are certainly a corrupt and carnal wretched creature. All your [illegible] carriage and [illegible] entertainment, or good language [illegible][illegible] the Lord Jesus, it's nothing, your lusts have your heart, and Satan has your heart by means of them, and this is your condition to this very day. It's [illegible], as experience proves it, that he that is the owner of a country, may be forced by the power of an enemy [illegible] in upon him, to forsake the outskirts and borders of it; but if yet the strong places, [illegible], and citadels be in his possession, which command the country, each man concludes he is lord and [illegible] of the country still, because he has these [illegible], and strong forts, whereby he can command it at his pleasure. As in the country, so in the rule of a man's carriage and conscience; possible it is, in fact ordinary that there may come some [illegible] power and evidence of truth, and the Lord may so mightily assault the soul with the battery of his Word, and levy such forces of arguments against the prevailing power of sin, in our practice, as that [illegible] may cause our corruptions to retire and forsake the frontiers, and outworks, the tongue, and hand, and behavior; but if yet the will, which is the main castle, and has command of all, if that, I say, be still at league with our lusts, and the power of corruption is there entertained and acknowledged, you are yet under the power of Satan, and possession of your sin. The unclean spirit may now and then go on walking, and be cast out from exercising that sovereignty and extent of jurisdiction, as to act the hand, and eye, and tongue to the practice of evil; but as long as his house is swept and garnished, the soul willing to give way, and welcome to any bosom distemper, he returns again and prevails as much, in fact, more than ever (Matthew 12:43-45). Whatever you have received, if you have not a heart against your sin, you have nothing will do you good. Whatever you give to God, or do for him, unless you give your heart to him, and bestow that upon his service, you do nothing that will stand you in any stead. The want of this was that which Moses so heavily complained of (Deuteronomy 29:3-4). You have seen all that the Lord has done for you, the signs and wonders that he has wrought for you, yet the Lord has not given you a heart to this day. As who should say, all these will but aggravate your sins, and increase your plagues, your wicked hearts will abuse all, and bring a curse upon all the blessings you enjoy. All your services without a heart severed from your sins, is but as a dead sacrifice, which the Lord loathes. As she to Samson, though he pretended all love, yet this she looked at as an evidence of want of love, because his heart was not with her; How can you say you love me, when your heart is not with me? So the Lord to all the fair pretenses of false-hearted professors; How can you say you love me, when your hearts are not with me? You will not part with your lusts.

But you will reply, This is a hard saying, who can hear it? Who can bear it? This is all we have to bear up and support our hearts and hopes with. True it is, our natures are wicked and corrupt, our distempers strong, infirmities many, and failings great; we cannot deny that which our actions discover, we are too frequently and shamefully snatched aside, and surprised by our corruptions, and our distempers overbear us; yet the Lord knows, and we would have you to know, we would be other, we want power against our distempers, yet we want not will to be severed from them.

So said, and so done, well and good: You profess so, prove what you profess, and it [illegible]; I wish it were so, and that's the worst I wish you: but try it then, and be sure you do not fail, for you are brought to the lowest and the last cast; it's as the book to the malefactor. This is the very door of grace, and the gate of heaven, to be willing to be severed from sin: God never wrought upon you for good, unless this be wrought in you.

The evidences are four.

He that is willing to part with his sin, is speedy and unwearied in seeking and improving of those means whereby he may get rid of it, and which may remove it from him. The will is the great wheel which sets all, and keeps all going, and will cause a man to break through all discouragements and [illegible] that can be cast in the way, neither difficulties nor oppositions be they what they will be, can either daunt it wholly, or put it upon delays; the hands may be bound, the feet fettered, either want of liberties or opportunities may prejudice a [illegible] practice, or the opposition may be so [illegible] and fell, that may force a man for the while to cease the performance of his work, but if the will be settled and resolved that cannot be removed. So the Apostle (Romans 7:18): To will is present with me: though he cannot do what he is enjoined, God requires, and duty [illegible], yet he can will what he cannot do. So the Prophet David (Psalm 119:4-5): You have commanded us to keep your precepts, Oh that my heart were so upright, and my ways so directed that I might keep them; I do not, I cannot do as my duty is, but Oh that I could do so; I cannot do as I should, yet I cannot but wish it. This you shall find when the faithful are at the greatest under, when some spiritual damps and qualms come over their hearts, yet these privy yearnings of their hearts towards God and the ways of his grace will appear. As in a swoon, when all the acts of the senses are bound up, and the pulse is not to be perceived, yet hold a glass to the mouth of a fainting man, and you shall perceive some [illegible] breathing ever. So it is when all abilities, enlargements seem to fail; when temptations, desertions, and violent surprisal of some venomous distempers, take away sense and feeling, power and performance; yet you shall perceive his breathing, if you bring the soul to a command or a promise, Oh that my heart were so upright (Psalm 119:20). My soul breaks for the longing it has to your commandments at all times, [illegible] David. And [illegible] Paul (Romans 7:19): The good I would, I do not, the evil I would not, that I do: I do evil, but I would not do it; I do not the good, but I would do [illegible]. And therefore, as blind Bartimaeus when his heart was set to seek the recovery of his sight, as soon as he heard that Christ passed by, he cried out, Jesus, you son of David have mercy upon me; they rebuked him, and he cried yet more earnestly, you son of David have mercy on me; and our Savior asked him, what ails you? What was his will set upon? Oh Lord that I may receive my sight. So it is with a sinner whose will is set to seek relief against his sins, if there be any opportunity offered, means afforded, any occasion that may lend relief against his sin, how speedily upon the least inkling will he listen to it? If Christ pass by, in conference, in communion, in public or private, in set seasons, or such as could not be expected; whereby the healing virtue of the blood of Christ may be dispensed, they greedily repair there: and if the question be what would you have? the answer of the soul is, Oh Lord that I may receive power against my sin: and if he gets it not he will be unwearied to pursue the Lord, until he has attained it. So the lamenting Church they took to themselves words, the sum and substance of all their requests (Hosea 14:3): Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously; not take away the punishments that pinch us, not the judgments and terrors that may justly perplex us, in the times of our necessities, but take away our iniquities. A wicked man may have a velleity, some sleepy wish for a turn against his sin, for the attainment of his end, but it is but for a fit, and not for the removal of his sin, but some evil that it brings. In fact, the heart of an ungodly man holds counsels against the holy commandments of the Lord, and plots how he may [reconstructed: subtly] put by the authority of the truth that would take away his evil (Job 22:18): The counsel of the wicked is far from me. There is a [illegible] purpose of spirit to maintain some distemper which cannot be in a godly man.

He that is willing to part with his sin, he takes greatest delight in those means which either discover his sin more fully, and work most kindly upon the heart, that godly sorrow which causes repentance never to be repented of, and are the most piercing and powerful to remove it from him. For it is the greatest delight that can befall a man to have his will and desires answered: that which the will desires most to have when it wants, it delights most in when it has it. It is so in the diseases of the body, when the blood is foul and so feverish, and fit to cause a pleurisy, the humors gross and [illegible], and molest the stomach, so that nature desires to be unburdened; he that hits the right vein, and that physic which works kindly and strongly upon the right humor: the patient receives marvelous ease, and nature special relief and refreshing; that which takes away most of the burden, brings most ease. So it is with a soul truly willing to be severed from his sin, being burdened and infested with the venomous pollution thereof, it finds most delight in that ordinance that works most kindly and effectually upon it; the saddest counsel, the sharpest reproof, the most searching trial, that ransacks every corner of a corrupt conscience, now a man has his will, and is marvelously pleased with it.

So David when Abigail met him and reproved him, and counseled him against his sin (1 Samuel 25:32-33), says he, Blessed be you, and blessed be your counsel, and blessed be the Lord, which has kept me this day from shedding blood; who has kept me this day from venting this distemper, and has met me so [illegible] and spoke so effectually to my soul. [illegible] heart that finds his special corruption his greatest [illegible] with which he is most pestered, is indeed [illegible] willing to be rid of that, which is most [illegible] to him, and indeed the word that meets [illegible] directly, and works most powerfully, his will, [illegible] God's will meet there fully, and indeed he is [illegible] pleased: When a reproof stabs him to the [illegible], Oh more of that Lord; and that comfort [illegible] would remove his main discouragement, he [illegible] the continuance of that: That exhortation [illegible] would awaken his sluggish spirit, and put life [illegible] virtue into his soul, he says, speak home there Lord. (Proverbs 2:10) When wisdom enters into your [illegible], and knowledge is pleasant to your soul: Oh [illegible] has wished this, longed for, looked for this, and [illegible] now he has his will, and his heart's desire, [illegible] is pleased at the heart; when the Lord brings off his spirit kindly that was awk and wearish in duty, [illegible] the best day that he has seen a long time; Oh [illegible] he that I had such a heart still, ever to be in this [illegible], for God and against my sins: and still he [illegible] in that frame. (Psalm 85:8) I will hear what God will speak to my soul: whereas a corrupt heart when the Word meets with his beloved lusts [illegible] the heart is in league, and indeed would not only pinch, but pluck it away by main force; it's death to him, and so distasteful as that he cannot endure it, though he can hear many counsels, receive some general reproofs, and listen to many [illegible], yet this he bears not: It is as though a man should rend a member from his body, or pluck one part from another; the sinner rises up with fell opposition here: As she said when she had lost her darling, and conceived that the Man of God had a hand in it, What have I to do with you, you man of God? So what have [illegible] to do with that reproof, that [illegible], that admonition, that examination: thus [illegible] (Acts 22:22) — they heard Paul till he came to [illegible] word that was most cross to them, and then they cried out away with him, they could bear him [illegible] no longer. When Demetrius his trade was [illegible] to fall, he could not want his gain, and [illegible] not renounce his idol, all is in an uproar (Acts [illegible]) — there was an outcry by the space of two hours, [illegible] is Diana of the Ephesians; they would not [illegible] with their gain, nor with their [illegible]. So [illegible] dealt with Stephen when he came close to them, [illegible] discovered the rebellion of their hearts and lives (Acts 7) — they were not able to bear it, but stopped their [illegible] ears, and run upon him, and he must lose his [illegible] rather than they be disturbed in their lusts: this [illegible] the guise of the heart of every natural man who [illegible] not willing to part with his sin.

If the sinner be seriously willing to part with [illegible] sin, he is restless, and unsatisfied until it be [illegible] and taken away from him, he finds nothing that [illegible] can have any sweet contentment in as long as he [illegible] that distemper which is cross to his will, and God's will also. As Haman when he had all the caps in the country uncovered to him, and all knees [illegible] before him, yet all this was nothing to him, [illegible] avails all this (says he) so long as I see Mordecai [illegible] in the King's Gate? (Esther 5:13) So had he all abilities, did God vouchsafe to him all enlargements, had he the hearts and approbation of all [illegible] in the world, to honor him, to esteem him, yet [illegible] dashes all, what avails it so long as this pride, [illegible] peevishness, this frothy vain heart remains within me? When the heart is assaulted with some sudden qualm or deadly fume that assaults the spirits, [illegible] you drive it from his heart, nothing will do him good, Oh he is sick at the heart, now I thank the Lord it's gone from my heart: So it is with the plague of [illegible] that assaults the heart, a man that knows it, and [illegible] [illegible], and is really sick of the lusts and corruptions that are in his heart, he can never be at quiet till he find his heart in some measure freed from the power and poison of those sinful distempers: As Rebecca said, If Jacob should take a wife of the daughters of Heth, what good shall my life do me? (Genesis 27, last verse): So what good will my credit, my profit, my profession, all my privileges and performances do me, if my heart be married to any base lust? [illegible] my corrupt will, and my wayward, peevish, stiffness, and malignancy of heart continue with me still.

But you that can lift up your head and know all these evils in you, that God knows and you know there are such bosom abominations which your heart finds and takes contentment in, you can live with them, talk with them, lie down and sleep with them, and arise with them again; indeed, and your corrupt heart is restless if it may not be pleased and satisfied with your lusts: Amnon is sick of incest, Ahab of covetousness, unless they may enjoy [illegible] lusts, they cannot enjoy their lives. Grace! I would not trouble myself, or spend any time to prove that such have any grace.

When a man's sins are so far from being his vexation, that it is his vexation that he cannot have free [illegible] to commit his sins, that he is vexed with the word that discovers his evil, vexed with conscience that checks him for it, plagued and tormented with all that come in his way that will cross him in his lusts: if there be a graceless heart in Hell you are one to this very day, you never knew what it was to put off the will of sinning.

Observe where the will takes up its last stand, and what it looks at as that which lastly satisfies its desire either in pretended parting with sin, or in performance of duties, or improvement of means. The end steers the action, and gives in evidence of the goodness of it: the merchant and the pirate goes in the same channel, uses the same wind to carry them, the same compass to direct the one about his honest affairs to serve God's Providence and his own duty, and the other to serve his own covetous and unlawful lusts of thievery and spoiling. So here, I speak it for this purpose, because it's one of the cunning cheats of a deceitful heart, he will perform such duties, and forsake such sins, not because he either loves the duty, or loathes the sin, but because he would land himself at the place where he would be, at some other end of his own. Indeed, it's possible and ordinary for a man to part with his sin for a push, when indeed it is only that he may keep his sin: as Paul spoke of Onesimus, he departed from him for a season that he might be received for ever; and as the adulteress chides her mate before others, that she may enjoy him more freely without fear or suspicion; so it's usual for a false heart to chide with his corruptions, and to speak great words against them, when yet the secret [illegible] is but to enjoy them more freely by that means. Therefore let not the Devil deceive you with appearances — your confessions and resolutions, your prayers and tears against your sins, and that in secret, and that to God; if your hearts [illegible] these but as means for your own ends, you never were willing to part with sin.

The [illegible] of a gracious heart is, never to take up his stand till he comes to God and the guidance of his grace and Spirit (Hosea 14:2-3): Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously, what have I to do any more with idols? And the heart will never more have to do with these sins, but with God; he sees these evils, sorrows for these, [illegible] to have these removed that he may be under the power of God and his grace. As Samuel said to Israel (1 Samuel 7:3-4): If you do return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away your gods, and prepare your hearts to the Lord, and serve him only. So if you be indeed resolved to forsake your sins, and renounce your corruptions, then abandon them, and all occasions leading to them, and all beginnings of them, and submit yourselves, your thoughts and affections to the Lord, and to his Word, and serve him only. Lodge your soul here, and let it never take up its stand until it comes there.

The last use is of exhortation and direction both together: it should guide us, and it should persuade us, to take the right way of reformation. Never leave your prayers, and tears, and sorrows, and remorse, until you come to your very heart; your tongue professes fair, and your hand forbears the practice of evil, but ask your heart, Heart what do you say? Shame may prevail with you, authority of men may constrain you, and conscience may force you to abstain from evil; but, what does your heart say? Heart, what do you say? Never cease before you are able to answer, I am really willing to part with every sin I am convinced of. It was the great complaint of Moses concerning the people of Israel, that notwithstanding all that the Lord had done for them, yet they had not a heart to fear him, and to walk in obedience before him. So [illegible] may say, God has crowned you with [illegible], honored you with encouragements, you have the esteem of others, you have all liberties and opportunities to be as good as you should be, but truly all these will do you no good, unless you have a heart for God and against your sin, therefore rest nowhere until you have this. The great fort that must be taken is the will, or else all the rest is as good as nothing: he that will cure a disease must not only skin it over, but must take away the core of it, if he thinks to heal it thoroughly, and cure it fully. So here, it is not enough to wash a man's mouth, and to wipe his hands, but the core of a man's corruptions must be got away, your soul must be brought off from the will of sinning, as well as from the practice of sinning, or else your soul will never be brought home to God. Stay not therefore till you come there, and be sure to make sound work here. Men that clear ground, they content not themselves to lop off the tops of trees, but they stub up the roots, then they make clear work. So here, be sure you stub up the heart and will of sinning (that's the root of all) or else all that you do is in vain. It was our Savior's expression to the Pharisees (Luke 11:39): You fools that make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. They began on the wrong side, they contented themselves to [illegible] the [illegible], their outward conversation toward man, and left corruption in their hearts unsubdued, unremoved, and therefore our Savior Christ calls them fools and hypocrites for their labor. What can you say to my life? what has any man against me? If you have no more [illegible] to say for yourself than that comes to, you have nothing at all; [illegible] your heart be not cleansed from those secret corruptions of yours.

Let me leave two or three directions here, that are just in my way, not interfering with anything to be spoken afterward.

Know that the greatest work of reformation, repentance, and the comfort of a man's spiritual condition, it lies mainly in the will: the greatest work and the greatest difficulty lies here, brethren. If you look at it as a matter of ease, that you can do it with the turning of a hand, and make wash-work of it, you never knew it, and you shall never attain it: it's one of the Devil's greatest delusions whereby he deceives thousands, to persuade men it's an easy matter to be religious. No, [illegible] know it, unless you find it the greatest work in the world, you will never find endeavors suitable, nor success answerable for the comfort of your own souls. Oh therefore that every man would go home convinced and persuaded, God has helped me to temper my tongue, and to keep my hands, the Lord has given me an enlightened judgment, a reformed life, but oh the difficult work is behind, this wretched heart of mine, the hardness of that, the impossibility of that! Conclude it therefore, and resolve upon it, it will cost me hard work, and unless the Lord enable me, and set in mightily and constantly upon my soul, the work will never be done. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9): there is no hope of it, as it were, the hand, and eye, and tongue may be reformed, but the heart is desperate, who can know it? Who can mend it? Who can overpower it? If you have found it easy, nay, if you did never stand amazed at the difficulty of the work about your heart to get that severed from your sins, you never had the right discerning of it to this day. Paul cried out of the body of death (Romans 7, last verse), who shall deliver me from it? Not from the eye, or the hand, but from the heart, the will of pride, the will of uncleanness, the will of [illegible], and here he is at a stand, at an amaze with himself, who shall deliver me!

Beleaguer your heart and will with the clear evidence of the truth of God, that it may not be able to make an escape from under it. It is with subduing the will, as it is in winning a strong hold; it's marvelous hard to [illegible] to it, no battery can be made against it, those that are, do not prevail, [illegible] [illegible] taking of it. Then they besiege it, so that none shall come in to bring any help, [illegible] none go out to find any relief, then in time they will be famished out, and so forced to surrender. Do so with your soul, you have a crooked proud [illegible] will that has outbid all the ordinances of God, no battery could ever prevail against it. Therefore labor to besiege it with the evidence and plainness of undeniable arguments of truth from the Word, that nothing may come in nor out; listen not to any carnal reasons within, suffer not either honor, or profit, or pleasure from without to enfeeble the power of the truth, but so besiege it with the evidence of the Word, that the soul may say, this is my sin, this is my plague, this is my state, it will be my ruin unless the Lord show mercy to me. This will tire the heart of a man, and there is no other way in the world: and it's certain that the heart will either lay down his corruption or his conviction; but this is our misery, that some go out, and some come in, and so the heart is relieved and holds the siege long.

The last direction (which may prepare us for the next point, namely, the hand of the Lord to work this for us): when you are persuaded this stubborn heart will cost me many a prayer and tear, and bring me often upon my knees, it will never do else, if I think it's easy I never knew what it was, and when your heart is so besieged that it finds no relief; then brethren look often up to heaven. He only that made the heart can frame the heart to the blessed obedience of his own will; all that we can do, is to use the means, and lie under the ordinances that God may do that for us which he requires of us. It's the Lord's own promise (Ezekiel 36:26-27): I will take away the heart of stone, and give a heart of flesh. Therefore go and cry to heaven, and say, Lord it is not in our hands to do it, but you have said you will give to your servants a heart to hate sin, we come and beseech you deny it not to us. Look to him we should in whose hand our hearts are, that he may do that for us which we cannot do for ourselves.