The Reign of Sin

Romans 6:12. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof.

After the doctrine of the state and guilt of sin, it will be needful for the further conviction thereof (that sin may appear exceeding sinful) to show in the next place the power and the reign of sin; from which the Apostle in this place dissuades us.

Having in the former chapter set forth the doctrine of justification, with those many comfortable fruits and effects that flow from it, he here passes over to another head of Christian doctrine, namely sanctification, and conformity to the holiness of Christ, the ground of which he makes to be our fellowship with him in his death and resurrection: for Christ carried our sins upon the tree with him, and therefore we ought with him to die daily to sin, and to live to God. This is the whole argument of the preceding parts of the chapter, and frequently elsewhere used by the Apostle, and others (2 Corinthians 5:14-15; Galatians 2:20; Galatians 3:27; Galatians 5:24; Ephesians 2:6; Philippians 3:10; Colossians 2:12-13, 26; Colossians 3:1, 4; Hebrews 9:14; 1 Peter 4:1-2). Now the words of the text are as I conceive a prolepsis, or answer to a tacit objection which might be made. A weak Christian might thus allege, If our fellowship in the death of Christ does bring along with it a death of sin in us, then surely I have little to do with his death; for alas sin is still alive in me, and daily brings forth the works of life. To this the Apostle answers, Though sin dwell in you, yet let it not reign in you, nor have its accustomed hold and power over you. Impossible it is while you carry about these tabernacles of flesh, these mortal bodies, that sin should not lodge within you, yet your care must be to give the kingdom to Christ, to let him have the honor in you which his Father has given him in the Church, to rule in the midst of his enemies, those fleshly lusts which fight against him. By mortal body, we here understand the whole man in this present estate, wherein he is subject to death, which is a usual figure to take the part for the whole, especially since the body is a weapon and instrument to reduce into act, and to execute the will of sin.

Before I speak of the power of sin, here are two points that offer themselves from the connection of the words to those preceding, which I will but only name.

First, sin will abide for the time of this mortal life in the most regenerate — who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am free from my sin? David had his secret sins, which made him pray; and Paul his thorn in his flesh, which made him cry out against it. To the reasons of this point before produced we may add, that God suffers our sins to dwell in us, first to magnify the glory of his mercy, that notwithstanding he be provoked every day, yet he does still spare us. It is said in one place, that when God saw that every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was continually evil, he said, I will destroy man whom I have created from off the face of the earth (Genesis 6:5-6); yet afterwards God said, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth (Genesis 8:[illegible]). The places seem at first view to be contradictory to one another. But we are thus to reconcile them: after there had been a propitiatory offering made by Noah to God upon an altar, which was the type of Christ, it is said that God smelled a sweet savor, and resolved, I will no more curse the earth, not because, but although the imagination of man's heart be evil from his youth; that is, though men are so wicked that if I would take advantage to pour out again my displeasure upon them, I might do it every day, yet I will spare them notwithstanding their lusts continue in them. For we are not to understand the place as if it tended to the extenuation of original sin (as some do) — I will take pity upon them, because of their natural infirmities; but only as tending to the magnifying of God's mercy and patience — I will take pity upon them, though I might destroy them. For so the original word is elsewhere taken: you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, etc.

Secondly, to magnify the glory of his powerful patience, that being daily provoked yet he has power to be patient still. In ordinary esteem when an enemy is daily irritated, and yet comes not to revenge his quarrel, we account it impotency and unpreparedness, but in God his patience is his power. When the people of Israel murmured upon the report of giants in the land, and would have made a captain to return into Egypt, and have stoned Joshua and Caleb, so that God's wrath was ready to break out upon them, and to disinherit them, this was the argument that Moses used to mediate for them: Let the power of my Lord be great, according as you have spoken — the Lord is long-suffering and of great mercy (Numbers 14:17-19). You have shown the power of your mercy from Egypt until now, even so pardon them still. If we could conceive God to have his own justice joined with the impotency and impatience of man, we could not conceive how the world should all this while have subsisted in the midst of such mighty provocations. This is the only reason why he does not execute the fierceness of his wrath, and consume men, because he is God and not man, not subject to the same passions, changes, and impotencies as men are (Hosea 11:9; Malachi 3:6). If a house be very weak and ruinous, and clogged with a sore weight of heavy materials which press it down too, there must be strength in the props that do hold it up; even so that patience of God which upholds these ruinous tabernacles of ours, that are pressed down with such a weight of sin — a weight that lies heavy even upon God's mercy itself — must needs have much strength and power in it (Hebrews 12:1; Amos 2:13).

The second point from the connection is, that our death with Christ to sin is a strong argument against the reign and power of sin in us. Else we make the death of Christ in vain, for in his death he came with water and blood (1 John 5:6), not only with blood to justify our persons, but with water to wash away our sins.

The reasons hereof are, first, Deadness argues disability to any such works as did pertain to that life to which a man is dead. Such then as is the measure of our death to sin, such is our disability to fulfill the lusts of it. Now though sin be not quite expired, yet it is with Christ nailed upon a cross, they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts: so that in a regenerate man it is no more able to do all its own will, than a crucified man is to walk up and down, and to do those businesses which he was used to delight in. He that is born of God sins not, neither can sin, because he is born of God, and his seed abides in him.

Secondly, Deadness argues disaffection. A condemned man cares not for the things of this world, because he is in law dead, and so reserved to an execution, and utterly divested of any right in the things he was used to delight in: the sight or remembrance of them does but afflict him the more. A divorced man cares not for the things of his wife, because in law she is dead to him, and he to her. So should it be with us and sin, because we are dead with Christ, therefore we should show it no affection.

Thirdly, Deadness argues liberty, unsubjection, justification. He that is dead is freed from sin, as the woman is from the husband after death. And therefore being freed thus from sin we should not bring ourselves into bondage again, but stand fast in the liberty with which Christ has set us free, and sin should appear in our eyes, as it is in itself a dead thing, full of noisomeness, horror, and hideous qualities.

We therefore should labor to show forth the power of the death of Christ in our dying to sin; for this is certain we have no benefit by his sufferings, except we have fellowship in them, and we have no more fellowship in them, than we can give proof of by our dying daily to sin; for his blood cleanses from all sin. Let us not by reigning sin crucify Christ again, for he dies no more: in that he died, he died once to sin; Death has no more power over him, to show that sin must have no more power over us, but that being once dead to sin, we should thereafter live to him that died for us. There is a speech in Tertullian, which though proceeding from Novatianism in him, does yet in a moderated and qualified sense carry the strength of the Apostle's argument in it, Si possit fornicatio & moechia denno admitti, poterit & Christus denno mori, If fornication and adultery may be again committed by a man dead to sin in that raging and complete manner as before, if reigning sin after it has been ejected out of the throne, and nailed to a cross, can return to its total and absolute sovereignty as before, Christ may die again, for the sins of a justified and regenerate man are crucified upon his cross, and in his body.

Now I proceed to the main thing in the text, namely the regal power of sin. It is an observation of Chrysostome and Theodoret on the text, which though by some rejected as too nice, I shall yet make bold to commend for very pertinent and rational. The Apostle did not say (say they) Let not sin tyrannize, for that is sin's own work and not ours, as the Apostle says, Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me, all the service which is done to a tyrant is out of violence, and not out of obedience: but he says, Let it not reign in you, for to the reign of a king the obedience of the subjects does as it were actively concur (whereas the subjects are rather patients than agents in a tyranny.) So then in a reigning king there is a more sovereign power than in a tyrant; for a tyrant has only a coactive power over the persons, but a king has a sweet power over the wills and affections of his subjects, they freely and heartily love his person, and rejoice in his service; which rule though it be not perpetual in the letter and in civil governments; (for the unwillingness of a people to serve a prince may not only arise from his tyranny, but even when he is just and moderate, from their own rebellion) yet it is most general and certain in the state of sin which is never a king over rebellious subjects, who of themselves reject its yoke and government.

For the better discovery then of the power of sin we must note first that there are but three ways after which sin may be in a man. First, as an usurping tyrant, and seditious agitator, either by surprise invading, or by violence holding under, or by projects circumventing a man against his will, taking advantage of some present distemper of mind, or difficulty of estate; as in David of idleness, in Peter of fear and danger, or the like. And thus sin does often encroach upon the saints of God, and play the tyrant, use them like captives that are sold under the power of sin. It was thus a tyrant in Saint Paul; we read of him that he was sold under sin, and we read of Ahab, that he was sold to sin; but with great difference, the one sold himself, and so became willingly the servant of sin, the other was sold by [reconstructed: Adam], from which bondage he could not utterly extricate himself, though he were in bondage to sin, as the creatures are to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of his act that had subjected him long before. Secondly, as a slave, a Gibeonite or tributary Canaanite, as a spoiled, mortified, crucified, dying, decaying sin, like the house of Saul growing weaker and weaker; and thus sin is constantly in all the faithful; while they are in the field [reconstructed: the chase is about them]. Thirdly, as a raging and commanding king, having a throne the heart, servants the members, a council the world, flesh and Devil, a complete armory of lusts and temptations, fortifications of ignorance, malice, rebellion, fleshly reasonings, laws and edicts, lastly a strict judicature, a wise and powerful rule over men, which the Scriptures call the gates of Hell. And of the power of this king we are to speak.

In a King there is a twofold power: a power to command, and a power to make his commands be obeyed. Sin properly has no power to command, because the kingdom of it is in no way subordinated to God's kingdom over us, but stands up against it. And even in just and anointed kings there is no power to command anything contrary to that kingdom of Christ to which they are equally with others subject. But though sin has not a just power to command the soul, yet it has that upon which that power, where it is, is grounded, namely a kind of title and right over the soul.

Sin is a spiritual death, and man by his first fall did incur a subjection to every thing which may be called death, so that then a man did pass into the possession of sin; from where that phrase spoken of before, "You have sold yourself to work evil." Now Quod venditur transit in potestatem ementis, when a thing is sold it passes into the possession of that to which it is sold. This is the covenant or bargain between a sinner and Hell: man purchases the pleasures and wages of sin, and sin takes the possession of man; possession of his nature in original sin, and possession of his life in actual sin.

The trial of this title of sin, that we may discern whether we are under it or no, must be as other titles are; we must first inquire who they are, to whose right and possession a man may belong, and then examine the evidences which either can make for himself. To sin we know does appertain the primitive right of every natural and lapsed man (for we are by nature the children of wrath.) A purchase then must come between, before a man can pass over into another's right; this purchase was made by Christ, who bought us with his blood: and the treaty in this purchase was not between Christ and sin, but between him and his Father; "They were yours and you gave them to me," for the fall of man could not nullify God's dominion nor right to him — for when man ceased to be God's servant, he then began to be his prisoner; and though sin and Satan [reconstructed: were] in regard of man lords, yet they were in regard of God, but jailers, to keep or part from his prisoners at his pleasure. Besides, though Christ got man by purchase, yet sin and Satan lost him by forfeiture; for [reconstructed: the] prince of this world seizing upon Christ in whom he had [reconstructed: no] right (for he found nothing of his own in him) did by that means forfeit his former right which he had in men of the same nature. We see then, all the claim that can be made is either by Christ, or sin; by that strong man, or him that is stronger; a man must have evidences for Christ, or else he belongs to the power of sin. The evidences of Christ are his name, his seal, and his witnesses. His name, a new name, a name better than of sons and daughters, even Christ formed in the heart, and his law engraved in the inner man. As it is fabled of Ignatius, that there was found the name of Jesus written in his heart; so must every one of God's house be named by him with this new name, of him are all the families in heaven and in earth named. The seal of Christ is his Spirit, witnessing to and securing our spirits that we belong to him: for he that has not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his, and by this we know that he dwells in us, and we in him, because he has given us of his Spirit. The witnesses of Christ are three: the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood. The testimony of adoption, sealing the fatherly care of God to our souls, saying to our souls that he is our salvation and inheritance. The testimony of justification, our faith in the blood and price of Christ, and the testimony of sanctification in our being cleansed from dead works, for he came to destroy the works of the Devil, he came with refiner's fire and with fuller's soap, and with healing under his wings, that is (as I conceive) under the preaching of his gospel, which, as the beams of the sun, make manifest the savor of him in every place, and by which he comes and goes abroad to those that are far off, and to those that are near. It was the office of Christ as well to purify as to redeem, as well to sanctify as to justify us; so that if a man say he belongs to Christ, and yet brings not forth fruit to God, but lives still married to his former lusts and is not cleansed from his filthiness, he makes God a liar, because he believes not the record which he gives of his Son; (for he will not have either a barren or an adulterous spouse) indeed he puts Christ to shame, as if he had undertaken more than he were able to perform: besides, Christ being a light, a star, a sun, never comes to the heart without self-manifestation, such evidence as cannot be gainsaid; to him belongs this royal prerogative to be himself the witness to his own grace. And when the Papists demand of us how we can be sure that this testimony of Christ's grace and Spirit is not a false witness and delusion of Satan; we demand of them again, if the flesh can have this advantage to make such objections against the invaluable comforts of Christ's grace, and the heart have nothing to reply; if Christ witness, and no man can understand it; if the Spirit of Christ be a Comforter, and the Devil can comfort every jot as well, and counterfeit his comforts to the quick, and so deceive and delude a man; what is any man the better for any such assertions of Scripture, where the Spirit is called the Spirit of Comfort, the strengthener of the inner man, and the heart said to be established by grace? Certainly the comforts of the Spirit must fall to the ground, if they bring not along a proper and distinct luster into the soul with them. And this Ambrosius Catharinus himself, a learned Papist, and as great a scholar in the Trent Council as any other, was bold to maintain against the contrary opinion of Dominicus Soto in a public declaration, to whom Bellarmine dares not adhere, though it be his custom to boast of their unanimity in point of doctrine. Besides, sin is of a quarreling and litigious disposition, it will not easily part from that which was once its own, but will be ever raising suits, disputing, arguing, wrangling with the conscience for its old right; Christ came not to send peace, but a sword, perpetual and unreconcilable combats and debates with the flesh of man. If a man hold peace with his lusts, and set not his strength and his heart against them, if they be not in a state of rebellion, they are certainly in the throne. It is impossible for a king to rebel, because he has none above him; and so as long as lust is a king it is in peace, but when Christ subdues it and takes possession of the heart, it will presently rise and rebel against his kingdom. Here then is the trial of the title. If a man cannot show the evidences of a new purchase, the Spirit, the Blood, the Water, the sonship, the righteousness, the holiness, conversation, and grace of Christ; if he be not in arms against the remnants of lust in himself, but live in peace and good contentment under the vigor and life of them, that man belongs yet to the right of sin. For if a man be Christ's, there will be Nova regalia extremely opposite to those of sin: a new heart for the throne of the Spirit; new members to be the servants of righteousness; new counselors, namely the laws of God; a new panoply, the whole armor of God; new laws, the law of the mind, and of the heart; a new judicature, even the government of the Spirit: thoughts, words, actions, conversations, all things new as the Apostle speaks.

Now let us in the next place consider the power whereby sin makes its commands to be obeyed, wherein it is more strong and sure than a tyrant, who rules against the will of his subjects. The particulars of this strength may be thus digested.

First, sin has much strength from itself, and that in these regards. First, it is very willful — it is as it were all will. Therefore it is called in the Scripture, the will of the flesh, and the will of the Gentiles, and the will of men. And the will is the seat of strength, especially seeing the will of man, and the will of sin or the flesh are in the Scripture phrase all one. If a man had one will and sin another, man's will drew one way and sin's another, perhaps his power to resist might be stronger than sin's power to command: but when the will of sin is in the will of man as a bias in a bowl, as a flame in smoke, as a weight or spring to an engine, as spirits in the body, to actuate and determine it to its own way, how can a man resist the will of sin, who has no other than a sinful will to resist by?

Secondly, as sin is willful, so it is very passionate and lustful, which adds wings as it were to the commands of sin. The Apostle calls them passions, and those working passions; when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin did work in our members. There is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, and there are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, lust and passions of lust, which the Apostle calls vile lusts, and burning lusts, and affections and lusts, that is, very lustful lusts. Lust is in the best, but these violent passions and ardencies of lust are serious symptoms of the reign of sin. To be fierce, implacable, headstrong, like the horse in the battle, and that not upon extraordinary distemper or surprisal (as Jonah and Asa were) but habitually, so as on any occasion to discover it, is by the Apostle put in among the characters of those that deny the power of godliness. For sin must not hold its power where godliness has any.

Thirdly, it has laws and edicts, full of wisdom and cunning, edged and tempered with many encouragements and provocations to those that obey, which (as I said before) the Scripture calls the wages of sin, and pleasures of sin, by which Balaam was enticed to curse God's people. A law is nothing else but a rule or principle of working which orders and moderates the course of a man's life; and so sin has a way to carry men in, and principles to govern men by, which Saint Paul calls Seculum — the course of the world. Such as are rules of example, custom, good intentions, God's mercy taken by halves, without respect to any conditions which it brings with it, the common [reconstructed: frailty] of our nature, that we are all men, and that the best have their infirmities, distinctions, evasions, justifications, extenuations, partial strictness in some particulars, the opus operatum, or mere doing of duties required, and many like — most of which things I have spoken of more largely heretofore upon another Scripture.

Fourthly, it is full of flattery to entice and woo a man, cunning to observe all the best seasons to surprise the soul. And though enticements be base, yet they are very strong — like a gentle shower or a soft fire they sink, and get in closer than if they should be more violent. That which is as soft as oil in the touch, may be as sharp as swords in the operation. And therefore as a man is said in one place to be enticed by lust, so elsewhere he is said to be driven and thrust on by lust. Take heed to yourselves lest you corrupt yourselves, lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, should be driven to worship them and serve them. The objects themselves have no coactive or compulsory power in them (for they work but as objects, which is the weakest way of working that is, for objects [reconstructed: are] never total agents, but only partial — they do never any more than cooperate with some faculty and power to which they are suitable) yet such is the strength of those lusts which are apt to kindle by those objects, that a man is said to be driven to idolatry by them. All which false prophets can do is but moral and by way of cunning and seducement, yet such is the strength of those lusts which they flatter and work upon by their impostures, that they are said to thrust a man out of the way which the Lord commanded him to walk in. For as we use to say of the requests of a king, so we may of the flatteries and allurements of sin, that they do amount to commands.

In one word, sin is thoroughly furnished with all sorts of armor, both for defense and opposition, all strongholds, all reasonings and imaginations, and thoughts which can be contrived to secure itself; and therefore no marvel if it has much strength from itself.

Secondly, it has much strength from Satan and the world, which are the counselors and aids of sin, which bring in constant supplies and provisions to it. Therefore lusts are said to be of the world, and to be earthly and devilish, because the world and the devil supply them with constant fuel.

But lastly and principally lust has much strength in and from us. First, because they are natural to us. A man's sin is himself, it is called by the name of our old man. And therefore to be carnal, and to walk as man, to live after the lusts of the flesh, and after the lusts of men are all one. To live to sin in one place is to live to ourselves in another. To crucify fleshly affections in one place, is to mortify our earthly members in another. To deny ungodliness and worldly lusts in one place, is to deny ourselves in another. To lay aside the sin that does so easily beset us in one place, is to cast away our right eye and our right hand in another. And therefore the ways of sin are called our own ways, and the lusts of the flesh our own lusts, and being our own, we love and cherish them. No man ever hated his own flesh, neither can any man by nature hate his own lusts, to which he is as truly said to be married as the Church is to Christ. And this serves much to set forth the power of sin. For the love of the subject is the strength of the sovereign; a king shall then certainly be obeyed, when he commands such things as it were difficult for him to prohibit. Secondly, lust has from us weapons to set forward its strength, the heart a forge to contrive, and members instruments to execute, the heart a womb to conceive, and the members midwives to bring forth lusts into act. Lastly, sin must be very strong in us because we are by nature full of it. So the Apostle says of natural men that they were filled with all unrighteousness, and full of envy, debate, deceit, etc. and Saint Peter, that they have eyes full of adultery, that cannot cease from sin. Now where there is all of a strong thing that must needs be exceeding strong. If all the four winds should meet together in their full strength, what mountains would they not root up by the foundation? What a mighty rage and strength is there in the sea, only because it is full of waters, and all water belongs to it? Who is able to look upon the sun, or endure the brightness of that glorious creature, only because it is full of light? The same reason is in fleshly lusts, they are very strong in us, because our nature is full of them, and because all their fullness is in our nature.

Now this strength which is thus made up of so many ingredients, does further appear in the effects of it, which are these three, all comprised in the general word of obeying it in the lusts thereof, which denotes a full and uncontrolled power in sin. First, the entertaining, cherishing of lust, shaping of it, delighting in it, consenting to it; when a man does join himself to sin, and settle himself upon it, and set his heart to it, and respect it in his heart, and study and consult it, and resolve upon it. Secondly, executing of it, and bringing into act the suggestions of the flesh thus conceived, yielding to the commands, drudging in the service, drawing iniquity with cords and cartropes, resigning both heart and hand to the obedience of sin. Thirdly, finishing it, going on without weariness or murmuring, without repenting or repining in the ways of lust, running in one constant channel, till like the waters of Jordan the soul drops into the dead lake. All these three Saint James has put together to show the gradations, and the danger of fleshly lusts. Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed; lust when it has conceived brings forth sin, and sin when it is finished brings forth death. First, there is the suggestion, lust draws away and entices. Secondly, the conception and formation, in the delight and consent of the will. Thirdly, the execution, and bringing into act. Fourthly, the consummation and accomplishment of lust, filling up the measure, going on unwearied to the last, till there is no hope, and so abusing the patience and long-suffering of God to destruction. Sin grows till it is ripe for the slaughter; now if men in the interim cut off their sins, and turn to God before the decree is sealed, before he stirs up all his wrath, and will suffer his Spirit no longer to strive, if they consecrate that little time and strength they have left to God's service, then the kingdom of sin is pulled down in them. To this purpose is the counsel of Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar; that he should break off his sins by righteousness, and his iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, that is, he should relinquish those sins which were most predominant in him; his injustice, and oppression, and tyranny against poor men (thus Paul preached of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment to come, to Felix a corrupt and lascivious governor) and by that means his tranquility should be lengthened, not by way of merit (for a thief deserves no pardon, because he gives over stealing) but by way of mercy and favor.

Hitherto I have but shown that sin is a strong king. But this is not enough to drive men to Christ, which is my principal scope. It is further required that men be convinced of being under this power of sin. The first use then which I shall show you may be made of this doctrine is for conviction and trial of the reign of sin in ourselves; for the more distinct expediting whereof I shall propose these three cases to be resolved. First, whether sin may reign in a regenerate man so, as that this power and kingdom of sin shall consist with the righteousness of Christ? Secondly, how wicked men may be convinced that sin reigns in them, and what difference there is between the power of sin in them, and in the regenerate? Thirdly, why every sin does not reign in every unregenerate man?

For the first of these, we must remember in the general, that sin does then reign when a man does obey it in the lusts thereof, when he does yield up himself to execute all the commands of sin, when he is held under the power of Satan, and of darkness. And for the regenerate we must likewise note what Saint Paul, and Saint John have spoken in general of this point. Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the Law, but under Grace, says Saint Paul, when a man is delivered from the obligations of the Law, he is then delivered from the strength of sin; (for the strength of sin is the Law) (Romans 6:14). And he that is born of God sins not, neither can sin, says Saint John (1 Corinthians 15:56; 1 John 3:9), that is, cannot obey sin in all the lusts and commands thereof, as a servant to sin, from which service he has ceased by being born of God (for no man can be God's Son and sin's servant:) for we are to distinguish between doing the work of sin, and obeying sin in the lusts thereof. As a man may do divine works, and yet not ever in obedience to God, so a man may be subject as a captive in this or that particular tyranny of sin, who is not obedient as a servant to all the government of sin, for that takes in the whole will, and an adequate submission thereof to the peaceable and uncontrolled power of sin. Let us then inquire how far the power of sin may discover itself in the most regenerate. First, the best have flesh about them, and that flesh wherever it is works, and rebels against the Spirit of Christ, so that they cannot do the things which they would. Secondly, this flesh is of itself indifferent to great sins as well as to small, and therefore by some strong temptation it may prevail to carry the saints to great sins, as it did David, Peter, and others. Thirdly, this flesh is as much in the will as in any other part of regenerate men, and therefore when they commit great sins, they may commit them with consent, delight, and willingness of heart. Fourthly, this flesh is in their members as well as in their wills, and therefore they may actuate, and execute those wills of sin which they have consented to. Fifthly, we confess that by these sins thus committed, the conscience of a regenerate man is wasted and wounded, and overcome by the power of sin, and such a particular grievous guilt contracted, as must first be washed away by some particular repentance, before that man can be again qualified to take actual possession of his inheritance, or to be admitted to glory. In which case that of the apostle is most certain, that the very righteous shall scarcely be saved (1 Peter 4:18). For we are to note that as some things may indispose a man for the present use, or dispossess him of the comforts and emoluments, which yet are not valid enough to divest him of the whole right and state in a living: so some sins may be of so heavy a nature as may disqualify a man for an actual admittance into Heaven, or possession of glory, which yet do not nullify his faith, nor extinguish his title and interest to it. Thus we see that sin may in the most holy have great power; the examples whereof are all written for our learning, to teach us what is indeed within us, how circumspectly we should walk, how watchful over our hearts, how steadfast in our covenant, lest we fall after the example of those men, and so break our bones as David did. For one great sin presumptuously committed, will bring either such a hardness of heart, as will make you live in a wretched security and neglect of your service, and peace with God; or such a woeful experience of his wrath and heavy displeasure against sin, as will even bruise your conscience, and burn up your bowels, and make you go drooping and disconsolate it may be all your days.

But yet, though sin may thus far proceed against [illegible] a regenerate man, all this does not amount to a complete reign. Though sin may have a victory in the faithful and that even over their wills, yet it has not a kingdom, which imports a complete and universal resignation of the whole will and man to the obedience of it. It is one thing to have the whole consent of the will to some one sin stolen away by some particular temptation; and another, to be wholly addicted and devoted to the ways of sin, to have the whole heart universally married to lust, and filled with Satan, whereby it brings forth fruit to death. Into the former of these we grant the faithful may fall, (and yet even in that case, the seed of God which abides in them, though it did not operate to prevent sin, will yet undoubtedly serve to supply repentance in due time; and though consent went before to conceive sin, yet it shall not follow after to allow it being committed; but they review their sin with much hatred, and self-displeasure, with affliction of spirit, humiliation of heart, admiration of God's patience and forbearance, with renewing their covenant, with complaints and heavy bewailings of their own frowardness, with a filial mourning for their ingratitude and undutifulness to God.) But that a regenerate man should totally addict himself to the ways of sin, is repugnant to the Scripture, and extremely contrary to that throne which Christ has in the heart of such a man.

For the second case, how unregenerate men may be convinced that sin does reign in them, we must observe that the complete reign of sin denotes two things. First, that strength, power, sovereignty, and dominion of sin, which has been already opened. Secondly, a peaceable, uncontrolled, willing, universal subjection of all the members to the obedience of that King.

Now to measure the unregenerate by this adequate rule, we must know that they first are of several sorts and stamps. Some are apparently and in conspectu hominum outrageous sinners, upon whom every man that sees them, and is well acquainted with the trade and course of sin which they live in, may without breach of charity pass this sentence, there goes a man who declares himself in the eyes of the world to be a servant of sin; (I speak not this for liberty of censuring, but for evidence and easiness of discerning only.) Every man that thinks it baseness and below the strain of his spirit to tremble at God's Word, to fear judgments against sin denounced, who with a presumptuous and high hand rejects the warnings which God sends him, who in his practice and sinful conformities makes more account of the course of the world, than of the curse of God; of the fashions of men, than of the will of the Spirit; of the estimation of men, than of the opinion of Christ: and such is every one that allows himself in the same excess of rage and riot, of swearing, swaggering, and uncleanness with his devilish associates, in the name and authority of the Lord Jesus. I pronounce that man to be a servant of sin: and if he continue sin's servant, he shall undoubtedly have sin's wages; the wages of sin is death, even the everlasting vengeance and wrath to come; and if he despise that warning, the word which I have spoken shall rise against him at the last day.

Others there are of a more calm, civil, composed course, men much wiser but not a dram holier than those before. And here mainly sticks the inquiry, and that upon three exceptions, with which they may seem to evade, and shift off this power of sin.

First, in those men there appears not so sovereign and absolute a dominion of sin as has been spoken of, inasmuch as they seem to live in fair external conformity to the truths which they have learned. To which I answer first in general, that there may be a reign of sin where it is not perceived, and that insensibility is a main argument of it. For this is a certain rule, the more tenderly and seriously any man is affected with sense and sorrow for the power of sin, the more he is delivered from it. The young man in the Gospel was fully persuaded that he had kept the whole Law, and little thought that his own possessions were his king, and that he was a vassal to his own wealth, till Christ convinced him of a mighty reign of covetousness in his heart. A ship may in the midst of a calm, by reason of a great mist, and the negligence of the mariners to sound and discover their distances from land, split itself against a rock, as well as be cast upon it by some irresistible storm: and so that man who never fathoms his heart, nor searches how near he may be to ruin, but goes leisurely and uniformly on in his usual formal and pharisaical securities, may, when he thinks nothing of it, as likely perish under the power of sin, as he in whom the rage thereof is most apparent. As there is a great strength in a river when it runs smoothest and without noise, which immediately discovers itself when any bridge or obstacle is set up against it: so when sin passes with most stillness, and undisturbance through the heart, then is the reign of it as strong as ever, and upon any spiritual and searching opposition will declare itself. The Pharisees were rigid, demure, saint-like men, while their hypocrisy was let alone to run calmly and without noise; but when Christ by his spiritual expositions of the Law, his heavenly conversation, his penetrating and convincing sermons, had stopped the current, and disquieted them in their course, we find their malice swell into the very sin against the Holy Spirit. It is the light of the sun which makes day when it itself lies shut under a cloud and is not seen; so in every natural man there is a power and prevalence of sin, which yet may lie undiscovered under some general moralities. Thus as the serpent in the fable had a true sting while it lay in the snow, though it showed not itself but at the fire: so there may be a regal power in sin, when upon external reasons it may for a time dissemble itself. Ahab and Jeroboam's wife were as truly princes in their disguise, as in their robes; and a sow as truly a swine when washed in a spring of water, as when wallowing in a sink of dirt. The heart of man is like a beast, that has much filth and garbage shut up under a fair skin, till the Word like a sacrificing sword slit open, and as it were unridge the conscience to discover it. All the ways of man, says Solomon, are clean in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirits: He is a discoverer of the secrets, and [reconstructed: internals] of every action.

For the more particular opening of this point it will be needful to answer some few questions touching the reign of some particular sins which perhaps are seldom so thought of. And the first is touching small sins — whether they may be said to be reigning sins? To which I answer, that it is not the greatness but the power of sin which makes it a king. We know there are reguli as well as reges, kings of cities and narrow territories, as well as Emperors over vast provinces. Nay many times a sin may be great in Abstracto, as the fact is measured by the law, and yet in Concreto, by circumstances, it may not be a reigning sin in the person committing it: and on the contrary a small sin in the nature of the fact, may be a reigning sin in the commission; as in a corporation a man not half as rich as another may be the chief magistrate, and another of a far greater estate may be an underling in regard of government. As a small stone thrown with a strong arm will do more hurt than another far greater if but gently laid on, or sent forth with a fainter impression: so a small sin, committed with a high hand, with more security, presumption, and customariness, than others, will more waste the conscience than far greater out of infirmity or sudden surprisal. As we see drops frequently falling will [reconstructed: wear into] a stone, and make it hollower than some few far heavier strokes could have done, or as water poured into a sieve with many small holes, or into a bottomless vessel, is equally cast away; a ship may as well perish upon sands as rocks. Daily small expenses upon lesser vanities, may in time eat out a good estate, if there be never any accounts taken, nor proportion observed, nor provision made to bring in as well as to expend: so a man, otherwise very specious, may by a course of more civil and moderate sins run into ruin.

The second question is, whether privy and secret sins which never break forth into light may reign. To which I answer, that of all other sins, those which are secret have the chiefest rule, such as are privy pride, hypocrisy, self-justification, rebellion, malicious projects against the word and worship of God, etc. The Prophet compares wicked men's hearts to an oven (Hosea 7:6-7). As an oven is hottest when it is stopped that no blast may break forth: so the heart is oftentimes most sinful, when most reserved. It was a great part of the state and pride of the Persian kings, that they were seldom seen by their subjects in public; and the kingdom of China at this day is very vast and potent, though it communicate but little with other people: so those lodging thoughts, as the Prophet calls them, which lie stifled within, may be most powerful, when they are least discovered. First, because they are ever in the throne (for the heart is the throne of sin) and every thing has most of itself, and is least mixed and altered where it first rises. Secondly, because they are in the heart as a stone in the center, freest from opposition and disturbance, which, breaking forth into act, they might be likely to meet with. And this may be one of the depths and projects of Satan against the soul of a man, to let him live in some fair and plausible conformity for the outward conversation, that so his rule in the heart may be the more quiet both from clamors of conscience, and from cure of the word.

The third question is, whether sins of ignorance may be reigning sins? To which I answer, that it is not men's knowledge of a king which makes him a king, but his own power. Saul was a king when the witch knew not of it. For as those multitudes of imperceptible stars in the Milky Way do yet all contribute to that general confused light which we there see: so the undiscerned power of unknown sins do add much to the great kingdom which sin has in the hearts of men. A letter written in an unknown language, or in dark and invisible characters, is yet as truly a letter as that which is most intelligible and distinct; so though men make a shift to fill their consciences with dark and unlegible sins, yet there they are as truly as if they were written in capital characters. Saint Paul's persecution was a sin of ignorance, that was the only thing which left room for the mercy of God, so he says of himself, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly, through unbelief. Which words we are not to understand causally, or by way of external motive to God's mercy, as if Saint Paul's ignorance and unbelief had been any positive and objective reason why God showed him mercy, but only thus, I was so grievous a persecutor of the Church of Christ, that had it not been for my ignorance only, I had been a subject incapable of mercy. If I had known Christ's spirit, and been so convinced as the Scribes and Pharisees, to whom he used to preach, were, and should notwithstanding that conviction have set myself with that cruelty and rage against him as I did, there would have been no room for mercy left, my sin would have been not only against the members, but against the Spirit of Christ, and so an unpardonable sin. His persecution then was a sin of ignorance, and yet we may know what a reigning sin it was by the description of it, that he made havoc of the Church, and hauled men and women into prison. And indeed ignorance does promote the kingdom of sin, as a thief with a mask or disguise will be more bold in his outrages, than with open face. For sin cannot be reproved, nor repented of, till some way or other it be made known. All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light.

The fourth question is, whether natural concupiscence may be esteemed a reigning sin? To which I answer, that as a child may be born a king, and be crowned in his cradle; so sin in the womb may reign. And indeed concupiscence is of all other the sinning sin, and most exceeding sinful. So that as there is virtually and radically more water in a fountain though it seem very narrow, than in the streams which flow from it, though far wider, because though the streams should all dry up, yet there is enough in the fountain to supply all again: so the sin of nature has indeed more fundamental foulness in it, than the actual sins which arise from it, as being the adulterous womb which is ever of itself prostituted to the injections of any diabolical or worldly temptations, and greedy to clasp, cherish and organize the seeds of any sin. So that properly the reign of sin is founded in lust; for they are our lusts which are to be satisfied in any sinful obedience; all the subsidies, succors, contributions which are brought in are spent upon lust; and therefore not to mourn for and bewail this natural concupiscence, as David and Paul did, is a manifest sign of the reign of lust. For there is no medium, if sin, which cannot be avoided, be not lamented neither, it is undoubtedly obeyed.

The last question is, whether sins of omission may be esteemed reigning sins? To which I answer, that the wicked in Scripture are characterized by such kind of sins, 'Pour out your vengeance upon the heathen that know you not, and upon the families that call not upon your name.' 'The wicked through the pride of his heart will not seek after God, God is not in all his thoughts.' 'There is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.' 'I was hungry, and you gave me no meat; thirsty, and you gave me no drink; a stranger, and you took me not in, etc.' As in matters of government, a Prince's negative voice whereby he hinders the doing of a thing, is oftentimes as great an argument of his royalty, as his positive commands to have a thing done (or rather a Prince has power to command that to be done, which he has no power to prohibit; as Josiah commanded the people to serve the Lord:) so in sin, the power which it has to deaden and take off the heart from Christian duties, from communion with God, from knowledge of his will, from delight in his word, from mutual edification, from a constant and spiritual watch over our thoughts and ways, and the like, is a notorious fruit of the reign of sin. So then as he said of the Roman Senate, that it was an assembly of kings, so we may say of sinful lusts in the heart, that they are indeed a throng and a people of kings.

The second exception with which the more moderate sort of unregenerate men seem to shift off from themselves the charge of being subject to the reign of sin, is, that sin has not over them a universal dominion, in as much as they abhor many sins, and do many things which the rule requires. 'All these things,' says the young man in the Gospel, 'have I done from my youth.' And Hazael to the Prophet, 'Is your servant a dog, to rip up women and dash infants to pieces?' He seemed at that time to abhor so detestable facts as the Prophet foretold. 'Come,' says Jehu, 'and see my zeal for the Lord of hosts.' Ahab humbled himself, Herod heard John gladly, and did many things, the foolish virgins, and apostates abstained from many pollutions of the world; and from such abstinences and performances as these men seem invincibly to conclude that they are not under a universal reign of sin.

For clearing this exception we must know that there are other causes besides the power and kingdom of the spirit of Christ, which may work a partial abstinence in some sins, and conformity in some duties.

First, the power of a general restraining grace, which I suppose is meant in God's withholding Abimelech from touching Sarah. As there are general gifts of the Spirit in regard of illumination, so likewise in order to conversation and practice. It is said that Christ beholding the young man, loved him, and that even when he was under the reign of covetousness. He had nothing from himself worthy of love, therefore something, though more general, it was which the Spirit had wrought in him. Suppose we his ingenuity, morality, care of salvation, or the like. As Abraham gave portions to Ishmael, but the inheritance to Isaac: so does the Lord on the children of the flesh and of the bond woman bestow common gifts, but the inheritance and adoption is for the saints, his choicest jewels are for the king's daughter. There is great difference between restraining and renewing grace; the one only charms and chains up sin, the other crucifies and weakens it, whereby the vigor of it is not withheld only, but abated: the one turns the motions and stream of the heart to another channel, the other keeps it in bounds only, though still it runs its natural course; the one is contrary to the reign, the other only to the rage of sin. And now these graces being so differing, needs must the abstaining from sins, or amendment of life according as it rises from one or other, be likewise exceeding different. First, that which rises from renewing grace is internal in the disposition and frame of the heart, the law and the Spirit are put in there to purify the fountain; whereas the other is but external in the course of the life, without any inward and secret care to govern the thoughts, to moderate the passions, to suppress the motions and risings of lust, to cleanse the conscience from dead works, to banish privy pride, speculative uncleanness, vain, empty, impertinent, unprofitable desires out of the heart. The law is spiritual, and therefore it is not a conformity to the letter barely, but to the spiritualness of the law, which makes our actions to be right before God. Your law is pure, says David, therefore your servant loves it. And this spiritualness of obedience is discerned by the inwardness of it, when all other respects being removed, a man can be holy there where there is no eye to see, no object to move him, none but only he and the law together. When a man can be as much grieved with the sinfulness of his thoughts, with the disproportion which he finds between the law and his inner man, as with those evils which being more exposed to the view of the world, have an accidental restraint from men, whose ill opinions we are loath to provoke; when from the spiritual and sincere obedience of the heart does issue forth a universal holiness like lines from a center to the whole circumference of our lives, without any mercenary or reserved respects wherein men oftentimes in stead of the Lord, make their own passions and affections, their ends or their fears their God.

Secondly, that which rises from renewing grace is equal and uniform to all the law, it esteems all God's precepts concerning all things to be right, and it hates every false way. Whereas the other is only in some particulars, reserving some exceptions from the general rule, and framing to itself a latitude of holiness, beyond which in their conceits is nothing of reality, but only the fictions and chimeras, the more abstract notions and singularities of a few men whose end is not to serve God, but to be unlike their neighbors. I deny not but that as oftentimes it falls out in ill affected bodies, that some one part may be more disordered and disabled for service than others, because ill humors being by the rest rejected do at last settle in that which is [reconstructed: naturally] weakest: so in Christians likewise, partly by the temper of their persons, partly by the condition of their lives and callings, partly by the pertinacious and more intimate adherence of some close corruption, partly by the company and examples of men among whom they live, partly by the different administration of the Spirit of grace, who in the same men blows how and where he pleases, it may come to pass that this uniformity may be blemished, and some actions be more corrupt, and some sins more predominant and untamed in them than others. Yet still I say renewing grace does in some measure subdue all, and, at least, frame the heart to a vigilance over those gaps which lie most naked, and to a tenderness to bewail the incursions of sin which are by them occasioned.

Thirdly, that which rises from renewing grace is constant, grows more in old age, has life in more abundance, proceeds from a heart purged and prepared to bring forth more fruit, whereas the other grows faint, and withers; a hypocrite will not pray always, a torrent will one time or other dry up and putrefy. Water will move upward by art till it be gotten level to the spring where it first did rise, and then it will return to its nature again. So the corrupt hearts of natural men, however they may fashion them to a show of holiness so far as will [reconstructed: carry them] even to those ends and designs for which they assumed it, yet let them once go past that, and their falling down will make it appear, that whatever motions they had screwed up themselves to, yet still in their hearts they did bend another way, and did indeed resist the power of that grace, whose countenance they affected. Even as Scipio and Hannibal at Scyphax his table did compliment, and discourse, and entertain one another with much semblance of affection, whereas other occasions in the field occurring made it appear that even at that time their hearts were full of revenge and hostility.

Lastly, that which rises from renewing grace is with delight and much complacency, because it is natural to a right spirit; it desires nothing more than to have the law of the flesh quite consumed, whereas the other has pain and disquietness at the bridle which holds it in; and therefore takes all advantages it can to break loose again. For while natural men are tampering about spiritual things, they are out of their element, it is as offensive to them as air is to a fish, or water to a man. Men may perhaps to cool and cleanse themselves, step a while into the water, but no man can make it his habitation; a fish may frisk into the air to refresh himself, but he returns to his own element: wicked men may for variety's sake, or to pacify the grumblings of an unquiet conscience look sometimes into God's law; but they can never suffer the word to dwell in them, they are doing a work against nature, and therefore no marvel if they find no pleasure in it: in fact they do in their hearts wish that there were no such law at all to restrain their corrupt desires, that there were no such records extant to be produced against them at the last; and as soon as any occasions call them to sensual and sinful delights, they steal away the law from their own consciences, they suppress and imprison the truth in unrighteousness, they shut their eyes by a voluntary and affected ignorance, that they may more securely, and without check or perturbation resign themselves to their own ways.

Secondly, a deep, desperate, hypocritical affectation of the credit of Christianity, and of the repute and name of holiness, like that of Jehu, Come, see my zeal for the Lord of Hosts. And this is so far from pulling down the reign of sin, that it mightily strengthens it, and is a sore provocation of God's jealousy and revenge. The Prophet compares hypocrites to a deceitful bow, which though it seems to direct the arrow in an even line upon the mark, yet the unfaithfulness thereof carries it at last into a crooked and contrary way. And a little after, we find the similitude verified: Israel shall cry to me, my God we know you. Here seems a direct aim at God, a true profession of faith and interest in the covenant; but observe presently the deceitfulness of the bow, Israel has cast off the thing that is good, though he be well contented to bear my name, yet he cannot endure to bear my yoke; though he be well pleased with the privileges of my people, yet he cannot abide the tribute and obedience of my people, and therefore God rejects both him and his half services, The enemy shall pursue him. They have sowed the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind, says the Lord in the same Prophet. My people are like a husbandman going over plowed lands, and casting abroad his hands as if he were sowing seed, but the truth is there is nothing in his hand at all but wind, nothing but vain semblances and pretences, the profession of a leadsman, but the hand of a sluggard; and now mark what a harvest this man shall have: That which a man sows, that also shall he reap, he sowed the wind, and he shall inherit the wind, as Solomon speaks. Yet you may observe that there is some difference; as in harvest ordinarily there is an increase, he that sows a peck, may perhaps reap a quarter; so the hypocrite here sows wind, but he reaps a whirlwind; he sowed vanity, but he shall reap fury (for the fury of the Lord is compared to a whirlwind.) God will not be honored with a lie: shall a man lie for God? This argument the Apostle uses to prove the Resurrection, because, else, says he, we are found false witnesses of God, and God does not stand in need of false witnesses to justify his power or glory. Why do you take my Word into your mouth, seeing you hate to be reformed? We read, that in one of the states of Greece, if a scandalous man had lighted upon any wholesome counsel for the honor and advantage of the country, yet the commonwealth rejected it as from him, and would not be beholden to an infamous and branded person: and surely Almighty God can as little endure to be honored by wicked men, or to have his Name and Truth by them usurped in a false profession. When the Devil, who uses to be the father of lies, would needs confess the Truth of Christ, I know who you are, even Jesus the Son of the Living God; we find our Savior as well rebuking him for his confession, as at other times for his temptations. Because when the Devil speaks a lie, he speaks De suo, he does that which becomes him; but when he speaks the Truth and glorifies God, he does that which is improper for his place and station (for who shall praise you in the pit?) He speaks then De alieno, of that which is none of his own, and then he is not a liar only by professing that which he hates, but a thief too. And surely when men take upon them the Name of Christ, and a show of religion, and yet deny the power thereof they are not only liars in professing a false love, but thieves too, in usurping an interest in Christ which indeed they have not; and are like to have no happier success with God (who cannot be mocked) than false pretenders have with men; who under assumed titles of princes deceased, have laid claim to kingdoms. God will deal with such men as we read that Tiberius dealt with a base pretender to a crown, when after long examination he could not catch the impostor tripping in his tale, at last he consulted with the habit and shape of his body, and finding there not the delicacy and softness of a prince, but the brawiness and servile fashion of a mechanic, he startled the man with so unexpected a trial, and so wrung from him a confession of the truth. And surely just so will God deal with such men as usurp a claim to his kingdom, and prevaricate with his Name; he will not take them on their own words, or empty professions, but examine their hands; if he find them hardened in the service of sin, he will then stop their mouth with their own hand, and make themselves the argument of their own conviction.

Thirdly, the power of pious and virtuous education; for many men have their manners as the collier had his faith, merely by tradition, and upon credit from their forefathers. So Saint Paul before his conversion lived as touching the law unblameably in his own esteem, because he had been a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Many times we may observe among men that contrariety of affections proceed from causes homogeneal and uniform, and that the same temper and disposition of mind will serve to produce effects in appearance contrary. When two men contend with much violence to maintain two different opinions, it may easily be discerned by a judicious stander by, that it is the same love of victory, the same contentious constitution of spirit which did foster those extreme discourses, and many times men would not be at such distance in tenets, if they did not too much concur in the pride and vain glory of an opinionative mind. And surely so is it in matters of religion and practice, many times courses extremely opposite are embraced out of the self same uniform frame and temper of spirit; a humor pertinaciously to adhere to the ways which a man has been bred in, may upon contrary educations produce contrary effects, and yet the principal reason be the same, as it is the same vigor and virtue of the earth which from different seeds put into it produces different fruits. So then a man may abstain from many evils, and do many good things merely out of respect to their breeding, out of a native ingenuity, and fair opinion of their fathers' piety, without any such experimental and convincing evidence of the truth, or spiritual and holy love of the goodness, by which the true members of Christ are moved to the same observances.

Fourthly, the legal and affrighting power which is in the Word, when it is set on by a skillful master of the assemblies. For though nothing but the evangelical virtue of the Word begets true and spiritual obedience, yet outward conformity may be fashioned by the terror of it. As nothing but vital, seminal, and fleshly principles can organize a living and true man; yet the strokes and violence of hammers, and other instruments being moderated by the hand of a cunning worker can fashion the shape of a man in a dead stone. As Ahab was humbled by the Word in some degree, when yet he was not converted by it.

Fifthly, the power of a natural enlightened conscience, either awakened by some heavy affliction, or affrighted with the fear of judgment, or, at best, assisted with a temper of generousness and ingenuity, a certain nobleness of disposition which can by no means endure to be condemned by its own witness, nor to adventure on courses which do directly thwart the practical principles to which they subscribe. For (as I observed before) many men who will not do good obedientially, with faith in the power, with submission to the will, with aim at the glory of him that commands it, will yet do it rationally out of the conviction and evidence of their own principles. And this the Apostle calls a doing by nature the things contained in the law, and being a law to a man's self (Romans 2:14). Now though this may carry a man far, yet it cannot pull down the kingdom of sin in him, for these reasons. First, it does not subdue all sin, all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, and so perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2 Corinthians 7:1). Drive a swine out of one dirty way, and he will presently into another, because it was not his disposition but his fear which turned him aside. Where there are many of a royal race, though hundreds be destroyed, yet if any one that can prove his descent do remain alive, the title and sovereignty runs into him (as we see in the slaughter which Athaliah made) (2 Chronicles 22:23) so in sin, if any one be left to exercise power over the conscience without control, the kingdom over a man's soul belongs to that sin. Secondly, though it were possible (which yet cannot be supposed) for a natural conscience to restrain and kill all the children of sin, yet it cannot rip up nor make barren the womb of sin, that is, lust and concupiscence, in which the reign of sin is founded: nature cannot discover, much less can it bewail or subdue it. As long as there is a Devil to cast in the seeds of temptations, and lusts to cherish, form, quicken, ripen them, impossible it is but sin must have an offspring to reign over the soul of man. Thirdly, all the proficiencies of nature cannot make a man's endeavors good before God; though they may serve to excuse a man to himself, yet not to God. If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt does touch flesh shall it be unclean, says the Lord in the Prophet? (Haggai 2:11-14) and the Priest answered no. But if one who is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? and the Priest answered, it shall be unclean. So is this people, and so is this nation before me, says the Lord, and so are all the works of their hands before me, they are unclean. They think because they are the seed of Abraham, and dwell in the land of promise, and have my worship, and oracles, and sacrifices, not in their hearts, but only in their lips and hands, which are but the skirts of the soul, that therefore doubtless they are clean; but whatever they are before themselves, in their own eyes and estimation, yet before me neither the privilege of their persons, Abraham's seed, nor the privilege of their nation, the land of promise, nor the privilege of their mere outward obedience, the works of their hands, nor the privilege of their ceremonies and worship, that which they offer before me, can do them any good, but they, and all they do is unclean in my sight. Offerings and sacrifices in themselves were holy things, but yet to them says the Lord, to a revolting and disobedient people, they shall be as the bread of mourners, that is unclean (Hosea 9:4), and the Prophet elsewhere intimates the reason, I hate, I despise your feast days, I will not smell in your solemn assemblies, though you offer me your meat offerings I will not accept them, neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts (Amos 5:21-22). Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet to me (Jeremiah 6:20). Though the things done be by institution God's, yet the evil performance of them makes them ours, that is, sinful and unclean. Mercy itself without faith, which ought to be the root of all obedience, is a sinful mercy; mercy in the thing, but sin to the man.

Sixthly, the sway and bias of self-love, and particular ends. When a man's disposition looks one way, and his ends carry him another, that motion is ever a sinful motion, because though it be suitable in outward conformity to the rule, yet it is a dead motion like that of puppets or inanimate bodies, which have no principle of motion in themselves, but are carried about by the spring or weight which hangs to them (for a man's ends are but his weights) and so the obedience which comes from them is but a dead obedience, which the Apostle makes the attribute of sinful works, and Saint James of a diabolical faith. The act of Jehu in rooting out the house of Ahab, and the priests of Baal was a right zealous action in itself, and by God commanded, but it was a mere murder as it was by Jehu executed, because he intended not the extirpation of idolatry, but only the erecting and establishing of his own throne. To preach the word is in itself a most excellent work, yet to some there is a reward for it, to others only a dispensation, as the Apostle distinguishes (2 Corinthians 9:17), and he gives us as there, so elsewhere, the reasons of it, drawn from the several ends of men, some preach Christ out of envy, and others out of good will (Philippians 1:15). To give good counsel, for the prevention of approaching danger is a work of a noble and charitable disposition as we see in Jonathan towards David; but in Amaziah the priest of Bethel, who dissuaded Amos from preaching at the court, because of the king's displeasure, and the evil consequences which might thereupon ensue (of all which himself was the principal if not sole author) this was but a poor courtesy, for it was not out of love to the prophet, but only to be rid of his preaching. To seek God, to return, to inquire early after him, to remember him as a rock and redeemer are in themselves choice and excellent services; but not to do all this out of a straight and steadfast heart, but out of fear only of God's sword, not to do it because God commands them, but because he slays them; this end makes all but lying and flattery, like the promises of a boy under the rod. To fear God is the conclusion of that matter, and the whole duty of man; but not to fear the Lord and his goodness, but to fear the Lord and his lions (as the Samaritans did) this is indeed not to fear the Lord at all.

Lastly the very antipathy of sins must necessarily keep a man from many. For there are some sins so dissimilar and various, that they cannot consist together in the practice of them. Though the same root of original corruption will serve for both, yet the exercises of them are incompatible: as the same root will convey sap to several boughs, which shall bear fruits so different as could not grow out of the same branch. The Apostle gives a distinction of spiritual and fleshly filthiness (2 Corinthians 7:1) between many of which there is as great an opposition as between flesh and spirit. Ambition, pride, hypocrisy, formality, are spiritual sins; drunkenness, uncleanness, public, sordid, notorious intemperance are fleshly sins; and these two sorts cannot ordinarily stand together, for the latter will speedily blast the projects, disappoint the expectations, wash off the daub and varnish which a man with much cunning and pains had put on. Pilate and Herod did hate one another, and this one would have thought should have advantaged Christ against the particular malice of either of them against him (as in a case something parallel it did Saint Paul when the Pharisees and Sadducees were divided) but their malice against Christ being not so well able to wreak itself on him during their own distances, was a means to procure a reconciliation more mischievous than their malice. Ephraim against Manasseh, and Manasseh against Ephraim, but both against Judah — one sin was put out to make the more room for another. Many men have some master sin, which checks and abates the rest. The ancient Romans were restrained from intemperance, injustice, violence by an extreme affection of glory and a universal sovereignty. As many times men cure heats with heats, and one flux of blood with another; so some sins though not cured are yet forborne upon the predominancy of others. The Pharisees hated Christ, and feared the people, and many times this fear restrained the manifestation and execution of the other.

The third and last exception is this. Unregenerate men of a more calm and civil temper may conceive themselves delivered from the reign of sin, because they have many conflicts with it, and reluctances against it, and so afford not such a plenary and resolved obedience to it as so absolute a power requires. To this I answer, that this is no more sufficient to conclude an overthrow of the reign of sin, than the sudden mutiny of Caesar's soldiers, which he easily quelled with one brave word, could conclude the nullifying of his government. For when we mention uncontrolledness as an argument of sin's reign, we mean not that a bare natural conviction (which the Apostle calls an accusation) which imports a former yielding to the lust, and no more; but that a spiritual expostulation with a man's own heart, joined with true repentance, and a sound and serious lusting against the desires and commands of the flesh, are the things which subdue the reign of sin. The whole state then of this point touching the royalty of sin will be fully opened, when we shall have distinctly unfolded the differences between these two conflicts with sin, the conflict of a natural accusing conscience, and the conflict of a spiritual, mourning and repenting conscience.

First they differ in the principles from which they proceed. The one proceeds from a spirit of fear and bondage, the other from a spirit of love and delight. An unregenerate man considers the state of sin as a kingdom, and so he loves the services of it, and yet he considers it as a kingdom subject to the scrutinies and inquiries of a higher kingdom, and so he fears it, because the guilt thereof and day of accounts frightens him so that this natural conflict [reconstructed: arises] out of the compulsion of his judgment, not out of the propensity of his will; not from a desire to be holy, but only to be safe and quiet. He abhors the thoughts of God and his justice; whereas the faithful hate sin with relation to the purity and righteousness of God, desire to walk in all well pleasing toward him, hunger after his grace, are affected with indignation, self-displeasure, and revenge against themselves for sin, mourn under their corruptions, bewail the frowardness of their slippery and revolting hearts, set a watch and spiritual judicature over them, cry out for strength to resist their lusts, and praise God for any grace, power, discipline, and severity which he shows against them. In one word, a natural conscience does only show the danger of sin, and so makes a man fear it; but a spiritual conscience shows the pollution of sin, the extreme contrariety which it bears to the love of our heart, the rule of our life, the law of God, and so makes a man hate it, as a thing contrary not only to his happiness, but to his nature, of which he has newly been made partaker (2 Peter 1:4). A dog will be brought by discipline to forbear those things which his nature most delights in, not because his appetite is changed into a better temper, but the following pains make him abstain from the present bait: so the conflict of the faithful is with the unholiness of sin, but the conflict of other men is only with the guilt and other sensual inconveniences of sin. And though that may make a man forbear and return, yet not to the Lord: "They have not cried to me," says the Lord, "with their heart, when they howled upon their beds (Hosea 7:14)." Their prayers were not cries, but howlings, brutish and mere sensual complaints, because they proceeded not from their hearts, from any inward and sincere affection, but only from fear of that hand which was able to cast them upon their beds. As a sick man eats meat, not for love of it, which he takes with much reluctance and distaste, but for fear of death which makes him force himself (1 Samuel 13:12) against his will, whereas a [reconstructed: healthy] man eats the same meat with hunger and delight: so a natural conscience constrains a man to do some things which his heart never goes along with, only to avoid the pain which the contrary guilt brings. In a tempest the mariners will cast out all their wares, not out of any hatred to the things (for they throw over their very hearts into the sea with them) but because the safety of their lives and preservation of their goods will not stand together; not sub intuitu mali, sed [reconstructed: minoris] boni, not under the apprehension of any evil in the things, but only as a lesser good which will not consist with the greater; and therefore they never throw them over but in a tempest: whereas at all other times they labor at the pump to unburden the ship of the water which settles at the bottom, not only for the danger, but the stench and foulness of it too. Thus a natural conscience throws away sin as wares, and therefore never forbears it but in a tempest of wrath and sense of the curse, and quickly returns to it again; but a spiritual conscience throws out sin as corrupt and stinking water, and therefore is uniformly disaffected to it, and always labors to be delivered from it. A scullion or collier will not dare handle a coal when it is full of fire, which yet at other times is their common use; whereas a man of a more cleanly education, as he will not then, because of the fire, so not at any time, because of the foulness: so here a natural conscience forbears sin sometimes, when the guilt and curse of it does more appear, which yet at other times it makes no scruple of; but a spiritual conscience abstains always, because of the baseness and pollution of it. The one fears sin, because it has fire in it to burn; the other hates sin, because it has filth in it to pollute the soul.

Secondly, these conflicts differ in their seats and stations. The natural conflict is in several faculties, as between the understanding and the will, or the will and the affections, and so does not argue any universal renovation, but rather a rupture and schism, a confusion and disorder in the soul. But a spiritual conflict is in the same faculty, will against will, affection against affection, heart against heart, because sin dwells still in our mortal body. Neither do the spirit and the flesh enter into covenant to share and divide the man, and so to reside apart in several faculties, and not molest one another's government. There can be no agreement between the strong man and him that is stronger; Christ will hold no treaty with Belial. He is able to save to the uttermost, and therefore is never put to make compositions with his enemy. He will not disparage the power of his own grace so much as to entertain a parley with the flesh. So then they fight not from several forts only, but are [reconstructed: ever] struggling like Esau and Jacob in the same womb. They are contrary to one another, says the Apostle, and contraries meet in the same subject before they exercise hostility against one another. Flesh and spirit are in a man as light and darkness in the dawning of the day, as heat and cold in warm water, not severed in distinct parts, but universally interwoven and coexistent in all. There is the same proportion in the natural and spiritual conflict with sin, as in the change of motion in a bowl. A bowl may be two ways altered from that motion which the impressed violence from the [reconstructed: arm] did direct it to. Sometimes by an external cause, a [reconstructed: bank] meeting and turning the course; ever by an internal, the sway and corrective of the bias, which accompanies and slackens the impressed violence throughout all the motion. So is it in the turning of a man from sin. A natural man goes on with a full consent of heart, no bias in the will or affections to moderate or abate the violence. Only sometimes by chance he meets with a convicted judgment, or with a natural conscience, which like a bank turns the motion, or disappoints the heart in the whole pleasure of that sin. But in another, where haply he meets with no such obstacle, he runs his full and direct course. But now a spiritual man has a bias and corrective of grace in the same faculty where sin is, which does much remit the violence, and at length turn the course of it. And this holds in every sin, because the corrective is not casual, or with respect only to this or that particular, but is firmly fixed in the parts themselves on which the impressions of sin are made.

Thirdly, they differ in the manner or qualities of the conflict. For first, a natural conflict has ever treachery mixed with it, but a spiritual conflict is faithful and sound throughout; and that appears thus. A spiritual heart does ever ground its fight out of the Word, labors much to acquaint itself with that, because there it shall have a more distinct view of the enemy, of his armies, holds, supplies, trains, weapons, stratagems. For a spiritual heart sets itself seriously to fight against every method, deceit, armor of lust, as well against the pleasures, as the guilt of sin. But a natural heart has a secret treachery and intelligence with the enemy, and therefore hates the light, and is willingly ignorant of the forces of sin, that it may have that to allege for not making opposition. There is in every natural man in sinning a disposition very suitable to that of Vitellius, who used no other defenses against the ruin which approached him, but only to keep out the memory and report of it with fortifications of mirth and sottishness, that so he might be delivered from the pains of preserving himself. Thus the natural conscience finding the war against sin to be irksome, that it may be delivered from so troublesome a business, labors rather to stifle the notions, to suppress and hold under the truth in unrighteousness, to strive, resist, dispute with the spirit, to be gladly gulled and darkened with the deceits of sin, than to live all its time in unpreventable and unfinishable contentions. Secondly, a natural conflict is ever particular, and a spiritual one universal against all sin, because it proceeds from hatred which is ever [illegible], as the philosopher speaks, against the whole kind of a thing. A natural man may be angry with sin, as a man with his wife or friend, for some present vexation and disquietness which it brings, and yet not hate it, for that reaches to the very not being of a thing. And for a natural man to have his lusts so overcome as not at all to be, would doubtless be to him as painful, as mutilation or dismembering to the natural body; and therefore if it were put to his choice in such terms as might distinctly set forth the painfulness and contrariety of it to his present nature, he would undoubtedly refuse it, because he should be destitute of a principle to live and move by: and every thing naturally desires rather to move by a principle of its own, than by violent and foreign impressions, such as are those by which natural men are moved to the ways of God. And therefore the natural conscience does ever bear with some sins, if they be small, unknown, secret, or the like, and hearkens not after them. But the spirit holds peace with no sin, fights against the least, the remotest, those which are out of sight. Paul against the sproutings and rebellions of natural concupiscence, David against his secret sins, as Israel against Jericho and Ai and those other cities of Canaan; it suffers no accursed thing to be [reconstructed: reserved], it slays as well women and children as men of war, lest that which remains should be a snare to deceive, and an engine to induce more. The natural conscience shoots only by aim, and level against some sins, and spares the rest, as Saul in the slaughter of the Amalekites. But the spiritual shoots not only by level against particular notorious sins, but at random too against the whole army of sin, and by that means does perhaps wound and weaken lusts which it did not distinctly observe in itself, by complaining to God against the body of sin, by watching over the course and frame of the heart, by acquainting itself out of the Word with the armor and devices of Satan, etc. The opposition then between the natural conscience and sin is like the opposition between fire and hardness in some subjects; the conflict between the spiritual conscience and sin is like the opposition between fire and coldness. Put metal into the fire, and the heat will dissolve and melt it, but put a brick into the fire, and that will not melt nor soften (because the consistency of it does not arise Ex causâ frigidâ, but siccâ) but put either one or other into the fire and the coldness of it will be removed; and the reason is because between fire and hardness there is but a particular opposition in some cases, namely where a thing is hard out of a dominion of cold as in metals, not out of a dominion of dry qualities as in brick and stones; but between fire and coldness there is a universal opposition. So a natural conscience may perhaps serve to dissolve or weaken, in regard of outward practice some sins, but never all; whereas a spiritual one reaches to the remitting and abating every lust, because the one is only a particular, the other a universal opposition. Thirdly, the natural conscience fights against sin with fleshly weapons, and therefore is more easily overcome by the subtlety of Satan, such as are servile fear, secular ends, carnal disadvantages, general reason, and the like; but the spiritual conscience ever fights with spiritual weapons out of the Word, faith, prayer, hope, experience, watchfulness, love, godly sorrow, truth of heart, etc.

Fourthly, they differ in their effects. First, a natural conflict consists with the practice of many sins unquestioned, unresisted; but a spiritual one changes the course and tenor of a man's life, that as by the remainders of the flesh the best may say, We cannot do the things which we would: so by the first fruits of the spirit, and the seed of God, it may be truly said, They cannot sin. For though they do not attain a perfection in the manner, yet for the general current and course of their living it is without eminent, visible, and scandalous blame. Secondly, the natural is only a combat, there is no victory that follows it, sin is committed with delight and persisted in still; but the spiritual diminishes the power and strength of sin. Thirdly, the natural if it does overcome, yet it does only repress or repel sin for the time; like the victory of Saul over Agag, it is kept alive, and has no hurt done it, but the spiritual does mortify, crucify, subdue sin. Some plasters skin, but they do not cure, give present ease, but no abiding remedy against the root of the disease: so some attempts against sin may only for the present pacify, but not truly cleanse the conscience from dead works. Fourthly, the natural makes a man never a whit the stronger against the next assault of temptation, whereas the spiritual begets usually more circumspection, prayer, faith, humiliation, growth, acquaintance with the depth and mysteries of sin, skill to manage the spiritual armor, experience of the truth, power, and promises of God, etc.

Lastly, they differ in their end. The natural is only to pacify the clamors of an unquiet conscience, which ever takes God's part, and pleads for his service against the sins of men. The spiritual is with an intent to please and obey God, and to magnify his grace which is made perfect in our weakness.

Now for a word of the third case, why every sin does not reign in every wicked man? For answer to which we must, first, know that properly it is original sin which reigns, and this king is very wise, and therefore sends forth into a man members and life, as into several provinces, such [reconstructed: viceroys], such actual sins, as may best keep the person in peace and encouragement, as may least disquiet his estate, and provoke rebellion. Secondly, we are to distinguish between the reign of sin, actual, and [reconstructed: virtual], or in praeparatione animi; for if the state of the king requires it, a man will be apt to obey those commands of [reconstructed: lust], which now perhaps his heart rises against, as savage and belluine practices, as we see in Hazael. Thirdly, though original sin be equal in all and to all purposes, yet actual sin for the most [reconstructed: part] follows the temper of a man's mind, body, place, calling, abilities, estate, conversings, relations, and a world of the like variable particulars. Now as a river would of itself, caeteris paribus, go the nearest way to the sea, but yet according to the qualities and exigencies of the earth through which it passes, or by the arts of men, it is crooked and wried into many turnings: so original [reconstructed: sin] would of itself carry a man the nearest way to hell, through the midst of the most devilish and hideous abominations; but yet meeting with several tempers and conditions in men, it rather chooses in many men the safest than the speediest way, carries them in a compass, by a gentler and a blinder path, than through such notorious and horrid courses, as wherein having hell still in their view, they might perhaps be brought some time or other to start back and bethink themselves. But lastly and principally the different administration of God's general restraining grace (which upon unsearchable and most wise and just reasons he is pleased in several measures to distribute to several men) may be conceived a full reason, why some men are not given over to the rage and frenzy of many lusts, who yet live in a voluntary and full obedience to many others.

To conclude, by all this which has been spoken we should be exhorted to go over to Christ, that we may be translated from the power of Satan; for he only is able to strike through these our kings in the day of his wrath. Consider the issue of the reign of sin, (wherein it differs from a true king, and sympathizes with tyrants, for it intends mischief and misery to those that obey it.) First, sin reigns to death, that which is here called the reign of sin, [reconstructed: is] before called the reign of death, and the reign of sin to death (Romans 5:17, 21; Romans 6:16). Secondly, sin reigns to fear and bondage, by reason of the death which it brings (Hebrews 2:15). Thirdly, sin reigns to shame, even in those who escape both the death and bondage of it. Fourthly, it reigns without any fruit, hope, or benefit, "What fruit had you then in those things of which you are now ashamed?" (Romans 6:21). Lastly the reign of sin is but momentary, at the length both itself and all its subjects shall be subdued. The world passes away, and the lusts thereof, but he that does the will of God abides forever (1 John 2:17). Of Christ's Kingdom there is no end. We shall reap if we faint not. Our combat is short, our victory is sure, our Crown is safe, our triumph is eternal, his grace is all-sufficient here to help us, and his glory is all-sufficient hereafter to reward us.