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DISCOURSE X.*

Question. WHAT shall a person do who finds himself under the power of a prevailing corruption, sin, or temptation?

Answer. I shall premise only this one thing, and then inquire whether it belongs to us, or no.

This prevalency hath many degrees. It may be a prevalency to outward scandal, or to the utter loss of inward peace, or to the disquieting and divesting of us of that tranquillity o mind, usually which Christ calleth us unto. Now pray consider, that I speak to it equally and in every degree. And perhaps there may be none of us, but at one time or other, after inquiry, will have had experience in one degree or other, either to disquietment, loss of peace, or scandal.

What shall such a person then do, who finds it so with him?

I answer,

First, He should labour to affect his mind with the danger of it. It is not conceivable how subtle sin is to shift off an apprehension of the danger of it. Notwithstanding this, says the man, yet I hope I am in a state of grace, and shall be saved, and come to the issue of it at one time or other: and so the mind keeps off a due sense of the danger of it. I beseech you, brethren and sisters, that if this be your condition, labour to affect your minds, that this state, as far as I know, will end in hell. And let not your minds be relieved from the apprehension, that upon due and good grounds of faith, these ways go down to the chambers of death. Do not please yourselves imagining you are members of the church, and have good hopes of salvation by Jesus Christ; but consider whither this tends; and affect your minds with it.

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Secondly, When the person is affected with the danger of it, the next thing to be done is, to burden his conscience with the guilt of it. For the truth is, as our minds are upon many pretences slow to apprehend the danger of sin; so our consciences are very unwilling to take the weight of the burden of it, as to its guilt. I speak not of men of

* Delivered May 4, 1677.

seared consciences, that lay what weight you will upon them, will feel none; but even the consciences of renewed, men, unless they use all the ways and means whereby conscience may be burdened, as by apprehensions of the holiness of God, of the law, of the love of Christ, and of all those things whereby conscience must be made to feel the weight of its guilt. No sooner doth it begin to be made a little sick with a sense of the guilt of sin, but it takes a cordial presently. Here this sin hath taken place, it hath contracted this and that guilt; I have been thus long negligent in this or that duty; I have thus long engaged in this and that folly, and been so given up unto the world; I must take to Christ by faith, or I am undone it is afraid of making its load: But let conscience bear the burden, and not easily shift it off, unless it can, by true faith guided by the word, load it upon Christ, which is not a thing of course to be done.

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Thirdly, What shall we do in case we have this apprehension of its danger, and can be thus burdened with its guilt? Pray for deliverance. How? You will say, There is in the Scriptures mention of roaring;' Psal. xxxii. 3. The voice of my roaring. And likewise of shouting;' Lam. iii. 3. I shouted and cried.' This is a time to pray, that God would not hide his face from our roaring, nor shut out our prayers when we shout unto him; that is, to cry out with all the vigour of our souls. Christ is able to succour' and help them that make an outcry' to him. The word signifies so, and our word succour,' signifies a running in to help a man who is ready to be destroyed. These may seem hard things to us, but it is a great thing to save our souls, and to deliver ourselves from the snares of Satan.

Fourthly, Treasure up every warning, and every word that you are convinced was pointed against your particular corruption. There is none of you who may have the power of particular corruptions, but God at one time or other in his providence or word, gives particular warning, that the soul may say, This is for me, I must comply with it: but it is like a man that sees his face in a glass, and goes away, and immediately forgets what manner of man he was there is an end of it. But if God give you such warnings, set them down, treasure them up, lose them not, they must be

accounted for. He that being often reproved, hardens his heart, shall perish suddenly, and that without remedy.' Fifthly, I shall mind you of two rules, and so have done. 1. In your perplexities, as to the power of sin, exercise faith, that notwithstanding all, you see and find that you are almost lost and gone, there is a power in God, through Christ, for the subduing and conquering of it.

2. It is in vain for any to think to mortify a prevailing sin, who doth not at the same time endeavour to mortify all sin, and to be found in every duty. Here is a person troubled and perplexed with a temptation or corruption; both are the same in this case: he cries, O, that I were delivered; I had rather have deliverance than life; I will do my endeavour to watch against it. But it may be this person will not come up to a constancy in secret prayer; he will go up and down, and wish himself free, but will not be brought up to such duties wherein those lusts must be mortified. Therefore take this rule along with you; never hope to mortify any corruption whereby your hearts are grieved, unless you labour to mortify every corruption by which the Spirit of God is grieved; and be found in every duty, especially those under which grace thrives and flourishes.

DISCOURSE XI.

Question. WHAT is our duty with respect to dark and difficult dispensations of God's providence in the world?

Answer. In answer unto this question, three things are to be considered.

First, What are, in a Scripture sense, those things that make a season of providence dark and difficult?

Secondly, What are the open signs of the coming and passing of such a season over us? And,

Thirdly, What are our special duties in reference to our entering into, and passing through, such a season?

First, What are those things that make a season vidence dark and difficult?

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I find four things in Scripture that make a dark season of providence; and, if I mistake not, they are all upon us.

1. The long-continued prosperity of wicked men. This you are sensible is the most known case of all the Old Tes tament, Psal. lxxiii. Jer. xii. 1-3. Hab. i. 4. 13. and many other places. The holy men of old did confess themselves in great perplexity at the long-continued prosperity of wicked men, and their long-continued prosperity in ways of wickedness. Give but this one farther circumstance to it, the longcontinued prosperity of wicked men, in their wickedness when the light shines round about them to convince them of that wickedness, and God speaks in and by the light of his word against them, that is a trial. When all things were wrapped up in darkness and idolatry, it is no wonder at the patience of God; but when things come in any place to that state, that many continue prosperous in wickedness when the day is upon them that judges them, it is a difficulty.

2. It is a difficult season of providence, when the church is continued under persecution and distress in a time of prayer, when they give themselves to prayer. The difficulty seems mentioned, Psal. lxxx. 4. O Lord, how long wilt thou smoke against the prayer of thy people? This made it hard, that God should afflict his church, and keep her under distresses, and suffer the furrows to be made long upon her back, and continue her under oppression from one season to another; there may be evident reason for that. But, saith God, Call upon me in the time of trouble, and I will hear.' God hath promised to hear the church. Will not God avenge the elect that call upon him day and night? He will do it speedily.' Now when God seems to be angry with the prayers of his people, that is a difficult season: when they cry and shout and God shuts out their prayers, that makes a dark providence.

As the other difficulty is evidently upon us; so I hope we have this difficulty to conflict withal, that the anger of God continues to smoke against the prayers of his people, as having stirred up many a blessed cry to himself, for there is a time when he will hear and answer their prayers.

3. It is a dark and difficult dispensation of providence, when the world, and nations of the world, are filled with confusion and blood, and no just reason appearing why it should

be so. When our Saviour foretells a difficult season, Matt. xxiv. and Luke xxi. he says, There shall be terrible times, such as never were; nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be wars, bloodshed, and earthquakes; and the very elect shall hardly escape. Therefore God calls such a time, a day of darkness, yea, of thick darkness, Joel ii. 2. a dark gloomy day. There is nothing to be seen in all the confusions that are in the world at this day, but that the frogs of unclean spirits are gone forth to stir up the lusts of men to make havoc of one another.

4. It adds greatly to the difficulty of a season, when we have no prospect whither things are tending, and what will be their issue.

There are two ways whereby we may have a prospect of things that are in being: By the eye of God's providence, when we perceive which way that looks: and by Scripture rule. The truth is, we are in a time wherein no man can discern a fixed eye of providence looking this way or that way. What will be the issue of these things; whether it will be the deliverance of the church, or the desolation of the nation and straitening of the church; whether God will bring good out of them in this generation, or any other time, none knows this makes it difficult. Psal. lxxiv. 9. We see not our signs,' have no tokens what God intends to do, neither is there among us any to tell us how long.'

There is none of these things but make a season difficult, and providence dark; but when all of them concur together, they cannot but greatly heighten it: and I think they are all upon us.

Secondly, What are the open signs of the coming and passing of such a season over us?

There are three tokens or outward evidences of a difficult

1. When God's patience is abused. You know that place, Eccles. viii. 11. Because judgment is not speedily executed upon an evil work, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.' Things pass thus; men fall into wickedness, great wickedness; their consciences fly in their faces, and they are afraid; the power of eir lusts carry them into the same wickedness again, and