that as we cannot be miserable unless we will, so neither shall we be happy whether we will or no. For as his goodness would not suffer him to make us necessarily miserable, so neither would his wisdom permit him to entail our happiness on our natures, and make it inseparable to our beings; for should he have done so, he must have altered the laws of his own wise creation, and made those beings to act necessarily, which he made to act freely. For happiness is the end of all our actions; and therefore should God have made that necessary to us, he must have made us to act towards it with the same necessity as inanimate bodies do towards their proper centre; and consequently there would have been no such thing as a free agent in the lower world. That we may always act therefore according to the condition and frame of a free nature, the foundations of all our happiness and misery are laid in the right use or abuse of our liberty, and do immediately spring out of the wisdom or folly of our own choices: so that if we choose wisely, according to the laws of virtue and right reason, we do thereby advance towards that happy and heavenly state we were created for; as on the contrary, if we choose foolishly, according to the rash counsels of our own vicious appetites and sensual inclinations, we thereby sink ourselves deeper and deeper towards the abyss of endless and inconceivable misery. For such is the frame and constitution of our natures, that we cannot be good and miserable, nor vicious and happy; and accordingly the apostle sets before us the inevitable fate of our own actions, Rom. viii. 13. If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die : but

if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

What these deeds of the flesh, or body, are, the apostle tells us, Gal. v. 19, 20, 21. The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunk. enness, revellings, and such like: and they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. This is the muster-roll of that formidable army of wickednesses with which we are to engage, and which we must vanquish, or perish for ever. If ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live; i. e.

if

ye kill and destroy them, if ye wholly cease from them, both as to the outward act of them, and the inward appetite and inclination towards them: for mortification doth not only consist in a formal abstinence from the outward acts of sin, or a superficial skinning over the orifice of its wounds; but searches to the very bottom of that putrid core within, and eats out the inward corruption from whence those outward blisters arise: it purges the heart as well as the hands, and drains those impure inclinations, which are the springs of all impiety and wickedness. But to handle this subject more particularly, I shall do three things:

First, Shew wherein mortification consists.

Secondly, What are the proper instruments of it. Thirdly, What are the most prevailing motives of it.

I. Wherein doth mortification consist? I answer in these three things: 1. In abstinence from the

outward acts of sin. 2. In not consenting unto any sin. 3. In a constant endeavour to extinguish our involuntary sins.

1. Mortification requires abstinence from the outward acts of sin: for it is impossible that any man should mortify his lusts, while he indulges himself in the free practice of them; because practice is the fuel that foments and feeds the inward vicious inclinations, and both pampers and enrages the lustful appetite of the soul. For that delight which we reap from acting our own concupiscences doth but increase and provoke them; it being natural to men, when they have been pleased with any action, to be more vehemently inclined to repeat it; the delight which they found in the former enjoyment provoking their desires to enjoy it again. So that we may as well hope to put out a fire by a continual feeding it with fuel, and blowing it into flame; as to mortify a lust, whilst by our continued practising it we nurse and cherish it, and do at once both feed and irritate its flames. If therefore we would ever mortify the lusts of the flesh, we must strictly restrain ourselves from all outward acts of them: for whilst we indulge ourselves in these, we feed our disease, and pamper our bad inclinations into vicious habits, and our vicious habits into sinful necessities.

2. Mortification consists in the dissent of our wills from all sinful proposals. It is no piece of mortification for a man to abstain only from the outward acts of sin, if in the mean time his will is so far consenting to it, as that he would practise it, were it not for some intervening hinderances, or for want of a fair opportunity. For in the eye of God,

to whom our inmost thoughts and purposes are all open and unmasked, the will to sin is the sin that is willed, though it should never proceed into action: with him it is acted as soon as it is conceived, and it is conceived as soon as ever it is thought of with consent it grows in the delight we take in the speculation of it, but is ripened in the resolution of committing it. For when once we are resolved upon it, our heart hath done its utmost towards it; and so our consenting to it makes it perfect sin, though it should never break out into action. So that it is nonsense to talk of mortifying our sin, while it hath the consent of our wills; for though it is more dangerous in the action, and approaches nearer to a habit, because the consent continues all the while we commit it, and is confirmed by the pleasure we reap in the commission; yet still it is sin, though it is only consented to; and it lives in the purpose, though it breathes not out into the practice. Our enemy is not conquered, when it is only shut up within its hold; and it doth but fortify itself within, while it wants opportunities to sally out into action. If we do not sin only because we cannot, or because we want opportunity, we are but devils in chains, and are never the less guilty, because we cannot do as much mischief as we would: for he that would sin if he could, hath sinned already as far as he is able, and so is every whit as criminal in the account of God, as he that doth sin when he can. The mortification of our lusts therefore doth necessarily imply the withdrawing the consent of our wills from them, and the final divorcing them from the embraces of our choice; for while they enjoy

our consent, they live in us, and rule us, though they should never have the opportunity to come abroad into our practice.

3. Mortification consists in a constant endeavour to subdue our involuntary appetites and inclinations to sin. It is not sufficient that we do not practise sin, nor consent to the practice of it; but we must make it our constant endeavour to wean and abstract ourselves from those evil tendencies and inclinations which we have contracted by our former sins: for though these inclinations remaining in us are no farther our sin than we do yield and consent to them, yet, while we patiently harbour them within our bosoms, and do not honestly endeavour to smother and extinguish them, they are chosen and voluntary, and have the very bane and formality of sin in them. Though we should be disabled from acts of adultery, yet while we retain with delight our inclinations towards it, and quietly please ourselves in the fantastic joys of it; while we freely entertain its lewd and filthy ideas, and suffer them to walk to and fro upon the stage of our fancies without check or control, we are still adulterous in the sight of God, to whom our lust is as obvious within the closet of our minds, as upon the theatre of our practice. We must not think therefore that our sin is mortified, because we neither practise nor consent to the practice of it; for while we have any inclinations to sin remaining in us, we must endeavour to subdue and conquer them: if we do not, we have only forced our enemy into his last retreat, where by our own neglect we give him opportunity to rally and reinforce himself against us: for our sin still lives in our inclination to sin, and will soon, K k

VOL. III.