General rules, without which no lust will be mortified — No mortification unless a man be a believer — Dangers of attempting mortification of sin by unregenerate persons — The duty of unconverted persons as to this business of mortification considered — The vanity of the Papists’ attempts and rules for mortification thence discovered.
II. The waysand means whereby a soul may proceed to the mortification of any particular lust and sin, which Satan takes advantage by to disquiet and weaken him, come next under consideration.
Now, there are some general considerations to be premised, concerning some principles and foundations of this work, without which no man in the world, be he never so much raised by convictions, and resolved for the mortification of any sin, can attain thereunto.
General rules and principles, without which no sin will be ever mortified, are these:—
1. Unless a man be a believer, — that is, one that is trulyingrafted into Christ*, — he can never mortify any one sin*; I do not say, unless he know himself to be so, but unless indeed he be so.
Mortification is the work of believers: Rom. viii. 13, “If ye through the Spirit,” etc., — ye believers, to whom there is no condemnation, verse 1. They alone are exhorted to it: Col. iii. 5, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth.” Who should mortify? You who “are risen with Christ,” verse 1; whose “life is hid with Christ in God,” verse 3; who “shall appear with him in glory,” verse 4. An unregenerate man may do something like it; but the work itself, so as it may be acceptable with God, he can never perform. You know what a picture of it is drawn in some of the philosophers, — Seneca, Tully, Epictetus; what affectionate discourses they have of contempt of the world and self, of regulating and conquering all exorbitant affections and passions! The lives of most of them manifested that their maxims differed as much from true mortification as the sun painted on a sign-post from the sun in the firmament; they had neither light nor heat. Their own Lucian sufficiently manifests what they all were. There is no death of sin without the death of Christ. You know what attempts there are made after it by the Papists, in their vows, penances, and satisfactions. I dare say of them (I mean as many of them as act upon the principles of their church, as they call it) what Paul says of Israel in point of righteousness, Rom. ix. 31, 32, — They have followed after mortification, but they have not attained to it. Wherefore? “Because they seek it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law.” The same is the state and condition of all amongst ourselves who, in obedience to their convictions and awakened consciences, do attempt a relinquishment of sin; — they follow after it, but they do not attain it.
It is true, it is, it will be, required of every person whatever that hears the law or gospel preached, that he mortify sin. It is his duty, but it is not his immediate duty; it is his duty to do it, but to do it in God’s way. If you require your servant to pay so much money for you in such a place, but first to go and take it up in another, it is his duty to pay the money appointed, and you will blame him if he do it not; yet it was not his immediate duty, — he was first to take it up, according to your direction. So it is in this case: sin is to be mortified, but something is to be done in the first place to enable us thereunto.
I have proved that it is the Spirit alone that can mortify sin; he is promised to do it, and all other means without him are empty and vain. How shall he, then, mortify sin that hath not the Spirit? A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit. Now, how is he attained? It is the Spirit of Christ: and as the apostle says, “If we have not the Spirit of Christ, we are none of his,” Rom. viii. 9; so, if we are Christ’s, have an interest in him, we have the Spirit, and so alone have power for mortification. This the apostle discourses at large, Rom. viii. 8, “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” It is the inference and conclusion he makes of his foregoing discourse about our natural state and condition, and the enmity we have unto God and his law therein. If we are in the flesh, if we have not the Spirit, we cannot do any thing that should please God. But what is our deliverance from this condition? Verse 9, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you;” — “Ye believers, that have the Spirit of Christ, ye are not in the flesh.” There is no way of deliverance from the state and condition of being in the flesh but by the Spirit of Christ. And what if this Spirit of Christ be in you? Why, then, you are mortified; verse 10, “The body is dead because of sin,” or unto it; mortification is carried on; the new man is quickened to righteousness. This the apostle proves, verse 11, from the union we have with Christ by the Spirit, which will produce suitable operations in us to what it wrought in him. All attempts, then, for mortification of any lust, without an interest in Christ, are vain. Many men that are galled with and for sin, the arrows of Christ for conviction, by the preaching of the word, or some affliction having been made sharp in their hearts, do vigorously set themselves against this or that particular lust, wherewith their consciences have been most disquieted or perplexed. But, poor creatures! they labour in the fire, and their work consumeth. When the Spirit of Christ comes to this work he will be “like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap,” and he will purge men as gold and as silver, Mal. iii. 2, 3, — take away their dross and tin, their filth and blood, as Isa. iv. 4; but men must be gold and silver in the bottom, or else refining will do them no good. The prophet gives us the sad issue of wicked men’s utmost attempts for mortification, by what means soever that God affords them: Jer. vi. 29, 30, “The bellows are burned, and the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them.” And what is the reason hereof? Verse 28, They were “brass and iron” when they were put into the furnace. Men may refine brass and iron long enough before they will be good silver.