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servant about yourself, if you have not found, that you are always more addicted to every sort of fleshly desire and lust, after a full meal, accompanied with a considerable quantity of strong drink, than when you have contented yourself with barely satisfying the cravings of nature. Pride, anger, and incontinence, are the distinguishing vices of the high fed. Your lusts will be sure to follow you, like dogs, as long as you feed them. Your soul is, by your religion, engaged in a war with your flesh. Knowing this, will you put weapons into the hand of your enemy? Will you supply his garrison with provisions? A cool head, and obedient passions, are absolutely necessary to perseverance in virtue; and you cannot but be sensible, how much intemperance clouds the understanding, and inflames the heart. Unnatural appetite, like a child, if often denied, will forget to crave; and if you have nothing but your natural appetites to deal with, you have the less reason to apprehend a fall; for although they too are corrupt, yet they are weak and easily subdued.

But farther: As, in order to a final victory over your corruptions, without which you can never be safe, it will be necessary, not only to avoid all provocatives to vice, but also to arm yourself with the weapons of a more exalted virtue, you will find it highly useful to you, to deny yourself on some occasions, even the innocent indulgence of your desires, particularly by fasting, if your constitution will bear it. By temperance you only fight your enemy upon the confines between you and him, and are for the most part on the defensive; but by fasting you make an actual attack upon him, and carry the war into his territories, into his very camp. Temperance may moderate, but fasting will mortify, your inordinate affections. To abstain from sensual gratifications is the best preparative to the tasting of spiritual pleasures, and the enjoyment of God. In abstinence, the soul being disentangled from fleshly appetites, and shut in from outward objects, as if lightened of a heavy burden, finds itself naturally disposed to rise, on the wings of devotion and divine love, to the blessed and glorious fountain of true enjoyment. Although this Christian duty may seem somewhat irksome to you, yet as it may be necessary to your safety in a thorough change of life, you

cannot in prudence neglect it. It is said of the serpent, that, when it hath renewed its skin, it squeezes through some narrow passage, and rubs off the old one. If you are really become a new creature, you will think it no great hardship to wear off the old man, who still sticks to you, and may seduce you, in the severities of self-denial; which, if persevered in, will in a little time turn to pleasures of a most sweet and engaging relish.

Besides, the performance of this duty will give prodigious alacrity and force to those meditations, by which, in order farther to prevent your falling from God, it will be necessary for you to enter deep into your own breast, that you may there, by an often-repeated, and long-continued, and close examination of yourself, find out what to guard against, and on what ill-fortified quarter to place your most watchful centinels, as well as your most powerful engines of defence. Here, in your own heart, is the fountain of all your corruptions, the nest of all your enemies, the proper objects of all your apprehensions, the important field, where the great battle is to be fought, in which your eternal fate is to be decided.

Having thus taken the necessary measures within yourself, it will be then time to call in other allies to your assistance. Then fly, when you are hunted by the enemy of your soul, to the company of good men; and enter with them into serious discourse, about your temptations and dangers; call on them for advice and help; lay yourself under a rule to confess, not only your weaknesses, but your actual sins, to some person, whom you stand most in awe of for his good life, and who, by his skill in religion, may help to rouse, alarm, or encourage, you in the race that is set before you. If you do this, you will find your flagging resolutions kindling, your dying piety reviving, and a surprising reinforcement of vigour, new-edging and new-pointing all the powers of your soul. Such is the balsam that flows from the tongue. of a religious and faithful friend. We find in the holy Scriptures, that this practice of confessing their sins one to another, and asking the prayers of their pious neighbours, was very common in the apostolical times. St. James even commands it as a duty; and, to encourage us to it, tells us, in the

same verse, that, 'the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man prevaileth much.'

Lastly, As you will find nothing but enemies within yourself, and perpetual causes of alarm from every thing about you, which neither you, nor all the assistance man can lend you, will be able to subdue, or guard you sufficiently against, you must cast your eyes up to God, and call him into your heart, duly prepared for his reception, with all the anxiety and vehemence of a soul, that sees it is to be utterly undone without his assistance. You can do nothing of yourself; but you may do all things in him, who strengtheneth you, and whose grace is sufficient for you.' And lest you should unhappily miss the occasion of receiving the divine succours, you should seek them diligently in the ordinances of God, in his house, and at his table, whither you ought constantly to repair for new supplies. Now, if God vouchsafe you his assistance (which on such application he is too gracious to refuse), and you take proper care to improve and apply the helps he lends you, you may be assured the happy work is done, and you shall never greatly fall; you shall stand arrayed in the whole armour of God; you shall watch; you shall stand fast in the faith; you shall quit yourself like a man, and shall be strong in the power of the Lord, and in his might. You shall endure unto the end, and be saved;' you shall resist all temptations; and when you have been sufficiently tried, you shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.'

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Who folds his hands, when the enemy is laying at him? Who sleeps, when the trumpet sounds to battle? Who feasts, or dances to soft music, or dallies with his pleasures, when his adversaries are shouting for the charge? Who slumbers on the deceitful lap of Delilah, when the Philistines are upon him? O that the battles of religion and heaven against sin and damnation were fought with that engagement of heart and spirit, with that animosity and fire, which are shewn in our wars about worldly trifles! Then should we make glorious triumphs, and reap immortal crowns.

But alas! we either bring not our hearts with us to this spiritual warfare, or find them there among the foremost and most dangerous of our enemies. By what stratagem shall

we win them to our party? Is this so hard a matter? Can the affections of our hearts be set in opposition to God, to Heaven, and our greatest good? Yes; in the most obstinate opposition; but not, indeed, till religion and reason have lost their hold upon our minds; for otherwise, a man could never become so literally and desperately his own enemy, could never suffer so total a perversion of mind, and depravity of nature, as to place his delight and joy in the infallible and known means of his own destruction.

O wretched, wretched man! could he know himself, what a wonder, what a monster, would he appear in his own eyes! How would it shock him, to find himself forsaking God, and leaning on earthly supporters, which have either no strength, or no being, but what his own blind imagination lends them! falling into snares laid for himself, by his own hands! weltering in misery, where he hoped to wallow in pleasure! entering the lists for a kingdom, but shamefully submitting in the first encounter! starting for a crown, but stumbling and falling at every step! and, with heaven and hell placed full in his sight, with reason to direct him, and religion to assist him; yet, as it were with open eyes, led downward to eternal misery! But he is hid from himself, and 'seeing, he cannot see.'

May God of his infinite mercy open our eyes. May he give us strength to stand our ground, that we lose not those things which we have wrought; but that we may receive the full reward of those who continue to the last in his goodness, through the mediation of Christ our Saviour, and the assistance of our ever blessed Comforter and Helper; to whom, with thee, O merciful Father, be all might, majesty, and dominion, now and for evermore. Amen.

DISCOURSE XXXI.

MAN HIS OWN ENEMY.

GAL. v. 17.

The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary one to the other.

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THIS doctrine is the same with that of the apostle, in the seventh and eighth chapters of his Epistle to the Romans; wherein he speaks of one law in his flesh or members, warring against another law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin,' affirming that the carnal mind is enmity against God.' Nothing in all the Scriptures seems so strange to deists and libertines, as this, which represents the one part of our nature as set in direct opposition to the other, even in regard to duty and virtue, the rules and motives of which, say they, are founded on, and arise out of, human nature, in such a manner, that a man, in order to be good, hath nothing else to do, but to follow his own nature. But if the dictates of nature are opposite, how can they be all right, or all obeyed? Yet, that they are opposite, the experience of every thinking man is sufficient to teach him; for he can never surely deny, that, on many important occasions, he finds one part of his nature hurrying him to certain actions, while another labours to withhold him. If this is not sufficient to convince the libertine and natural man, that all is not uniform within him, let him consult the heathen philosophers, whom he admires, and, to serve a turn, prefers to Christ and his apostles, and they perhaps will do it. Nothing is more remarkable in their writings, than repeated precepts for subduing the appetites and passions by reason; nor in their actions, than such mortifications applied to that purpose, as no hermit need be ashamed of. Had they been supported in this attempt by a tolerable scheme of religion, they could hardly have failed

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