steep ascents, and dangerous precipices that are in the road of our duty; and then, as you go along in your meditations, ask your own hearts whether there be any passage that they startle at, or whether, notwithstanding all, they are seriously willing you should go on. Remonstrate to your own souls, that in such a place your lust will be tempting you with the genial pleasures of an adulterous bed; and desire them to deal plainly with you, whether they can be deaf to those bewitching invitations: tell them, that before you have gone many paces farther, the wants of poorer men than yourselves will be soliciting your charity; and desire to know of them whether they are willing you should do good, and trust God for a repayment: represent to them how highly you may be provoked at the next step by the injurious carriage of some insolent adversary; and know of them whether they are willing to contain their savage passions within the bars of reason and sobriety: and so go on in your own thoughts through all the paths of your duty, and never cease putting these and such like questions distinctly to your own souls, till they give an express consent to every duty that presses for a resolution. And it will very much conduce to the settling of a fixed judgment in you, if you do not conclude too soon, but weigh all these things over again; if you would ask yourselves the next morning, whether you still continue of the same mind, and whether your former consent was not the effect of a present heat, or whether now, after the cool of the night, you do still allow of it; for in all probability, if you resolve in haste, you will repent at leisure. And this, I doubt not, is the bane of most of our good resolutions, that generally they are the ef

fects of some transitory passion, and not of a sober judgment and serious deliberation for when men resolve well in heats of passion, they resolve to do they know not what themselves, but swallow their religion by the lump, without considering the particulars of it; and so they do by their duty as men do with bitter pills, which they can swallow whole, but when they come to chew, those prove so distasteful, that presently they spit them out again. When therefore you have calmly considered with yourselves all the arguments against your sins, and all the difficulties of forsaking them, and you have reasoned your wills into an express consent to part with them for ever, then betake yourselves to your bended knees, and in the most solemn manner devote yourselves unto God: "O Lord, I acknowledge I "have been a great offender against thee; and that

66

.66

my past life has been nothing else but a continued "rebellion; but now I see my folly, and am ashamed "to think what a notorious offender I have been; "wherefore here I solemnly promise, in thy dreadful presence, and in the presence of all thy holy angels, "that wherever I have done amiss, I will do so no "more; be witness, O thou righteous Judge of the "world, that here I shake hands with all my darling "lusts, and bid them adieu for ever: wherefore be gone ye soul-destroying vipers, that have twined so

66

66

long about me; away, ye wretched idols, whom I "have too long adored; for in the name of God I "am fully resolved never to entertain you more." And now having reduced ourselves to a good resolution of mind, our greatest difficulty is over; for so long as we keep our resolution we are invincible, and all the powers of hell will not be able to prevail

against us. For our wills are not to be forced by any power whatsoever; and there is no temptation in the world can make us return to our sin, so long as we are heartily resolved against it; so that all we have now to do is to keep the ground we have gotten, and not to suffer our spiritual enemies to batter down those good resolutions we have raised against them, which if we can but maintain will infallibly secure us against all their power and malice.

IV. Another instrument of mortification is a wise and prudent discipline. When by consideration we have brought ourselves to a thorough resolution of amendment, then, to confirm and secure our resolution, there are sundry wise and prudent methods to be used; as first, a frequent repetition and renewal of it. For at first our vicious inclinations will muster up all their strength against our resolution, and a perpetual contest there will be between them, till either the one or the other is subdued: but our good resolution being yet but raw and infirm, will ever and anon be apt to flinch and retreat; so that unless we often renew and reinforce it, it will not long be able to withstand the assaults and importunities of our vicious inclinations. Wherefore, if we mean to be successful in this work of mortification, it will be necessary, for some time at least, till the strength of our bad inclinations is broken, that we should every morning, before we go abroad into the world, renew our vows and resolutions of obedience, and reinforce them with a serious consideration of those great arguments whereupon they were first founded; that we should go out of our chambers armed as men that wait for their enemies, and not trust our own souls among the temptations of the world, till we

have first chained up our inclinations with new vows of fidelity. Let us therefore every day, as soon as we open our eyes, thus resolve with ourselves; "I "am now going into a world of temptations, where "I shall be solicited, both from within and without, "to falsify my vows which I have made to my God, " and to betray my own soul into everlasting perdi"tion; wherefore I do here, in the dreadful presence "of God, and of my Saviour, and of all the heavenly "host, renew and ratify again the good resolutions "I have made, without any reservation or excep"tion; and whatsoever invitations I may have to "the contrary, I will never revoke this promise "which I now make, or any part of it: so help me, "O my God." And if for a while we would but use ourselves to this method, I doubt not but we should quickly find our good resolutions so strengthened and confirmed, that the gates of hell would not be able to prevail against them: but if when we have made a resolution against our sins, we do not take care to confirm and renew it, we shall find the strength of it will by degrees so decay and abate, that at last it will be foiled and baffled by every temptation that encounters it. This therefore is one part of that wise and prudent discipline we are to exercise over ourselves, when we are throughly resolved against our sin, frequently to renew our resolution.

2. Another part of it is frequent reflection upon, and examination of ourselves. And indeed if we do not inure ourselves to this, we shall very often sin unawares, without either considering what we are doing, or reflecting upon what we have done; and while we can thus sin without check or control, it will be in vain for us to make resolutions of obe

dience. For still the pleasure of one act will invite us to another, and so, in the hurry of our worldly occasions, we shall go on to repeat sin after sin, without heeding what we do, or repenting of what we have done: and if we suffer one sin to break through the fence, that will open a gap for others to follow; and if these are not presently stopped by serious reflection, they will make the breach yet wider for others; till at last they have trodden down all the enclosures of our resolution, and laid open our whole souls into a common and thoroughfare of iniquity. But now by inuring ourselves to a frequent reflection upon and examination of our own actions, we shall in a great measure prevent those many surprises which otherwise will be unavoidable to us; and when at any time we stumble at unawares, the penance we shall undergo in reflecting upon our fault will so imbitter the pleasure of it, as to render it incapable of seducing us again. Wherefore, to secure the mortification of our sins, as it is necessary that every morning we should renew our resolution against it, so it is no less requisite that every night (especially till we have made some considerable progress) we should seriously examine our performances, whether they have comported with our resolutions; and if upon an impartial survey of our own actions we find that they have, let us lie down in peace, blessing and adoring that grace by which we have been preserved. But if we are conscious to ourselves of any breach that we have made upon our morning vows of obedience, let us bitterly bewail our own folly and baseness, and reflect upon it with the greatest shame and indignation: "What have I "done, O wretched traitor that I am, both to God