15. CHAPTER 15.
CHAPTER 15.
Decays in the degrees of grace, which are caused by indwelling sin — The ways by which indwelling sin prevails to this purpose.
What now comes under consideration are the ways and means by which indwelling sin prevails on believers to habitual declensions and decays in their degrees of grace and holiness; and they are many: —
(1.) Upon the first conversion and calling of sinners to God and Christ, they usually have many fresh springs breaking forth in their souls and refreshing showers coming upon them, which bear them up to a high rate of faith, love, holiness, fruitfulness, and obedience. It is like a flood over the land when many lesser streams run into a river, causing it to swell over its bounds, and roll on with more than ordinary fulness. Now, if these [spiritual] springs are not kept open, if they do not prevail for the continuance of these showers, they must necessarily decay and go backwards. We will name one or two of them: —
[1.] These believers have a fresh, vigorous sense of pardoning mercy. As this sense is in the soul, so will be its love and delight in God, so will be its obedience. As, I say, the sense of gospel pardon is, so will be the life of gospel love. Luke 7:47, “I say to you,” says our Saviour of the poor woman, “her sins, which were many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” Her great love was an evidence of great forgiveness, and her great sense of it: for our Saviour is not rendering a reason for her forgiveness, as though it were for her love; rather, her love was because of her forgiveness. In the foregoing parable (verse 40 onwards), having convinced the Pharisee with whom he dealt, that the one to whom the most was forgiven would love the most (verse 43), he then gives an account of the great love of the woman, springing from the sense she had of the great forgiveness which she had so freely received. Thus sinners at their first conversion are very sensible of great forgiveness; “Of whom I am chief,” 1 Timothy 1:15 lies next their heart. This greatly subdues their hearts and spirits to all in God, and quickens them to all obedience — even that such poor cursed sinners as they were, should so freely be delivered and pardoned. The love of God and of Christ, in their forgiveness, highly conquers and constrains them to make it their business to live to God.
[2.] The fresh taste they have had of spiritual things keeps up such a savor and relish of them in their souls, that worldly contentments — by which men are drawn away from close walking with God — are rendered sapless and undesirable to them. Having tasted of the wine of the gospel, they desire no other, for they say, “This is best.” So it was with the apostles, at that option offered them to depart from Christ, upon the apostasy of many false professors: “Will you also go away?” John 6:67. They answer by Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? you have the words of eternal life,” verse 68. They had such a fresh savor and relish of the doctrine of the gospel and the grace of Christ upon their souls, that they can entertain no thoughts of declining from it. Like a man who has long been kept in a dungeon, if brought forth suddenly into the light of the sun, he finds so much pleasure and contentment in it, in the beauties of the old creation, that he thinks he can never be weary of it, nor will ever be content to be under darkness again on any account. So it is with souls when they are first translated into the marvellous light of Christ, to behold the beauties of the new creation. They see a new glory in him that has quite sullied the desirableness of all earthly diversions. And they see a new guilt and filth in sin, that gives them an utter abhorrence of its old delights and pleasures; and so of other things.
Now, while these and similar springs are kept open in the souls of converted sinners, they constrain them to a vigorous, active holiness. They can never do enough for God; so that oftentimes their zeal as saints does not allow them to escape without some blots on their prudence as men, as might be instanced in many of the martyrs of old.
This, then, is the first, or at least one way by which indwelling sin prepares men for decays and declensions in grace and obedience: it endeavors to stop or taint these springs. And there are several ways by which it brings this to pass: —
1st. It works by sloth and negligence. It prevails in the soul to neglect stirring up continual thoughts of or about the things that so powerfully influence it to strict and fruitful obedience. If care is not taken, if diligence and watchfulness are not used, and all the means appointed by God to keep a quick and living sense of them upon the soul, then they will dry up and decay; and, consequently, that obedience which should spring from them will do so also. Isaac dug wells, but the Philistines stopped them, and his flocks had no benefit by them. Let the heart be ever so little disused to gracious, soul-affecting thoughts of the love of God, the cross of Christ, the greatness and excellency of gospel mercy, and the beauties of holiness, and they will just as quickly be estranged to a man, as he can be to them. The one who shuts his eyes for a season in the sun, can see nothing at all when he opens them again. As much as a man loses of faith towards these things, that much will they lose power towards him. Those things which formerly were so exceedingly effectual towards him, can do little or nothing upon him because of his unbelief. So it was with the spouse in the Song of Solomon, Song of Solomon 5:2; Christ calls to her, verse 1, with a marvellous loving and gracious invitation to communion with himself. She who had formerly been ravished at first hearing that joyful sound, now being under the power of sloth and carnal ease, returns a sorry excuse of an answer to his call, which ended in her own signal loss and sorrow. Indwelling sin, I say, prevailing by spiritual sloth upon the souls of men — to an inadvertency191 of the motions of God’s Spirit in their former apprehensions of divine love — and negligence in stirring up continual thoughts of faith about it, a decay grows imperceptibly upon the whole soul. Thus God often complains that his people had “forgotten him;” that is, they grew unmindful of his love and grace — which was the beginning of their apostasy.
2dly. By unframing the soul,192 so that it has formal, weary, powerless thoughts of those things which should prevail with it to diligence in thankful obedience. The apostle cautions us that in dealing with God we should use “reverence and godly fear,” because of God’s purity, holiness, and majesty, Hebrews 12:28, 29 193 This is what the Lord himself said in the destruction of Nadab and Abihu, “I will be sanctified in those who come near me,” Leviticus 10:3. He will be dealt with in an awe-filled, holy, reverent manner. So we are to deal with all the things of God, in which or by which we have communion with him. The soul is to have great reverence of God in them. When men begin to take them lightly or with common thoughts, not using and improving them to the utmost for the ends for which they are appointed, these things lose all their beauty, and glory, and power towards such men. When we have anything to do in which faith or love towards God is to be exercised, we must do it with all our hearts, with all our minds, strength, and souls — not slightly and perfunctorily, which God abhors. He not only requires that we bear his love and grace in remembrance, but that, as much as it lies in us, we do it according to the worth and excellence of them.
It was the sin of Hezekiah that he “did not render back according to the benefits done to him,” 2 Chronicles 32:25. So too, when we consider gospel truths, the utmost endeavor of our soul ought to be, that we may be “changed into the same image” or likeness of those truths, 2 Corinthians 3:18;194 that is, that they may have their full power and effect upon us. If we do not, James tells us what “beholding the glory of the Lord in a mirror” (mentioned there by the Apostle) — that is, reading or hearing the mind of God in Christ revealed in the gospel — will come to:
James 1:23-24, “It is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholds himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what manner of man he was.”
It will make no impression on us, generate no idea or image of his likeness in our imagination — because we behold only slightly, with a passing glance. So it is with men who will indeed think of gospel truths, but do so in a slight manner, without endeavoring with all their hearts, minds, and strength, to have those truths ingrafted upon their souls, and to have all the effects of those truths produced in them. Now, this is the way of sinners in their first engagements to God. They never think of pardoning mercy, without laboring to affect their whole souls with it, and stir themselves up to suitable affections and responses of constant obedience. They do not think of the excellence of Christ and of spiritual things — now newly revealed to them in a saving light — without pressing with all their might after a further, a fuller enjoyment of them. This keeps them humble and holy; this makes them thankful and fruitful. But now, if the utmost diligence and carefulness are not used to improve and grow in this wisdom, to keep up this frame, then indwelling sin, working by the vanity of the minds of men, will imperceptibly bring them to content themselves with slight and rare thoughts of these things — without a diligent, sedulous195 endeavor to give them their due improvement upon the soul. As men decay in this, so they will assuredly decay and decline in the power of holiness and of close walking with God. The springs being stopped or tainted, the streams will not run as swiftly, or at least not as sweetly, as they did formerly. Some by this means, despite an uninterrupted profession, insensibly wither into almost nothing. They talk about religion and spiritual things as much as they ever did in their lives, and they perform duties with as much constancy as they ever did; yet they have poor, lean, starving souls, as to any real and effectual communion with God. By the power and subtlety of indwelling sin, they have grown formal, and learned to deal about spiritual things in a surface manner; by which they have lost all their life, vigor, savor, and efficacy towards them. Always be serious in spiritual things if you ever intend to be bettered by them.
3dly. Indwelling sin oftentimes prevails to stop these springs of gospel obedience, by false and foolish opinions corrupting the simplicity of the gospel. False opinions are the work of the flesh. They mostly proceed from the vanity and darkness of the minds of men, with a mixture more or less of corrupt affections. The apostle was jealous over his Corinthians in this matter. He was afraid, lest their minds 2 Corinthians 11:2-3, “should by any means be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” — which he knew would be attended by a decay and declension in faith, love, and obedience. And this is how matters in this case often fall out. We have seen some who, after they have received a sweet taste of the love of God in Christ, of the excellency of pardoning mercy, and have walked humbly with God for many years in the faith and apprehension of the truth — by the corruption of their minds from the simplicity that is in Christ, and by false and foolish opinions —have despised all their own experiences, and rejected all the efficacy of truth, as to furthering their obedience.
Hence John cautions the elect lady and her children to take heed that they not be seduced, lest they “lose the things they had wrought,” 2 John 1:8 — lest they cast away all their former obedience as lost, and a thing of no value. We have innumerable instances of this in the days in which we live. How many there are who not many years ago, put an unspeakable value on the pardon of sin in the blood of Christ — who delighted in gospel revelations of spiritual things, and walked in obedience to God on account of them. And yet, being beguiled and turned aside from the truth as it is in Jesus, they now despise these springs of their own former obedience! And just as this is done grossly and openly in some, so there are more in whom secret and more plausible insinuations of corrupt opinions taint the springs and fountains of gospel obedience; through the vanity of men’s minds (which is a principal part of indwelling sin), these gain ground in them. Such are all those who tend to extenuate special grace in its freedom and efficacy, and the advancement of the wills or the endeavors of men in their spiritual power and ability. These are works of the flesh; and however some may pretend there is usefulness in them to promote holiness, they will be found to taint the springs of true evangelical obedience, insensibly turning the heart from God, and bringing the whole soul into spiritual decay. And this is one way by which indwelling sin produces this pernicious effect of drawing men away from the power, purity, and fruitfulness that attended their first conversion and engagements to God, bringing them into habitual declension, at least as to the degrees, of their holiness and grace. There is nothing we should be more watchful against, if we intend to effectually deal with this powerful and subtle enemy. It is no small part of the wisdom of faith, to observe whether gospel truths continue to have the same savor and efficacy upon the soul as they had formerly; and whether an endeavor is maintained to improve them continually as we did at first. A commandment that is always practiced is always new, as John speaks of that commandment of love. To the one who really improves gospel truths, even though he hears them a thousand times, they will always be new and fresh to him, because they push him to new practice; when to another who grows common under them, they are burdensome and common to him —he even loathes the manna that he is so accustomed to.
(2.) Indwelling sin does this by taking men away from their watch against the returns of Satan. When our Lord Christ comes first to take possession of any soul for himself, he binds that strong man and spoils his goods; he deprives him of all his power, dominion, and interest. Satan being thus dispossessed and frustrated in his hopes and expectations, leaves the soul, finding it newly mortified to his baits. So he left our Saviour upon his first fruitless attempts. But it is said that he left him only “for a season,” Luke 4:13. He intended to return again, when he sees his advantage. So it is with believers also. Being thrown out from his interest in them, Satan leaves them for a season, at least comparatively. Freed from his assaults and perplexing temptations, they proceed vigorously in the course of their obedience, and so they flourish in the ways of God. But this does not hold — Satan returns again; and if the soul does not stand continually on its guard against him, Satan will quickly get such advantages as to put a notable interruption in the believer’s fruitfulness and obedience. This is why, after spending some time (maybe years) in cheerful and exemplary walking with God, some have consumed all their latter days in wrestling with perplexing temptations which Satan entangled them with upon his return. Others have plainly fallen under the power of his assaults. It is like a man who has lived usefully for a while among his neighbors, doing good and communicating according to his ability, distributing to the poor, and helping all around him — until at length, falling into the hands of vexatious, wrangling, and oppressive men, he is forced to spend his whole time and revenue defending himself against them at law. And so he becomes useless in the place where he lives. So is it with many a believer: after he has walked in a fruitful course of obedience, to the glory of God and the edification of the church of Christ, he is freshly attacked by the return of Satan in one way or another. He has enough to do during the remainder of his life to keep himself alive; in the meantime, as to many of the graces, he is woefully decaying and going backward in them. Now, though Satan has a hand in it, this also is from indwelling sin; I mean, the success is his which he obtains in his undertaking. This encourages him; it makes way for his return, and it gives entrance to his temptations. You know how it is with those whom Satan is cast out of only by a gospel conviction. After he has wandered and waited a while, he says he will return to his house from which he was ejected.196 And what is the result? Carnal lusts have prevailed over the man’s convictions, and made his soul fit to entertain returning devils. It is according to the measure of prevalence that Satan obtains against believers, from any advantages given to him by sin’s disposing the soul to the obnoxiousness of his temptations.
Now, the way and means by which indwelling sin gives advantage to Satan for his return are all those which dispose them toward a declension, which will be mentioned afterward. Satan is a diligent, watchful, and crafty adversary; he will neglect no opportunity, no advantage that is offered to him. In whatever way then, our spiritual strength is impaired by sin, or whichever way our lusts press, Satan falls in with that weakness and presses towards that ruin; so that all the actings of the law of sin are subservient to this end of Satan. I will therefore mention at present only one or two that seem principally to invite Satan to attempt a return: —
[1.] It entangles the soul in the things of the world, all of which are so many purveyors for Satan. When Pharaoh let the people go, he heard after a while that they were entangled in the wilderness. He supposes therefore that he will now overtake and destroy them; this stirs him up to pursue them. Satan, upon finding that those whom he has been cast out from, are now entangled in the things of the world — and by which he is sure to find easy access to them — is encouraged to tempt them afresh, as the spider comes down upon the strongest fly entangled in his web. For Satan uses his temptations only to impel men to what they are already inclined by their own lusts — by adding poison to their lusts, and pointing to the objects of their lusts. And oftentimes by this advantage, he gets so in upon the souls of men, that they are never fully free of him while they live. And as men’s diversions increase from the world, so do their entanglements from Satan. When they have more to do in the world than they can well manage, they will have more to deal with from Satan than they can well withstand. When men are made spiritually faint, by dealing in and with the world, Satan sets upon them, as Amalek set upon the faint and weak people that came out of Egypt.Exodus 17:8
[2.] It produces this effect by making the soul negligent, and taking it away from its watch. We showed before at large, that it is one main part of the effectual deceitfulness of indwelling sin to make the soul inadvertent, to turn it away from its diligent, watchful attendance to its required duty. Now, there is nothing in reference to which diligence and watchfulness are more strictly enjoined than the recurring assaults of Satan: 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant.” And why so? “Because of your adversary the devil.” Unless you are exceedingly watchful, at one time or other he will surprise you; and all the injunctions of our blessed Saviour to watch are still with reference to him and his temptations. Now, when the soul is made careless and inadvertent, forgetting what an enemy it is dealing with, or when the soul is lifted up with the successes it has newly obtained against him, then it is Satan’s time to attempt re-entrance to his old habitation. If he cannot obtain it, he will still make their lives uncomfortable to themselves and unfruitful to others, in weakening their root and withering their fruit through his poisonous temptations. He comes down upon our duties of obedience like the fowls came down upon Abraham’s sacrifice — so that if we do not watch to drive them away, as he did (for Satan is overcome and put to flight by resistance James 4:7), he will devour them.
[3.] Indwelling sin takes advantage to exert its efficacy and deceit, in order to withdraw men from their primitive zeal and holiness — from their first faith, love, and works — by the evil examples of professors among whom they live. When men first engage the ways of God, they have a reverent esteem for those whom they believe to have been made partakers of that mercy before themselves; these they love and honor, as it is their duty. But after a while they find many of them walking in many things unevenly, crookedly, and not unlike the men of the world. Here sin is not lacking as to its advantage. Imperceptibly it prevails with men to comply with them. “This way, this course of walking, does well enough with others; why may it not do so with us also?” Such is the inward thought of many, and which works effectually in them. And so, through the craft of sin, the generation of professors corrupt one another. A stream that arises from a clear spring or a fountain, while it runs in its own particular channel and keeps its water unmixed, preserves its purity and cleanness. But when its course falls in with other streams that are turbid and foul, even though running the same way with it, it becomes muddy and discolored also; so it is in this case. Believers come forth from the spring of the new birth with some purity and cleanness; and they keep this for a while in the course of their private walking with God. But when they sometimes fall into society with others whose profession flows and runs the same way with theirs, even towards heaven, yet are muddied and sullied with sin and the world, they are often corrupted with them and by them; and so they decline from their first purity, faith, and holiness.
Now, lest this may have been the case of anyone who reads this discourse, I will add a few cautions that are necessary to preserve men from this infection: —
1st. In the body of professors there are a great number of hypocrites. Though we cannot say that this man or that is such, yet it is most certain that some are. Our Saviour has told us that it will be so to the end of the world. All those who have oil in their lamps do not have it in their vessels. Let men take heed how they conform themselves to the professors they meet with, lest instead of saints and the best of men, they sometimes propose hypocrites for their example, which are the worst: when they think they are becoming like those who bear the image of God, they may actually conform themselves to those who bear the image of Satan.
2dly. You do not know what may be the present temptation of those whose ways you observe. It may be that they are under some particular desertion from God, and so they are withering for a season, until he sends them some refreshing showers from above. It may be that they are entangled with some special corruptions, which is their burden that you know nothing of. And so, for anyone to voluntarily fall into such a frame as others are thrown into by the power of their temptations, or to think that what they see suffices in others (whose distempers they do not know) will suffice in themselves, is folly and presumption. Someone that knows a person who is vibrant and of a healthy constitution, if he sees him crawling up and down about his affairs, feeble and weak — sometimes falling, sometimes standing, and making small progress in anything — will he think it sufficient for himself to do so as well? Will he not inquire whether the person he sees has not lately fallen into some distemper or sickness that has weakened him and brought him into that condition? Assuredly he will. Take heed, Christians: many of the professors with whom you converse, are sick and wounded — the wounds of some of them stink and are corrupt because of their folly. If you have any spiritual health, do not think that their weak and uneven walking will be accepted at your hands — much less that it will be well for you to become sick and wounded also.
3dly. Remember that only the worst is known and seen of many of the best Christians. Many who keep up precious communion with God oftentimes, by their natural tempers of freedom or passion, do not carry so glorious an appearance as others who perhaps come short of them in grace, and in the power of godliness. In respect to their outward conduct, it may seem that they are scarcely saved; when in respect to their faith and love they may be eminent. Like the King’s daughter, they may be all glorious within, even though their clothes are not always of wrought gold.Psalms 45:13 Take heed then, that you are not infected with their worst, when you are perhaps not able to imitate them in their best. But to return,
[4.] Sin does this work by cherishing some secret particular lust in the heart. The soul contends against this only faintly. It contends against it on account of sincerity; it cannot help but do so: but it does not make a thorough work of it, vigorously mortifying it by the strength and power of grace. Now, where it is this way with a soul, a habitual declension as to holiness will assuredly ensue. David shows us how, in his first days, he kept his heart close to God:
Psalms 18:23, “I was upright before him, and I kept myself from my iniquity.” His great care was lest any one lust should prevail in him or upon him, that might be called his iniquity in a special manner. The same course also steered Paul, 1 Corinthians 9:27 197 He was in danger of being lifted up by his spiritual revelations and enjoyments. This makes him “keep his body in subjection,” so that no carnal reasonings or vain imagination might take place in him. But where indwelling sin has provoked, irritated, and given strength to a special lust, it assuredly proves to be a principal means of a general declension. For just as an infirmity and weakness in any one vital part of the body, will consume the whole body, so weakness in any one grace — which a perplexing lust brings with it — will consume the soul. In every way, it weakens spiritual strength. It weakens confidence in God in faith and prayer. The knees will be feeble and the hands will hang down in dealing with God,198 where a galling and unmortified lust lies in the heart. It will take such hold upon the soul that it will not be “able to look up,” Psalms 40:12. It darkens the mind by innumerable foolish imaginations, which it stirs up to make provision for itself. It galls the conscience with those spots and stains which, in and by its actings, it brings upon the soul. It contends in the will for rule and dominion. An active, stirring corruption would have the commanding power in the soul, and it is ever and anon ready to take the throne. It disturbs the thoughts, and it will sometimes even frighten the soul from dealing with it by meditation, lest corrupt affections being entangled by it, grace loses ground instead of prevailing against it. It oftentimes breaks out into scandalous sins, as it did in David and Hezekiah; and it loads the sinner with sorrow and discouragement. By these and like means, it becomes to the soul like a moth in a garment, eating up and devouring its strongest threads, so that even though the whole hangs loosely together, it is easily torn to pieces. Though the soul with whom it is this way, keeps up a fair profession for a time, yet his strength is secretly devoured — every temptation tears and rends his conscience at its pleasure. With such men, it becomes as it is with some who have for many years been of a sound, strong, and athletic constitution. Some secret, hectic distemper seizes them. For a season they take no notice of it, or if they do, they think they will do well enough with it, and easily shake it off when they have a little leisure to attend to it. But for the present, they think, as Samson did with his locks cut, that they can do as they did at other times. They may sometimes complain that they are not well; they do not know precisely what ails them, and they may rise violently in opposition to their distemper. Yet after a while, struggling in vain, with the vigor of their spirits and strength failing them, they are forced to yield to the power of a consumption.199 And now all they can do is little enough to keep them alive.
It is so with men who are brought into spiritual decay by any secret perplexing corruption. It may be that they had a vigorous principle of obedience and holiness. But indwelling sin, watching for its opportunities, by some temptation or other has kindled and inflamed some particular lust in them. For a while, it may be that they take little notice of it. Sometimes they complain; but they think they can do as well as they did in former times until, being insensibly weakened in their spiritual strength, they have work enough to do, just to keep alive what remains of it, and is about to die, Hosea 5:13 200 I will not add anything here as to the prevention and obviating of this advantage of indwelling sin, having specifically and separately addressed it elsewhere.
[5.] It works by negligence in private communion with God, in prayer and meditation. I have shown before how indwelling sin exercises its deceitfulness in diverting the soul from watchfulness in and to these duties. Here, if it prevails, it will not fail to produce a habitual declension in the whole course of obedience. All neglect of private duties is principled by a weariness of God, as He complains of: —
Isaiah 43:22, “You have not called upon me; you have been weary of me.”
Neglect of invocation proceeds from weariness; and where there is weariness, there will be a withdrawing from what we are weary of. Now, God alone being the fountain and spring of spiritual life, if there is a weariness of him and a withdrawing from him, then it is impossible that there not ensue a decay in the life. Indeed, what men are in these duties (I mean as to faith and love in them), they are that, and nothing more. Here lies the root of their obedience; and if this fails, all fruit will quickly fail.
You may sometimes see a tree flourishing with leaves and fruit, goodly and pleasant. After a while the leaves begin to decay, the fruit begins to wither, the whole tree begins to droop. Search, and you will find that the root — by which it should draw in moisture and fatness from the earth to supply the body and branches with sap and juice for growth and fruit — has received a wound. It is in some way perished, and it does not perform its duty; so that though the branches are flourishing a while with what they had received, their sustenance now being intercepted, they must decay. So it is here. These duties of private communion with God are the means of receiving supplies of spiritual strength from him — of sap and fatness from Christ, the vine and olive. While they do so, the conduct and course of obedience flourishes and it is fruitful — all outward duties are cheerfully and regularly performed. But if there is a wound, a defect, a failing, in what should first take in the spiritual radical moisture that should be communicated to the whole, the rest may maintain their station and appearance for a season, but after a while, the profession will wither, fruits will decay, and the whole will be ready to die. Hence our Saviour lets us know, what a man is in secret, in these private duties, that is what he is in the eyes of God, and no more.201 And one reason, among others, is because they have a more vigorous acting of unmixed grace than any other duties whatsoever. In all or most particular duties, besides the influence they may have from carnal respects (which are many), and the ways of their insinuation being subtle and imperceptible, there is also an alloy of gifts,202 which sometimes devours even the pure gold of grace — which should be the chief and principal gift in them. In these duties, there is immediate intercourse between God and what is of God in the soul. Once sin, by its deceits and treacheries, prevails to take the soul away from diligent attendance to communion with God, and constancy in these duties, sin will not fail to effect a decline in the whole of a man’s obedience. It has made its entrance, and it will assuredly make good its progress.
[6.] Growing in notions of truth without corresponding practice is another thing that indwelling sin makes use of to bring the souls of believers to decay. The apostle tells us that “knowledge puffs up,” 1 Corinthians 8:1. If it is alone, and not improved in practice, it swells men disproportionately. Like a man who has dropsy,203 we are not to expect that he has strength in proportion to his size — like trees that are continually headed, which keeps them from bearing fruit.204 Once men have attained this ability to entertain and receive evangelical truths in a new and more glorious light, or gain a clearer revelation than formerly, or new manifestations of truth which they did not know before, and please themselves in doing so — but do so without diligent endeavors to have the power of those truths and notions impressed on their hearts, and their souls conformed to them — they generally learn to so dispose 205 of all truths formerly known, truths which were sometimes inlaid in their hearts with more efficacy and power. This has proved, if not the ruin, the great impairing of many in these days of light in which we live. By this means many have withered from a humble, close walking with God, into an empty, barren, talking profession. All things, almost, have in a short season become alike to them — whether true or false, all is well so long as they might be debating and disputing about them. This is food for sin; it hatches and increases it, and it is increased by it. It is a notable way for the vanity that is in the mind to exert itself, without a rebuke from the conscience. Men may be talking, and writing, and studying about religion, and hearing preaching with great delight, as they did in Ezekiel 33:32 206 And their conscience will be very well pacified, unless it is thoroughly awake and circumspect, and furnished with spiritual wisdom and care — it will enter no rebukes or pleas against the way that the soul is behaving. Yet all this may be nothing but the acting of that natural vanity which lies in the mind, and which is a principal part of the sin we are addressing. Generally this is so when men content themselves, as was said, with the notions of truth, without laboring to experience the power of them in their hearts, and bringing forth the fruit of them in their lives — upon which decay must necessarily ensue.
[7.] Growth in carnal wisdom is another help to sin in producing this sad effect. “Your wisdom and your knowledge,” says the prophet, “have perverted you,” Isaiah 47:10 207 To the extent that carnal wisdom increases, faith decays. The proper work of carnal wisdom is to teach a man to trust to and in himself; the proper work of faith is to trust wholly in another. So carnal wisdom labors to destroy the whole work of faith, by causing the soul to return into a deceiving fullness of its own. We have woeful examples of the prevalence of this principle of declension in the days in which we live. How many a poor, humble, brokenhearted creature we have seen, who followed after God in simplicity and integrity of spirit, and yet through observing the ways and walks of others, and by closing with the temptations to craft and subtlety which opportunities in the world have administered to them, they have come to be dipped in a worldly, carnal frame, and utterly wither in their profession! Many are so sullied by this that they are not known to be the men they were.
[8.] Some great sin, lying long in the heart and conscience, is unrepented of, or it is not repented of as it should be, and as the matter requires — this furthers indwelling sin in this work. The great turn of the life of David, from which his first ways carried the reputation, was in harboring his great sin in his conscience without suitable repentance. It was otherwise with Peter, we know, and he had another result. A great sin will certainly give a great turn to the life of a professor. If it is well cured in the blood of Christ, with that humiliation which the gospel requires, it often proves to be a means of more watchfulness, fruitfulness, humility, and contentment, than the soul ever obtained before. If it is neglected, it certainly hardens the heart, weakens spiritual strength, enfeebles the soul, discouraging it from all communion with God, and it is a notable principle of a general decay. So David complains in Psalms 38:5, “My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness.” His present distemper was not so much from his sin as his folly — not so much from the wounds he had received as from his neglect to make a timely application for their cure. It is like a broken bone which, being well set, leaves the place stronger than before; if it is otherwise, it makes the man a cripple all his days. These things we but briefly name, and various other advantages of like nature that sin makes use of to produce this effect, might also be instanced; but these may suffice for our present purpose. Whatever it uses, sin itself is still the principle; and this is no small demonstration of its efficacy and power.