“These things being premised, I come to my principal intention, of handling some questions or practical cases that present themselves in this business of mortification of sin in believers. The first, which is the head of all the rest, and whereunto they are reduced, may be considered as lying under the ensuing proposal:— Suppose a man to be a true believer, and yet finds in himself a powerful indwelling sin, leading him captive to the law of it, consuming his heart with trouble, perplexing his thoughts, weakening his soul as to duties of communion with God, disquieting him as to…
Sunday Morning Calls to Worship
Call to Worship May 5, 2024
“[2.] As sin weakens, so it darkens the soul. It is a cloud, a thick cloud, that spreads itself over the face of the soul, and intercepts all the beams of God’s love and favour. It takes away all sense of the privilege of our adoption; and if the soul begins to gather up thoughts of consolation, sin quickly scatters them: of which afterward. Now, in this regard doth the vigour and power of our spiritual life depend on our mortification: It is the only means of the removal of that which will allow us neither the one nor the…
Call to Worship April 28, 2024
“3. In our ordinary walking with God, and in an ordinary course of his dealing with us, the vigour and comfort of our spiritual lives depend much on our mortification, not only as a…[necessary cause] but as a thing that hath an effectual influence thereinto. For,— (1.) This alone keeps sin from depriving us of the one and the other. Every unmortified sin will certainly do two things:—[1.] It will weaken the soul, and deprive it of its vigour. [2.] It will darken the soul, and deprive it of its comfort and peace. [1.] It weakens the soul, and deprives it of its strength. When David…
Call to Worship April 14, 2024
“[2.] He doth not so work our mortification in us as not to keep it still an act of our obedience. The Holy Ghost works in us and upon us, as we are fit to be wrought in and upon; that is, so as to preserve our own liberty and free obedience. He works upon our understandings, wills, consciences, and affections, agreeably to their own natures he works in us and with us, not against us or without us; so that his assistance is an encouragement as to the facilitating of the work, and no occasion of neglect as to…
Call to Worship April 7, 2024
“[3.] He brings the cross of Christ into the heart of a sinner by faith, and gives us communion with Christ in his death, and fellowship in his sufferings: of the manner whereof more afterward. Secondly. If this be the work of the Spirit alone, how is it that we are exhorted to it?—seeing the Spirit of God only can do it, let the work be left wholly to him. [1.] It is no otherwise the work of the Spirit but as all graces and good works which are in us are his. He ‘works in us to will and to do…
Call to Worship March 29, 2024
Mortification is the work of the Spirit. “2. It is, then, the work of the Spirit. For,— (1.) He is promised of God to be given unto us to do this work. The taking away of the stony heart,—that is, the stubborn, proud, rebellious, unbelieving heart,—is in general the work of mortification that we treat of. Now this is still promised to be done by the Spirit. Ezek. 11:19, 36:26, ‘I will give my Spirit, and take away the stony heart;’ and by the Spirit of God is this work wrought when all means fail, Isa. 57:17, 18. (2.) We…
Call to Worship March 24, 2024
“There are two evils which certainly attend every unmortified professor;—the first, in himself; the other, in respect of others:— 1. In himself. Let him pretend what he will, he hath slight thoughts of sin; at least, of sins of daily infirmity. The root of an unmortified course is the digestion of sin without bitterness in the heart. When a man hath confirmed his imagination to such an apprehension of grace and mercy as to be able, without bitterness, to swallow and digest daily sins, that man is at the very brink of turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and…
Call to Worship March 17, 2024
“6. It is our duty to be ‘perfecting holiness in the fear of God,’ 2 Cor. 7:1; to be ‘growing in grace’ every day, 1 Pet. 2:2, 2 Pet. 3:18; to be ‘renewing our inward man day by day,’ 2 Cor. 4:16. Now, this cannot be done without the daily mortifying of sin. Sin sets its strength against every act of holiness, and against every degree we grow to. Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts. He who doth not kill sin in his way takes no…
Call to Worship March 10, 2024
“5. Negligence in this duty casts the soul into a perfect contrary condition to that which the apostle affirms was his, 2 Cor. 4:16, “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” In these the inward man perisheth, and the outward man is renewed day by day. Sin is as the house of David, and grace as the house of Saul. Exercise and success are the two main cherishers of grace in the heart; when it is suffered to lie still, it withers and decays: the things of it are ready to die, Rev. 3:2; and sin gets ground towards the hardening of the heart,…
Call to Worship March 3, 2024
“4. This is one main reason why the Spirit and the new nature is given unto us,—that we may have a principle within whereby to oppose sin and lust. ‘The flesh lusteth against the Spirit.’ Well! and what then? Why, ‘The Spirit also lusteth against the flesh,’ Gal. 5:17. There is a propensity in the Spirit, or spiritual new nature, to be acting against the flesh, as well as in the flesh to be acting against the Spirit: so 2 Pet. 1:4, 5. It is our participation of the divine nature that gives us an escape from the pollutions that…