APPENDIX. 221 ses, and Elias ! In the beginning of the 'heavenly concourse, they were asleep with heaviness, even while this glorious company stood near them. Alas ! such is our infirmity in flesh, and such a clog are these earthly bodies to us, that when God is present, and heaven is before us, and we have the greatest cause to watch and pray, a heavy, weary, 'sluggish body, even fettereth an active spirit, and we sleep, or turn away in wandering thoughts, when we should seriously converse with Christ and heaven. Alas ! what unworihy servants bath our Lord ! Are such as 'these meet for his work, his love, his acceptance, or his kingdom ? But O, how merciful a Savior have we, who taketh not iüs poor servants at the worst, but when they have served him thus in his agony, he gently rebuketh them; " Could you not watch with me one hour ?" and that with an excuse, " The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." 20. It is a matter of great moment tounderstand in what cases this excuse gill hold, andour weakness will not make the willing- ness of the Spirit unacceptable to God. If a drunkard, fornicator, or other sensualist, should ,say, ' My spirit is willing to leave my sin, but my flesh is weak, and a temptation Both prevail,' Video nselioraproboq, &c. ; this excuse would not prove God's forgive- ness. If a man live in known sin; which he could forbear were he truly willing, and say, " To will is present with me, but to do I am unable ; it is not I, but sin, that dwèlleth in nie ; " this would be but a frivolous excuse; and yet to the sleepy disciples it was a good excuse, and I think to Paul; Rom. vii. Where, then, is the difference.? There are some acts of man which the will bath not power to rule, and some that it can rule. The will bath not power always to keep a sleepy man awake! this sleep might be of the flesh without any will at all; and this excuseth from all guilt. There are some acts of man which the will cânnot rule, but by a great degree of. power and endeavor ; as, perhaps, with much ado; by preventing and resisting diligence, the disciples might have kept awake : in this case, their sleep is a fault, but a pardoned fault of weakness. Some persons are liable to inordi- nate fearand grief, which so surpriseth them by the constitution of their bodies, that the greatest unwillingness would not hihder theta. And some could do more to resist these passions than they do, but very hardly with the greatest diligence. These are ac- cordingly excusable in degree. Paul would have perfectly obeyed God's law, andnever have sinned. But there is no perfection in this life: mere imperfection of true grace, which is predominant in the will, doth not damn men. But there are acts which are so subject to the will, that a sinceré will, though imperfect, can corn-
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