THE POWERS AND CONTESTS OP FLESH AND SPIRIT: 334 sometimes seized into a sudden consent to the sinful mo-, tions of the body before it is aware ; which dangers are much more easily prevented in a calm and healthful state of life. But here let me insert a cautionary remark or two, to guard against the abuse of thisdoctrine, which is designed for the relief of holy, humble, and dejected souls : Caution I. Many who return frequently to the com- mission of the same sin, excuse their own slothful and sottish negligence by throwing the blame on their consti- tution ; let them take heed, lest it be found that it is their own wilful indulgence of sinful appetite and temp- tation, and not constitution, hath made the habit of sin so strong within. them, and bath formed their very temper into such vice and iniquity, which was by no means born with them in any uncommon degree, but is owing to their own wicked practice : God sees through such vile_hypo- crisy and disguise as this, and will punish the sinner with a double stroke of vengeance, one for his guilty sensu- ality, and the other for his hateful dissembling. If I would give an instance of this pretence, I think it is found no where more frequently than among the drunkards, the passionate, and the unclean ; and such persons also dis- cover the vanity of their pretences, in that they always excuse their sins, and seldom or never mourn under them. Caution 2. Ifyour iniquitythat frequently besets you arise from any bodily disorder, which you have brought on yourself by your own sins, dare not murmur, and charge the providence of God with this your disease or impotence, but maintain a humbling sense of your own guilt, which, perhaps, God hath thus chastised in righ- teousness : And let younger sinners avoid all those guilty practices that may turn their very nature and better con- stitution into vice and raging appetite, or into such dis- eases as may expose them to the violent and unruly insults of flesh and blood. Let them take heed of indulg- ing vehement desires or aversions, even to common, indifferent, or lawful objects, lest of ectión get the ascendant, and subject the flesh ; and, by that means, the soul also, to a slavish habit of appetite and passion. Caution . Let not those persons, whose happier con- stitution, or uninterrupted health, gives them some ad- s
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