First Kind of Spiritual Pride—PRIDE OF GIFTS

   

First. By gifts, I mean those supernatural abil­ities, with which the Spirit of God doth enrich and endow the minds of men for edification of the body of Christ; of which gifts the apostle tells us there is great diversity, and all from the same Spirit, I Cor. 12:4. There is not greater variety of colours and qualities of plants and flowers, with which the earth like a carpet of needle-work is variegated for the delight and service of man, than there is of gifts, natural and spir­itual, in the minds of men, to render them useful to one another, both in civil societies and Christian fellowship.  The Christian, as well as man, is in­tended to be a sociable creature, and for the better managing of this spiritual commonwealth among Christians, God doth wisely and graciously provide, and impart, gifts suitable to the place every one stands in [relative] to his brethren, as the vessels are larger or less in the body natural, according to the place therein.  Now Satan labours what he can, to taint these gifts, and fly-blow them with pride in the Christian, that so he may spoil the Christian’s trade and commerce, which is mutually maintained by the gifts and graces of one another.  Pride of gifts hinders the Chris­tian’s trade—at least [its] thriving by their commerce, two ways.  First. Pride of gifts is the cause why we do so little good with them to others.  Second. Pride of gifts is the cause why we receive so little good from the gifts of others.

           First. Pride of gifts is the cause why we do so little good with them to others, and that upon a threefold account.

1. Pride diverts a man from aiming at the end. So far as pride prevails, the man prays, preaches, &c., rather to thought good by others, than to do good to others; rather to enthrone himself, than Christ, in the opinions and hearts of his hearers.  Pride carries the man aloft, to be admired for the height of his parts and notions, and will not suffer him to stoop so low as to speak of plain truths, or if he does, not plainly; he must have some fine lace, though on a plain stuff. Such a one may tickle the ear, but [is] very unlikely to do real good to the soul.  Alas! it is not that he attends.
2. If this painted Jezebel of pride be perceived to look out at the window in any exercise, whether of preaching, prayer, or conference, it doth beget a dis­dain in the spirits of those that hear such a one, both good and bad.  It is a sin very odious to a gracious heart, and oft-times makes the stomach go against the food, though good, through their abhorrency of that pride they see in the instrument.  It is, indeed, their weakness, but woe to them that by their pride lead them into temptation! nay, those that are bad and may be in the same kind, like not that in another which they favour in themselves, and so prejudiced [they] return as bad as they went.
3. Pride of gifts robs us of God’s blessing in the use of them.  The humble man may have Satan at his right hand to oppose him; but be sure the proud man shall find God himself there to resist him, whenever he goes about any duty.  God proclaims so much, and would have the proud man know wherever he meets him [that] he will oppose him.  He ‘resisteth the proud.’  Great gifts are beautiful as Rachel, but pride makes them also barren like her.  Either we must lay self aside, or God will lay us aside.

           Second. Pride of gifts is the cause why we receive so little good from the gifts of others.  Pride fills the soul; and a full soul will take nothing from God, much less from man, to do it good.  Such a one is very dainty; it is not every sermon, though wholesome food, not every prayer, though savoury, [that] will go down.  He must have a choice dish.  He thinks he hath better than this of his own.  And is such a one like to get good?  And truly we may see it, that as the plain ploughman, that can eat of any homely food if wholesome, hath more health, and is able to do more work in a day, than many enjoy or can do in their whole life, that are nice, squeamish, and courtly in their fare; so the humble Christian that can feed on plain truths, and ordinances which have not so much of the art of man to commend them to their palate, enjoy more of God, and can do more for God, than the nicer sort of professors, who are all to be served in a lordly dish of rare gifts.  The church of Corinth was famous for gifts above other churches, I Cor. 1, but not in grace; none [were] so charged for weakness in that, I Cor. 3:2.  He [Paul] calls them carnal babes in Christ, so weak as not able to digest man's meat.  ‘I have fed you,’ saith Paul, ‘with milk, and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.’  Why? what is the matter? the reason lies, ‘Ye are yet carnal: there is among you envying, and strife;’ ver. 3, ‘One saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos,’ ver. 4.  Pride makes them take parts, and make sides, one for this preacher, another for that, as they fancied one to excel another. And this is not the way to thrive.  Pride destroys love, and love wanting edification is lost.  The devil hath made foul work in the church by this engine.  Zanchy tells of one in Geneva, who being desired to go hear Calvin, answered his friend, ‘If Paul were to preach, I would leave Paul himself to hear Calvin.’  And will pride in the gifts of another so far transport, even to the borders of blasphemy, what work will then pride make when the gifts are a man's own?

SECOND SPIRITUAL WICKEDNESS—Spiritual Pride

Second. The second spiritual wickedness which Satan provokes unto, especially the saint, is spiritual pride.  This was the sin made him, of a blessed angel, a cursed devil; and as it was his personal sin, so he chiefly labours to derive it to the sons of man: and he so far prevailed on our first parents, that ever since, this sin hath and doth claim a kind of regency in the heart, making use of both bad and good to draw her chariot.

           First. It maketh use of evil.  Pride enters into the labours of other sins; they do but work to make her brave, as subjects to uphold the state and grandeur of their prince.  Thus you shall see some drudge and droil, cheat, cozen, oppress; and what mean they?  O it is to get an estate to maintain pride.  Others fawn and flatter, lie, dissemble; and for what? to help pride up some mount of honour.

           Second. It maketh use of that which is good.  It can work with God’s own tools, his ordinances, by which the Holy Spirit advanceth his kingdom of grace in the hearts of his saints.  These often are prosti­tuted to pride.  A man may be very zealous in prayer, and painful in preaching, and all the while pride is the master whom he serves, though in God’s livery. It can take sanctuary in the holiest actions, and hide itself under the skirt of virtue itself.  Thus while a man is exercising his charity, pride may be the idol in secret for which he lavisheth out his gold so freely.  It is hard starving this sin, because there is nothing al­most but it can live on—nothing so base that a proud heart will not be lift up with, and nothing so sacred but it will profane; [it will] even dare to drink in the bowls of the sanctuary, nay, rather than starve, it will feed on the carcases of other sins.  ‘That sin is with great difficulty avoided which springs from a victory of our vices.’ This minion pride will stir up the soul to resist, yea, in a manner kill, some sins, that she may boastingly show the head of them, and blow the creature up with the conceit of himself above others. As the Pharisee, who through pride bragged that he was not as the publican—so that pride, if not looked to, will have to do everywhere, and hath a large sphere it moves in.  Nothing indeed (without divine assistance) the creature hath or doth, but will soon become a prey to this devourer.  But I am not to handle it in this latitude.

Pride is either conversant about carnal objects, as pride of beauty, strength, riches, and such like, or about spiritual.  The latter we shall speak a little to.  I confess for the former, possibly a saint may be catched in them—no sin [is] to be slighted—yet not so commonly, for ordinary pride is of those perfec­tions which are suitable, if not proper, to the state and calling we are in.  Thus the musician; he is proud of the skill he hath in his art, by which he excels others of his rank.  The scholar, though he can play perhaps as well, yet is not proud of that, but looks on it as beneath him; no, he is proud of his learning and choice notions: and so of others. 

           Now the life of a Christian, as a Christian, is su­perior to the life of a man as a man; and therefore [he] doth not value himself by these which are be­neath him, but in higher and more raised per­fections, which suit a Christian's calling.  As a natural man is proud of perfections suitable to his natural state, as honour, beauty; so the Christian is prone chiefly to be puffed up with perfections suitable to his life.  I shall name three:  First. Pride of gifts. Second. Pride of grace.  Third. Pride of privileges. These are the things which Satan chiefly labours to entangle him in.

Use or Application

           [A word of exhortation to all.] The application of this shall be only in a word of exhortation to all; especially you who bear the name of Christ by a more eminent profession of him.  O beware of this soul-infection, this leprosy of the head.  I hope you do not think it needless, for it is the disease of the times. This plague is begun, yea, spreads apace.  [There is] not a flock, [not] a congregation hardly, that hath not this scab among them.  Paul was a preacher the best of us all may write after, and he presseth this home upon the saints, yea, in the constant course of his preaching  it made a piece of his sermon.  He sets us preacher also upon this work; ‘Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock;—for I know this, that after my departure shall grievous wolves enter;—also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things,’ Acts 20:28-30; therefore watch.  And then he presents his own example, that he hardly made a sermon for several years, but this was part of it, to warn every one night and day with tears.  We need not prophesy what impostors may come upon the stage when we go off.  There are too many at present above-board of this gang drawing disciples after them.  And if it be our duty to warn you of them, surely it is yours to watch, lest you by any of them be led into temptation in this hour thereof, wherein Satan is let loose in so great a measure to deceive the nation.  May you not as easily be soured with this leaven, as the disciples whom Christ bids beware?  Are you privileged above those famous churches of Galatia and Corinth, many of which were bewitched with false teachers, and in a manner turned to another gospel?  Is Satan grown orthodox, or have his instruments lost their cunning, who hunt for souls?  In a word, is there not a sym­pathy between thy corrupt heart and error?  Hast thou not a disposition, which, like the fomes of the earth, makes it natural for these weeds to grow in thy soil?  Seest thou not many prostrated by this enemy, who sat upon the mountain of their faith, and thought it should never have been removed?  Surely they would have taken it ill to have been told, ‘you are the men and women that will decry Sabbaths, which now ye count holy; you will turn Pelagians, who now defy the name; you will despise prophecy itself, who now seem so much to honour the proph­ets; you will throw family duties out of doors, who dare not now go out of doors till you have prayed there.’  Yet these, and more than these, are come to pass; and doth it not behove thee, Christian, to take heed lest thou fallest also?  And that thou mayest not,

1. Exhortation.  Make it thy chief care to get a thorough change of thy heart.  If once the root of the matter be in thee, and thou beest bottomed by a lively faith on Christ, thou art then safe, I do not say wholly free from all error; but this I am sure, free from engulfing thy soul in damning error.  ‘They went out from us,’ saith St. John, ‘but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us,’ I John 2:19.  As if he had said, They had some outward profes­sion, and common work of the Spirit with us, which they have either lost or carried over to the devil’s quarters, but they never had the unction of the sanctifying Spirit.  By this, ver. 20, he distinguisheth them, and comforts the sincere ones, who possibly might fear their own fall by their departure: ‘But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.’  It is one thing to know a truth, and another thing to know it by unction.  An hypocrite may do the former, the saint only the latter. It is this unction which gives the soul the savour of the knowledge of Christ; those are the fit prey for impostors, who are enlightened, but not enlivened. O, it is good to have the heart established with grace! This, as an anchor, will keep us from being set adrift, and carried about with divers and strange doctrines, as the apostle teacheth us, Heb. 13:9.
2. Exhortation.  Ply the work of mortification.  Crucify the flesh daily.  Heresy, though a spiritual sin, [is] yet by the apostle reckoned among the deeds of the flesh, Gal. 5:20, because it is occasioned by fleshly motives, and nourished by carnal food and fleshly fuel.  Never [have] any turned heretic, but flesh was at the bottom; either they served their belly or a lust of pride—it was the way to court, or secured their estates and saved their lives, as sometimes the reward of truth is fire and fagot.  Some pad or other is in the straw when least seen; and therefore it is no wonder that heresies should end in the flesh, which in a manner sprang from it.  The rheum in the head as­cends in fumes from the stomach, and returns thither, or unto the lungs, which at last fret and ulcerate. Carnal affections first send up their fumes to the un­derstanding, clouding that, yea, bribing it to receive such and such principles for truths; which [when] embraced, fall down into the life, corrupting that with the ulcer of profaneness.  So that, Christian, if once thou canst take off thy engagements to the flesh, and become a free man, so as not to give thy vote to gratify thy carnal fears or hopes, thou wilt then be a sure friend to truth.
3. Exhortation.  Wait conscionably on the minis­try of the word.  Satan commonly stops the ear from hearing sound doctrine, before he opens it to embrace corrupt.  This is the method of souls [in] apostatizing from truth: ‘They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables,’ II Tim. 4:3,4. Satan, like a cunning thief, draws the soul out of the road into some lane or corner, and there robs him of the truth.  By rejecting of one ordinance, we deprive ourselves of the blessing of all others.  Say not that thou prayest to be led into truth; God will not hear thy prayer if thou turnest thine ear from hearing the law.  He that loves his child, when he sees him play the truant, will whip him to school.  If God loves a soul, he will bring him back to the word with shame and sorrow.
4. Exhortation.  When thou hearest any unusual doctrine, though never so pleasing, make not up the match hastily with it.  Have some better testimony of it, before you open your heart to it.  The apostle indeed bids us entertain strangers, for some have entertained angels unawares Heb. 13:2; but he would not have us carried about with strange doctrine, ver. 9, [though] by this I am sure some have entertained devils.  I confess, it is not enough to reject a doctrine, because strange to us, but ground we have, to wait and inquire.  Paul marvelled that the Galatians were so soon removed from him, who had called them unto the grace of Christ, unto another gospel.  They might sure have stayed till they had acquainted Paul with it, and asked his judgement.  What, no sooner an impostor come into the country, and open his pack, but buy all his ware at first sight!  O friends, were it not more wisdom to pray such new notions over and over again, to search the Word, and our hearts by it, yea, not to trust our own hearts, but [to] call in counsel from others?  If your minister have not such credit with you, get the most holy, humble, and established Christians you can find.  Error is like fish, which must be eaten new or it will stink.  When those dangerous errors sprung up first in New Eng­land, O how unsettled were the churches! what an outcry was made, as if some mine of gold had been discovered!  But in a while, when those error came to their complexion, and it was perceived whither they were bound—to destroy churches, ordinances, and power of godliness—then such as feared God, who had stepped aside, returned back with shame and sorrow.

First Spiritual Wickedness—Error in Principle.

First. Satan labours to corrupt the mind with erroneous principles.  He was at work at the very first plantation of the gospel, sowing his darnel as soon almost as Christ his wheat.  This sprung up in perni­cious errors even in the apostles’ times, which made them take the weeding-hook into their hands, and, in all their epistles, labour to countermine Satan in his design.  Now in this his endeavour to corrupt the minds of men, especially professors, with error, Satan hath a threefold design,

           First Design. He doth this in despite to God, against whom he cannot vent his malice at a higher rate, than by corrupting his truth, which God hath so highly honoured, ‘For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.’ Ps. 138:2.  Every creature bears the name of God, but in his word and truth therein contained it is writ at length, and therefore he is more choice of this than of all his other works; he cares not much what becomes of the world and all in it, so he keeps his word and saves his truth.  Ere long we shall see the world on a light flame; ‘The heavens and earth shall pass away, but the word of the Lord en­dureth for ever.’  When God will, ha can make more such worlds as this is, but he cannot make another truth, and therefore he will not lose one iota thereof. Satan, knowing this, sets all his wits on work to de­face this truth, and disfigure it by unsound doctrine. The word is the glass in which we see God, and seeing him, are changed into his likeness by his Spirit.  If this glass be cracked, then our conceptions we have of God will misrepresent him unto us, whereas the word in its native clearness sets him out in all his glory unto our eye.

           Second Design. He endeavours to draw into this spiritual sin of error, as the most subtle and effectual means to weaken, if not destroy, the power of god­liness in them.  The apostle joins the spirit of power and a sound mind together, II Tim. 1:7.  Indeed the power of holiness in practice depends much on the soundness of judgment.  Godliness is the child of truth, and it must be nursed, if we will have it thrive, with no other milk than of its own mother. Therefore we are exhorted to ‘desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow,’ I Peter 2:2; if this milk be but a little dashed with error, it is not so nutritive. All error, how innocent soever it may seem, like the ivy, draws away the strength of the soul’s love from holiness.  Hosea tells us whoredom and wine take away the heart, now error is spiritual adultery.  Paul speaks of his espousing them to Christ.  When a per­son receives an error, he takes a stranger into Christ’s bed, and it is the nature of adulterous love to take away the wife’s heart from her true husband, that she delights not in his company so much as [in that] of her adulterous lover.  And do we not see it at this day fulfilled?  Do not many show more zeal in contending for one error, than for many truths?  How strangely are the hearts of many taken off from the ways of God, their love cooled to the ordinances and messen­gers of Christ!—and all this occasioned by some cor­rupt principle got into their bosoms, which controls Christ and his truth, as Hagar and her son did Sarah and her child.  Indeed Christ will never enjoy true conjugal love from the soul, till, like Abraham, he turns these out of doors.  Error is not so innocent a thing as many think it; it is as unwholesome food to the body—that poisons the spirits, and surfeits the whole body—which seldom passeth away without breaking out into sores.  As the knowledge of Christ carries a soul above the pollutions of the world, so error entangles and betrays it to those lusts, whose hands it had escaped.

           Third Design. Satan in drawing a soul into this spiritual sin hath a design to disturb the peace of the church, which is rent and shattered when this fire-ship comes among them.  ‘I hear,’ saith Paul, ‘that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it, for there must also be heresies,’ I Cor. 11:18,19 —implying that divisions are the natural issue of heresy.  Error cannot well agree with error, except it be against the truth; then indeed, like Pilate and Herod, they are easily made friends; but when truth seems to be overcome, and the battle is over with that, then they fall out among themselves, and there­fore it is no wonder if it be so troublesome a neigh­bour to truth.  O sirs, what a sweet silence and peace was there among Christians a dozen years ago.  Me­thinks the looking back to those blessed days in this respect—though they had also another way their troubles, yet not so uncomfortable, because that storm united, this scatters the saints' spirits—is joyous, to remember in what unity and love Chris­tians walked.  The persecutors of those times might have said, as their predecessors did of the saints in primitive times, ‘See how they love one another,’ but now, alas, they may jeer and say, See how they that loved so dearly, are ready to pluck one another’s throats out.

Second Sort of Spiritual Sins, So Called From The Object About Which They Are Conversant

Second Sort of Spiritual Sins, So called from the object about which they are conversant.

           Second. Sins may be called spiritual, from the object about which they are conversant; when that is spiritual and not carnal, such as idolatry, error, spir­itual pride, unbelief, &c., both which Paul calls the filthiness of the spirit, and distinguisheth them from filthiness of the flesh, II Cor. 7:1.

           They are such as are not only acted in the spirit, but are conversant about spiritual objects proper to the soul’s nature that is a spirit, and not laid out in carnal passions of fleshly lusts, in which the soul acts as but a pander for the body, and partakes of their delights only by way of sympathy; for as the soul feels the body's pains no other way than by sympathy, so neither doth it share in the pleasures of the flesh by any proper taste it hath of them, but only, from its near neighbourhood with the body, doth sympathize with its joy.  But in spiritual wickednesses that corrupt the mind, the soul moves in its own sphere, with a delight proper to itself, and there are no less of these than the other.  There is hardly a fleshly lust but hath some spiritual sin analogous to it, as they say there is no species of creatures on the land but may be patterned in the sea.  Thus the heart of man can produce spiritual sins answering carnal lusts.  For whoredom and uncleanness of the flesh, there is idolatry, called in Scripture spiritual adultery, from which the seat of Antichrist is called spiritual Sodom; for sensual drunkenness, there is a drunkenness of the mind, intoxicating the judgement with error, a drunkenness of the heart in cares and fears; for carnal pride in beauty, riches, honour, there is a spiritual pride of gifts, graces, &c.  Now Satan in an especial manner assaults the Christian with such as these, [but] it would require a larger discourse than I can allow, to run over the several kinds of them.  I shall, of many, pick out two or three.

Helps Against This Sort of Satan’s Temptations

    

Question. But what help have we against this sort of Satan’s temptations?

           Answer. I suppose thee a Christian, that mak­est this question; and if thou dost it in the plainness of thy heart it proves thee one.  Who, besides, will or can desire in earnest, to be eased of these guests? Even when a carnal heart prays for deliverance from them, he would be loath his prayer should be heard. ‘Not yet, Lord,’ the heart of such a one cries, as Aus­tin confessed of himself.  Sin is as truly the offspring of the soul, as children are of our bodies, and it finds as much favour in our eyes; yea more, for the sinner can slay a son to save a sin alive, Micah 6:7, and of all sins, none are made more on, than these heart sins.

1. Because they are the first-born of the sinful heart, and the chiefest strength of the soul is laid out upon them.
2. Because the heart hath more scope in them than in outward acts.  The proud man is staked down oft to a short state, and cannot ruffle it in the world, and appear to others in that pomp he would; but within his own bosom he can set up a stage, and his own foolish heart present himself as a great a prince as he pleaseth.  The malicious can kill, in his desires, as many in a few minutes, as the angel smote in a night of Sennacherib’s host.  Nero thus could slay all Rome on the block at once.
3. These sins stay with the soul when the others leave it.  When the sinner hath crippled his body with drunkenness and filthiness, and proves miles emeritus—cannot follow the devil’s camp longer in those ways —then these cursed lusts will entertain him with stories of his old pranks and pleasures.  In a word, these inward lusts of the heart, have nothing but the conscience of a Deity to quell them.  Other sins put the sinner to shame before men; and, as some that believed on Christ durst not confess him openly, because they loved the praise of men, so there are sinners who are kept from vouching their lusts openly, for the same tenderness to their reputation. But here is no fear of that, if they can but forget that heaven sees them, or persuade themselves there is no danger from thence, the coast then is clear; they may be as wicked as they please.  These make inward sins so hugged and embraced.  If thou therefore canst find thy heart set against these, I may venture to call thee a Christian.  And for thy help against them, improve the following.

           First Help. Be earnest with  God in prayer to move and order thy heart in its thoughts and desires. If the tongue be such an unruly thing that few can tame; O what is the heart, whence such a multitude of thoughts are flying forth as thick as bees from the hive, and sparks from the furnace!  It is not in man, not in the holiest on earth to do this without divine assistance.  Therefore we find David so often crying out in this respect, to order his steps in his word, to unite his heart to his fear, to incline his heart to his testimonies.  As a servant, when the child he tends is troublesome and will not be ruled by him, who no sooner speaks but all is whist with him.  No doubt holy David found his heart beyond his skill or power, that makes him so oft do his errand to God.  Indeed, God hath promised thus much to his children, to order their steps for them, Ps. 37:22, only he looks they should bring their hearts to him for that end.  ‘Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established,’ Prov. 16:3, or ordered.  Art thou setting thy face towards an ordinance, where thou art sure to meet Satan, who will be disturbing thee with worldly thoughts and may be worse?  Let God know from thy mouth whither thou art going, and what thy fears are.  Never doth the soul march in so goodly order, as when it puts itself under the conduct of God.

           Second Help. Set a strong guard about thy out­ward senses.  These are Satan’s landing places, especially the eye and ear.  Take heed what thou im­portest at them.  Vain discourse seldom passeth with­out leaving some tincture upon the heart; as un­wholesome air inclines to putrefaction things sweet in themselves, so unsavory discourse to corrupt the mind that is pure.  Look thou breathest therefore in a clean air.  And for thy eye, let it not wander. Wanton objects cause wanton thoughts.  Job knew his eye and his thoughts were like to go together, and therefore, to secure one, he covenants with the other, Job 31:1.

           Third Help. Often reflect upon thyself in a day, and observe what company is with thy heart.  A care­ful master will ever and anon will be looking into his workhouse, and seeing what his servants are doing, and a wise Christian should do the same.  We may know by the noise in the school [that] the master is not there.  Much of the misrule in our bosoms ariseth from the neglect of visiting our hearts.  Now, when thou art parleying with thy soul, make this threefold inquiry.

1. Inquire, Whether that which thy heart is thinking on, be good or evil.  If evil and wicked, such as are proud, unclean, distrustful thoughts, show thy abhorrency of them, and chide thy soul sharply for so much as holding a conference with them, of which nought can come but dishonour to God, and mischief to thy own soul; and stir up thy heart to mourn for the evil neighbourhood of them, and by this thou shalt give a testimony of faithfulness to God.  When David mourned for Abner, ‘all Israel,’ it is said, ‘understood that day that it was not of the king to slay Abner.’  Thy mourning for them will show, that these thoughts are not so much of thee as of Satan.

2. Inquire, If thy thoughts be not broadly wicked, then inquire whether they be not empty, frothy, vain imaginations, that have no subserviency to the glory of God, thy own good or others’; and if so, leave not till thou hast made thyself apprehensive of Satan’s design on thee, in them.  Though such are not for thy purpose, yet they are for his; they serve his turn to keep thee from better.  All the water is lost that runs beside the mill, and all thy thoughts are waste which help thee not to do God’s work withal, in thy general or particular calling.  The bee will not sit on a flower where no honey can be sucked, neither should the Christian.  Why sittest thou here idle —thou shouldst say to thy soul—when thou hast so much to do for God and thy soul and so little time to despatch it in?
3. Inquire, If thou findest they are good for mat­ter thy heart is busied about, then inquire whether they be good for time and manner, which being wanting they degenerate.

           (1.) Are they good for the time or the season? That is good fruit which is brought forth in its season. Christ liked the work his mother would have put him upon as well as herself, John 2:4, but his time was not come.  Good thoughts and meditations misplaced, are like some interpretations of Scripture—good truths but bad expositions; they fit not the place they are drawn from, nor these the time.  To pray when we should hear, or be musing on the sermon when we should pray, is to rob God one way so as to pay him another.

           (2.) Are they good for the manner?  Thy heart may meditate a good matter, and spoil it in the doing. Thou art, may be, musing of thy sins, and affecting thy heart into a sense of them, but so, that while thou art stirring up thy sorrow, thou weakenest thy faith on the promise.  That is thy sin.  He is a bad chirur­geon that in opening a vein goes so deep that he cuts into an artery, and lames the arm, if [he does] not kill the man.  Or thou art thinking of thy family, and pro­viding for that; this thou oughtest to do, and wert worse than an infidel if thou neglectest; but, may be, these thoughts are so distracting and distrustful, as if there were no promise, no providence to relieve thee. God takes this ill, because it reflect upon his care of thee.  O how near doth our duty here stand to our sin!  So much care, is necessary ballast to the soul; a little more sinks it under the waves of unbelief.  It is like some things [which are] very wholesome, but, one degree more of hot or cold would make them poison.

Use or Application

           Use First. Let this be for trial of thy spiritual state.  What entertainment finds Satan when he comes with these spirituals of wickedness, and solicits thee to dwell on them?  Canst thou dispense with the filthiness of thy spirit, so thy hands be clean? or dost thou wrestle against these heart sins as well as others? I do not ask, whether such guests come within thy door—for the worst of sins may be found, in the motions of them, not only passing by the door of a Christian, but looking in also, as holy motions may be found stirring in the bosom of wicked men—but I ask thee, whether thou canst find in thy heart to lodge these guests and bid them welcome?  It is like, thou wouldst not be seen to walk in the street with such company—not lead a whore by the hand through the town—not violently break open thy neighbour’s house to murder or rob him; but canst thou not under thy own roof, in the withdrawing room of thy soul, let thy thoughts hold up an unclean lust, while thy heart commits speculative folly with it? Canst thou not draw thy neighbour into thy den, and there rend him limb from limb by thy malice, and thy heart not so much as cry Murder, murder?  In a word, canst thou hide any one sin  in the vance-roof of thy heart, there to save the life of it when inquired after by the Word and Spirit, as Rahab hid the spies, and sent the king of Jericho's messengers to pursue them, as if they had been gone?  Perhaps thou canst say, ‘The adulterer, the murderer is not here,’ thou hast sent these sins away long ago; and all this while thou hidest them in the love of thy soul.  Know it, or thou shalt another day know it to thy cost, thou art stark nought.  If there were a spark of the life of God or the love of Christ in thy bosom, though thou couldst not hinder such motions in thy soul, yet thou wouldst not conceal them, much less nourish them in thy bosom; when overpowered by them, thou wouldst call in help from heaven against these destroyers of thy soul.

           Use Second. Show your loyalty, O ye saints, to God, by a vigorous resistance of, and wrestling against, these spirituals of wickedness.

1. Consider, Christian, heart sins are sins as well as any.  ‘The thought of foolishness is sin,’ Prov. 24:9. Mercury is poison in the water distilled, as well as in the gross body.  Uncleanness, covetousness, murder are such in the heart as well as in the outward act; every point of hell, is hell.
2. Consider, Thy spirit is the seat of the Holy Spirit.  He takes up the whole heart for his lodging, and it is time for him to be gone when he sees his house let over his head.  Defile not thy spirit till thou art weary of his company.
3. Consider, There may be more wickedness in a sin of the heart than of the hand and outward man; for the aggravation of these is taken from the behav­iour of the heart in the act.  The more of the heart and spirit [that] is let out, the more malignity is let in to any sinful act.  To backslide in heart, is more than to backslide.  It is the comfort of a poor soul, when tempted and troubled for his relapses, that though his foot slides back, yet his heart turns not back, but faceth heaven and Christ at the same time; so to err in the heart is worse than to have an error in the head.  Therefore God aggravates Israel’s sin with this, ‘They do always err in their heart,’ Heb. 3:10.  Their hearts run them upon the error; they liked idolatry, and so were soon made to believe what pleased them best.  As, on the contrary, the more of the heart and spirit is in any holy service, the more real goodness there is in it, though it fall short of others in the outward expression.  The widow’s two mites surpas­sed all the rest, Christ himself being judge; so in sin, though the internal acts of sin, in thoughts and affec­tions, seem light upon man’s balance, if compared with outward acts, yet these may be so circumstan­tiated that they may exceed the other in God’s ac­count.  Peter lays the accent of Magus’ sin on the wicked thought, which his words betrayed to be in his heart, ‘Pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee,’ Acts 8:22.  Saul’s sin in sparing Agag, and saving the best of the sheep and oxen, which he was commanded to destroy, was materially a far less sin than David’s adultery and murder, yet it is made equal with a greater than both, even witchcraft itself, I Sam. 15:23; and whence re­ceived his sin such a dye, but from the wickedness of his heart, that was worse than David’s when deepest in the temptation.
4. Consider, If Satan get into thy spirit and defile it, O how hard wilt thou find it to stay there? Thou hast already sipped of his broth, and now art more likely to be overcome at last to sit down and make thy full meal of that, which by tasting hath vitiated thy palate already.  It were strange, if, while thou art musing, and thy heart hot with the thought of lust, the fire should not break forth at thy lips, or worse.

Satan's Plot to Defile the Christian With Spiritual Wickedness

Satan's Plot to Defile the Christian With Spiritual Wickedness
  Doctrine Third. These wicked spirits do chiefly annoy the saints with, and provoke them to, spiritual wickedness.  Sins may be called spiritual upon a double account; either, First. From the subject wherein they are acted; or Second. From the object about which they are conversant.
First Sort of Spiritual Sins, So called from the subject wherein they are acted.
           First. Sins may be called spiritual, from the subject wherein they are acted.  When the spirit or heart is the stage whereon sin is acted, this is a spir­itual sin; such are all impure thoughts, vile affections and desires.  Though the object be fleshly lust, yet [they] are spiritual sins, because they are purely acts of the soul and spirit, and break not forth unto the outward man.
           [They are heart sins.]

           Satan labours what he can to provoke the Chris­tian to heart sins—to stir up and foment these inward motions of sin in the Christian’s bosom.  Hence it is, he can go about no duty, but these—his imps, I may call them—haunt him; one motion or other darts in to interrupt him, as Paul tells us of himself, ‘When he would do good, evil was present with him.’  If a Christian should turn back whenever these cross the way of him, he should never go on his journey to heaven.  It is the chief game the devil hath left to play against the children of God—now his field-army is broken, and his commanding power taken away which he had over them—to come out of these his holds where he lies skulking, and fall upon their rear with these suggestions.  He knows his credit now is not so great with the soul as when it was his slave.  Then no drudgery work was so base that it would not do at his command; but now the soul is out of his bondage, and he must not think to command another's servant as his own.  No, all he can do is to watch the fittest season—when the Christian least suspects—and then to present some sinful motion, handsomely dressed up, to the eye of the soul, that the Christian may, before he is aware, take this brat up and dandle it in his thoughts, till at last he makes it his own by embracing it; and this he knows will defile the soul; and, may be, this boy sent in at the window, may open the door to let in a greater thief.  Or if he should not so prevail, yet the guilt of these heart sins, yea, their very neighbourhood will be a sad vexation to a gracious heart, whose nature is so pure that it abhors all filthiness—so that to be haunted with such notions, is as if a living man should be chained to a stinking carcase, that wherever he goes he must draw that after him; and whose love is so dear to Christ, that it cannot bear the company of those thoughts without amazement and horror, which are so contrary and abusive to his beloved.  This makes Satan so de­sirous to be ever raking in the unregenerate part, that as a dunghill stirred, it may offend them both with the noisome streams which arise from it.

Application - Against The Rulers of Darkness of This World

           Use First. This may help us conceive more fully what the desperate wickedness of man’s nature is, which is so hard to be known, because it can never be seen at once—it being a fountain whose immensity consists not in the stream of actual sin—that is visible, and may seem little—but in the spring that incessantly feeds this.  But here is a glass that will give us the shape of our hearts truly like themselves.  Seest thou the monstrous pitch and height of wickedness that is in the devil?  All this there is in the heart of every man.  There is no less wickedness potentially in the tamest sinner on earth, than in the devils themselves, and that one day thou, whoever thou art, wilt show to purpose, if God prevent thee not by his renewing grace.  Thou art not yet fledged, thy wings are not grown to make thee a flying dragon; but thou art of the same brood, the seed of this ser­pent is in thee, and the devil begets a child like him­self.  Thou yet standest in a soil not so proper for the ripening of sin—which will not come to its fulness till transplanted unto hell.  Thou who art here so maid­enly and modest, as to blush at some sins out of shame, and [to] forbear the acting of others out of fear, when there thou shalt see thy case as desperate as the devil doth his, then thou wilt spit out thy blas­phemies, with which thy nature is stuffed, with the same malice that he doth.  The Indians have a con­ceit, that when they die they shall be transformed into the deformed likeness of the devil; therefore in their language they have the same word for a dead man and the devil.  Sin makes the wicked like him before they come there, but indeed they will come to their coun­tenance more fully there, when those flames shall wash off that paint which here hides their com­plexion.  The saints in heaven shall be like angels, in their alacrity, love, and constancy to serve God; and the damned like the devils, in sin as well as pun­ishment.  This one consideration might be of excel­lent use to unbottom a sinner, and abase him, so as never to have high thought of himself.  It is easy to run down a person whose life is wicked, and convince him of the evil of his actions, and make him confess what he doth is evil, but here is the thicket we lose him in.  He will say, ‘It is true, I am overseen, I do what I should not, God forgive me, but my heart is good.’  Thy heart good, sinner? and so is the devil’s. His nature is wicked, and thine [is] as bad as his.  These pimples in thy face show the heat of thy cor­rupt nature within, and without gospel physic—the blood of Christ applied to thee—thou wilt die a leper. None but Christ can give thee a new heart, till which, thou wilt every day grow worse and worse.  Sin is an hereditary disease that increaseth with age.  A young sinner will be an old devil.

           Use Second. Again, it would be of use to the saints; especially to those in whom God by his timely call forestalled the devil’s market; as sometimes the Spirit of God takes sin in its quarters before it comes into the field, in the sins of youth.  Now such a one not finding those daring sins committed by him that others have been left unto, may possibly not be so affected with his own sin or God's mercy.  O let such a one behold here the wickedness of his heart in the glass of the devil’s nature, and he will see himself as a great debtor to the mercy of God as Manasseh, or the worst of sinners—as in pardoning, so in prevent­ing the same cursed nature with theirs, before it gave fire on God with those bloody sins which they com­mitted.  That thou didst not act such outrageous sins, thou art beholden to God’s gracious surprise, and not to the goodness of thy nature, which hath the devil’s stamp on it, [and] for which God might have crushed thee, as we do the brood of serpents before they sting, knowing what they will do in time.  Who will say that Fawkes suffered unjustly, because the parliament was not blown up?  It is enough that the materials for that massacre were provided, and he taken there with match and fire about him ready to lay the train.  And canst thou say, when God first took hold on thee, that thou hadst not those weapons of rebellion about thee—a nature full charged with enmity against God, which in time would have made its own report of what for [the] present lay like unfired powder silent in thy bosom?  O Christian, think of this, and be humbled for thy villanous nature, and say, blessed be God that sent his Spirit and grace so timely to stay thy hand—as Abigail to David—while thy nature meditated nothing but war against God and his laws.

           Use Third. Again, are the devils so wickedly malicious against God himself?  O sirs, take the right notion, of sin, and you will hate it.  The reason why we are so easily persuaded to sin is, because we un­derstand not the bottom of his design in drawing a creature to sin.  It is with men in sinning as it is with armies in fighting.  Captains beat their drums for vol­unteers, and promise all that list, pay and plunder; and this makes them come trowling in.  But few con­sider what the ground of the war is, against whom, or for what.  Satan enticeth to sin, and gives golden promises [of] what they shall have in his service, with which silly souls are one.  But how few ask their souls, Whom do I sin against?  What is the devil’s design in drawing me to sin?  Shall I tell thee?  Dost thou think it is thy pleasure or profit he desires in thy sinning?  Alas, he means nothing less, he hath greater plots in his head than so.  He hath, by his apostasy, proclaimed war against God, and he brings thee, by sinning, to espouse his quarrel, and to jeopardy the life of thy soul in defence of his pride and lust; which that he may do, he cares no more for the damnation of thy soul, than the great Turk doth to see a com­pany of his slaves cut off for the carrying on of his design in a siege.  And darest thou venture to go into the field upon his quarrel against God?  O earth, tremble thou at the presence of the Lord.  This bloody Joab sets thee where never came any off alive.  O stand not where God’s bullets fly.  Throw down thy arms, or thou art a dead man.  Whatever others do, O ye saints, abhor the thoughts of sinning willingly; which when you do, you help the devil against God.  And what more unnatural than for a child to be seen in arms against his father?

The Extreme Wickedness of The Devils

 Doctrine Second. The devils are spirits extremely wicked; wicked in the abstract, as in the text, and called by way of eminency is sin, ‘the wicked one,’ Matt. 13:19.  As God is called the Holy One, because none [is] holy as the Lord; so the devil, the wicked one, because he is a none-such in sin.  In a few particulars let us endeavour to take the height of the devil’s sin, and rather that we may judge of the degrees of sins and [of] sinners among the sons of men: the nearer God in holiness, the more holy; the liker the devil, the more wicked.

           Particular First. These apostate angels are the in­ventors of sin—the first that sounded the trumpet of rebellion against their Maker, and led the dance to all that sin which since hath filled the world.  Now, what tongue can accent this sin to its full? for such a noble creature whom God hath set on the top, as it were, of all the creation, nearest to himself, [and] from whom God had kept nothing but his own royal diadem; for this peer and favourite of the court, without any cause or solicitation from any other, to make this bold and blasphemous attempt to snatch at God’s own crown, this paints the devil blacker than the thoughts of men and angels can conceive.  He is called ‘the father of lies,’ as those who found out any art are the father of it.  Jubal ‘the father of all such as handle the harp and organ,’ he invented music.  And this is a dreadful aggravation, because they sinned without a tempter.  And though man is not in such a degree capable of this aggravation, yet some men sin after the very similitude of the devil's transgression in this respect; who, as St. Paul styles them, are ‘in­ventors of evil things,’ Rom. 1:30.  Indeed sin is an old trade, found out to our hand; but as in other trades and arts, some famous men arise, who add to the in­ventions of others, and make trades and arts, as it were, new; so, there ever are some infamous in their generation,  that make old sins new by superadding to the wickedness of others.  Uncleanness is an old sin from the beginning; but the Sodomites will be filthy in a new way, and therefore it carries their name to this day.  Some invent new errors; others new oaths —such as are of their own coining—hot out of the mint; they scorn to swear after the old fashion. Others [invent] new devices of persecuting, as Julian, [who] had a way by himself different from all before him; and to the end of the world every age will exceed other in the degrees of sinning.  Ishmael and the mockers of the old world were but children and bunglers to the scoffers and cruel mockers of the last time.  Well, take heed of showing thy wit in inventing new sins, lest thou stir up God in inventing new pun­ishments.  ‘Is not destruction to the wicked? and a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity?’ Job 31:3.  Sodom sinned after a new mode, and God destroys them after a new way—sends hell from above upon them.  Some have invented new opinions, mon­strous errors, and God hath suited their monstrous errors with births as monstrous of their own body.

           Particular Second. They were not only the in­ventors of sin, but are still the chief tempters to, and promoters of sin in the world.  [They are] therefore called Ò B,4DV.T, the tempter, and sin [is] called ‘the work of the devil,’ whoever commits it; as the house goes by the name of the master-workman, though he useth his servant’s hands to build it.  O take heed of soliciting others to sin.  Thou takest the devil’s office, as I may say, out of his hand.  Let him do it himself if he will.  Make not thyself so like him. To tempt another is worse than to sin thyself.  It speaks sin to be of great growth in that man, that doth it knowingly and willingly.  Herbs and flowers shed not their seed till ripe, creatures propagate not till of stature and age.  What do these that tempt others, but diffuse their wicked opinions and prac­tices, and, as it were, raise up seed to the devil, there­by to keep up the name of their infernal father in the world?  This shows sin is mighty in them indeed. Many a man, though so cruel to his own soul as to be drunk or swear, yet will not like this in a child or servant.  What are they then but devils incarnate, who teach their children the devil’s catechism, to swear and lie, drink and drab?  If you meet such, be not afraid to call them, as Paul did Elymas, when he would have perverted the deputy, children of the devil, full of all subtilty and mischief, and enemies of all righteousness.  O do you not know what you do when you tempt?  I will tell you.  You do that which you cannot undo by your own repentance.  Thou poisonest one with error, initiatest another in the devil’s school—alehouse I mean; but afterwards may be, thou seest thy mistake, and recantest thy error, thy folly, and givest over thy drunken trade.  Art thou sure now to rectify and convert them with thyself? Alas, poor creatures! this is out of thy power.  They, may be, will say, as he—though he did it on a better account—that was solicited to turn back to Popery by him who had persuaded him to renounce the same: ‘You have given me one turn, but shall not give me another.’  And what a grief to thy spirit will it be, to see those going to hell on thy errand, and thou not able to call them back!  Thou mayest cry out as Lamech, ‘I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.’  Nay, when thou art asleep in thy grave, he whom thou seduced may have drawn in others, and thy name may be quoted to commend the opinion and practice to others; by which, as it is said, though in another sense, Abel being dead yet speak­eth.  Thou mayest, though dead, sin in those that are alive, generation after generation.  A little spark kin­dled by the error of one, hath cost the pains of many ages to quench it, and when thought to be out, hath broken forth again.

           Particular Third. They are not barely wicked, but maliciously wicked.  The devil hath his name Ò B@<,DÎH, to denote his spiteful nature—his desire to vex and mischief others.  When he draws souls to sin, it is not because he tastes any sweetness or finds any profit therein—he hath too much light to have any joy or peace in sin.  He knows his doom, and trem­bles at the thought of it; and yet his spiteful nature makes him vehemently desire and incessantly endeav­our the damnation of souls.  As you shall see a mad dog run after a flock of sheep, kill one, then another, though when dead [he is] not able to eat of their flesh, but kills to kill; so Satan is carried out with a boundless rage against man, especially the saints, and would not, if he could, leave one of Christ’s flock alive.  Such is the height of his malice against God, whom he hates with a perfect hatred; and, because he cannot reach him with a direct blow, therefore he strikes him at the second-hand through his saints; that wicked arm which reacheth not to God, is extended against these excellent on the earth—well knowing the life of God is in a manner bound up in theirs.  God cannot outlive his honour, and his hon­our speeds as his mercy is exalted or depressed; this being the attribute God means to honour in their sal­vation so highly, and therefore maligned above the rest by Satan.  And this is the worst that can be said of these wicked spirits, that they maliciously spite God, and in God the glory of his mercy.

PS: THERE ARE TWO WEIRD WORDS, I LEFT THEM THERE BECAUSE THEY ARE WRITTEN IN GREEK  BUT, COULD NOT TRANSLATE THEM OR COPY THEM PROPERLY.... I TRIED. SORRY.