serve to fecure our fincerity, and point out the Perfection we are to aspire to. 1st, then, If we would prevent any fatal event of fins flowing from ignorance, we must take care, that our ignorance it felf be not criminal; and that it will not be, if our hearts be fincerely disposed to do our duty, and if we use moral diligence to know it: if we be impartial, humble, and honest, and have that concern for the knowledge and practice of our duty, that is in fome fort proportionable to the importance of it. The ignorance that arifes from natural incapacity, or want of fufficient revelation, is invincible; and therefore innocent, John ix. 41. Jefus fasd unto them, if ye were blind, ye should have no fin; but now ye say, we fee; therefore your fin remaineth: and xv. 22. If I bad not come and spoken unto them, they had not bad fin: but now they have no cloak for their fins. This rule must be understood of neceffary knowledge in general; and more legible and confpicuous Lines of duty: both which notwithstanding, there may be room for fins of infirmity to enter, where mortal ones cannot; there may be imperfect dispositions of mind, and latent prejudices; there may be instances of duty of a flighter moment; there may be feveral circumstances, and small emergencies that may either be without the aim, or escape the discovery of a mo

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ral search, that is, of a human one; which, tho' it be without hypocrify, is not yet without more or less frailty. As to Perfection; it differs in this, as it does in other cafes, from fincerity, only in the degrees by which it is advanced above it. He that will be perfect, must search for wifdom as for hid treasures : his delight must be in the law of the Lord, and in his law must he meditate day and night: his thirst of truth must be more eager and impatient, his diligence more wakeful, more circumspect, more particular, more steady and conftant, than that of the beginner; or of one who is no farther advanced, than fuch meafures of faith and love, as are indispensably necessary to fincerity, will carry him. 2dly, Sins that are occafioned by furprize and inadvertency, will not prove deftructive, if the inadvertency it self be in a manner innocent: that is, first, there is no room for inadvertency in compleat acts of crying fins. Secondly, there is no pretence for inadvertency, if we had any misgivings within, or warnings without concerning that particular fin, into which we fell afterwards; much less if we cherish ill motions till they grow too strong for us. And last of all, if we repeat the fame fin frequently and contemptuously. And to this I may add; he cannot be faid to fin through furprize, who throws himfelf self into the way of temptation, even tho he be confcious of his own infirmity. 3dly, As to those moral defects which flow from natural infirmity; they will not destroy us, if the infirmity it self be pardonable. There are infirmities, which we acquire; infirmities, which grow stronger by indulgence; infirmities, which continue merely because we do not take pains to fubdue them: our moral defects must not flow from these kinds of infirmities; but from such as, confidering human nature, and the state of this world, 'tis impossible utterly to root out. These moral defects will do us no harm; if, first, we take care to fettle in our minds the habits of those virtues that are directly opposite to them. Secondly, If we watch and fight against our natural infirmities; and endeavour to reduce our appetites, even our natural appetites, within strict and narrow bounds. Thirdly, If we wash off the stains of our flips and defects by a general repentance : for upon the notion I have here given of venial fin, repentance appears to be very necessary: for I require in them something of voluntary, something of freedom; enough to make an action finful, tho' not to prove the heart corrupt or wicked. And because the degrees of voluntary and involuntary are not so eafily distinguishable from one another, 'tis plain Y 3

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our best security against any ill confequence of our defects and frailties, is a godly for

row.

And therefore I wonder not if David charge himself more feverely than God does, My fins are more in number than the bairs of my head. This was a confeffion that became the humility and folicitude of a penitent; that became the reflections of a wife and perfect man, and the corruption of human nature; the alloy of human performances; the flips and defects, the interruptions, neglect, and deviations of the best life.

CHAP. VI.

Of liberty, as it imports freedom or deliverance from mortal fin. What mortal fin is. How the perfect man must be free from it. And which way this liberty may be best attained; with fome rules for the attainment of it.

H

ERE I will inquire into three

1. What mortal fin is; or what kind of fins they be, which are on all hands acknowledged to be inconfiftent with a ftate of grace and favour.

2. How far the perfect man must be set free or delivered from this kind of fins; or how remote he is from the guilt of them.

3. Which way this liberty may be best attained.

§. 1. The first thing necessary is, to state the notion of that fin, which passes under the name of mortal, wilful, presumptuous, or deliberate fin: for these in writers are equivalent terms, and promifcuoufly used to signify one and the fame thing. Sin (faith St. John, 1 Ep. iii. 4.) is the tranfgreffion of the law. This is a plain and full definition too of fin: for the law of God is the rule of moral actions; 'tis the standard and measure of right and wrong, of moral good and evil. Whatever is not within the compass of the law, is not within the compass of morality neither: Whatever cannot be comprehended within this definition, cannot have in it the entire and compleat notion of fin; or, which is all one, it cannot be fin, in a strict, proper, and adequate sense of the word. Hence St. John in the same verse tells us, that whosoever finneth, tranfgreffseth the law. And St. Paul. Rom. iv. 15. Where there is no law, there is no tranfgreffion. Sin then must always fuppose a law; without which there can be ¥ 4 neither