ditated sins, and a man is drawn into them through lust and wantonness, by several steps and degrees, with full consent of a depraved will. Slight offences a man may be drawn into by surprise or incogitancy; but hardly into the great ones. The mind starts, and conscience generally gives the alarm beforehand, that a man must takę some pains with himself, generally, before he can reconcile himself to any great and scandalous vices. Such offences, therefore, are not sins of infirmity, but they are deliberate, presumptuous, damning sins. If it be pleaded, that the object is inviting, and the temptation strong, violent, irresistible; that is just such a plea as any common thief or robber might make for invading property' or making an assault. No doubt but that such persons are violently tempted to commit such outrages, or they would not do them: the temptation, probably, in that case, is stronger than in the other; for a thief or a robber does it at the utmost peril, and ventures his life in it; whereas it is more than probable, that if fornication or adultery were as severely prohibited, and punishable by the laws of the land, it would be found that the men of pleasure could command themselves, and resist the temptation: but they are encouraged, after they have laid aside the fear of God, by the hopes of impunity from man; and then being got above restraint, they commit all uncleanness with greediness.

There are some other kinds of sins for which human infirmity is sometimes pleaded, and with very little reason. Acts of hostility, assaults, beating, striking, wounding, and the like. It is said by way of excuse, that they were provoked to it, and that flesh and blood could not forbear in such cases. But these are pretences only of vain men, who have not yet learned any thing of Christian meekness, but who have hearts too proud and stubborn to submit to the rules of the Gospel. Sins of infirmity, properly so called, are sins of quite another kind than those I have now mentioned. Good men run sometimes into excessive warmth and zeal in the discharge

of a duty, or execution of an office: they may be guilty of indiscreet rigours, and push things too far; may be so afraid of not doing enough, that they will even over-do, and be too officious or too severe, exceeding the bounds of Christian prudence, and doing hurt, when they intended good.

These and other the like indiscretions of good men are properly sins of infirmity, owing to inadvertency, or surprise, or to some natural weakness adhering to their particular temper, complexion, and constitution.

From what hath been said, every intelligent hearer may competently judge which are sins of infirmity, and which not: and I thought it of moment, to be as distinct and particular as possible on this head, to prevent mistakes; by which means this part has been drawn out into a greater length than I at first supposed; and I have no room left for the two other articles I proposed to treat of. I shall therefore break off for the present, and, with your good leave, defer the remainder to another opportunity.

SERMON X.

The Nature and Kinds of Sins of Infirmity.

The Second Sermon on this Subject.

MATTH. xxvi. 41.

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. IN a former discourse upon this text, I undertook to open and explain the nature of sins of infirmity; and to consider the most material points, which might either fall within the subject or relate to it: and, that I might do this in some order and method, I proposed to throw the substance of what I intended into three general heads, which were these:

I. To consider what kind of sins are properly sins of infirmity.

II. To inquire how our spiritual state and condition are affected thereby.

III. To show what kind of management on our own part may be prudent or proper in regard to them. Upon the first of these heads, I found myself obliged to be so distinct, large, and particular, that I had no room left for prosecuting the other two. I considered of what importance it might be to us, to distinguish carefully and accurately between sins of infirmity and presumptuous sins and therefore made it my business to show, by what marks and tokens we may readily distinguish one from the other and I endeavoured, further, to illustrate the

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several cases, as they came to be mentioned, by chosen and pertinent examples taken out of the Old or New Testament.

The sum of what I advanced was, that the essence, or distinguishing character, of a sin of infirmity was this: that it is a violation of some law of God, and in some degree wilful, but in a much greater degree weak and pitiable. It must be in some measure voluntary, to make it sin: and it must be in a much greater measure involuntary, to make it a frailty. Even the best of men have their defects, their failings, and infirmities, and do not always stand upright. They have either some flaw in their natural temper, or some weakness in their judgment, which betrays them often into slight mistakes, and almost innocent slips in life, while they retain a very honest and good heart. They lean perhaps a little too much toward the world, and their affections are not altogether so raised and heavenly as they might be or should be. They sometimes find desertion of spirit, coldness in devotion, and flatness in holy exercises: they are too anxious, fretful, and desponding, in the day of adversity; or too gay and too much alert in the day of their prosperity. Besides this, they are liable to sleepiness, forgetfulness, surprise, and inadvertency; either through the hurry and confusion of outward accidents, or through some inward disorder, or indisposition of the blood and spirits: so that sometimes they come short of their known duty, and sometimes they exceed and go beyond it; not observing the due medium, the golden mean between the two extremes. The slips or deviations of this kind are what Divines call sins of infirmity and such I described at large under my first head, and in my former discourse. I proceed now secondly, as I proposed,

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II.

To inquire how far our spiritual state or condition are affected by the sins of this kind. They do not exclude a man from the kingdom of heaven : they do not put him out of a state of grace, or out of favour with Almighty God.

This may be proved several ways, both from Scripture texts, and from the reason of the thing itself.

1. There are two or three special texts of Scripture, which number up and recite such particular sins, as will most certainly, if not repented of, exclude the offenders from the kingdom of heaven.

One is in the sixth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and runs thus: "Know ye not that the unright"eous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not de"ceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, 66 nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, "nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, "nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of Goda." To the same purpose speaks the same Apostle in the Epistle to the Galatians: "Now the works of the flesh are "manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, un"cleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, "variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, "envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such "like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told "you in time past, that they which do such things shall "not inherit the kingdom of God." Now, if we carefully look into this black catalogue of sins which exclude a man from heaven, we shall find them all to be of the wilful, presumptuous kind, and not sins of infirmity. They are all sins of a crying, provoking nature, whereof the injustice and wickedness, with respect to God and man, is palpable: and they are such as men do not commit merely through inadvertency, incogitancy, or surprise, but knowingly, wilfully, presumptuously, against the light of reason and revelation, and against the clearest dictates of their own consciences.

Of the same kind also are the sins of omission which our blessed Saviour recites or points to, where he is describing the sentence which shall pass upon the ungodly at the last day. "Then shall he say also unto them on the left

a

1 Cor. vi. 9, 10.

b Gal. v. 19, 20, 21.