The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of Indwelling Sin

As it is in respect of private, so it is also in respect of public duties, that have any thing extraordinary in them. What strivings, strugglings, and pleadings are there in the heart about them, especially against the spirituality of them? Yea, in and under them, will not the mind and affections ⟨p. 52⟩sometimes be entangled with things uncouth, new and strange unto them, such as at the time of the least serious business, a man would not deign to take into his thoughts. But if the least loose, liberty or advantage be given unto Indwelling-sin, if it be not perpetually watched over, it will work to a strange and an unexpected issue. In brief, let the soul unclothe any duty what ever, private or public, any thing that is called Good, let a man divest it of all outward respects which secretly insinuate themselves into the mind, and give it some complacency in what it is about, but do not render it acceptable unto God, and he shall assuredly find somewhat of the power, and some of the effects of this aversation. It begins in loathness and indisposition, goes on with entangling the mind and affections with other things, and will end, if not prevented, in weariness of God, which he complains of in his people, Isa. 43. 22. They ceased from duty because they were weary of God.

As it is in respect of private, so it is also in respect of publick duties, that have any thing extraordinary in them. What strivings, struglings, and pleadings are there in the heart about them, especially against the spirituality of them? Yea, in and under them, will not the mind and affections ⟨p. 52⟩sometimes be intangled with things uncouth, new and strange unto them, such as at the time of the least serious business, a man would not deign to take into his thoughts. But if the least loose, liberty or advantage be given unto Indwelling-sin, if it be not perpetually watched over, it will work to a strange and an unexpected issue. In brief, let the soul uncloath any duty what ever, private or publick, any thing that is called Good, let a man divest it of all outward respects which secretly insinuate themselves into the mind, and give it some complacency in what it is about, but do not render it acceptable unto God, and he shall assuredly find somewhat of the power, and some of the effects of this aversation. It begins in lothness and indisposition, goes on with intangling the mind and affections with other things, and will end, if not prevented, in weariness of God, which he complains of in his people,