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

First, Life is the foundation of all power, the principle of operation. When that ceaseth, all power ceaseth with it. Even God himself, to ⟨p. 189⟩evince the everlasting stability of his own power, gives himself the title of the living God. Now he frequently obviates the power of exerting sin actually, by cutting short and taking away the lives of them that have conceived it. Thus he dealt with the Army of Sennacherib, when according as he had purposed, so he threatened that the Lord should not deliver Jerusalem out of his hand, 2 Kings 18. 35. God threatens to cut short his power, that he should not execute his intendment, chap. 19. 28. which he performs accordingly, by taking away the lives of his soldiers, ver. 35. without whom it was impossible that his conceived sin should be brought forth. This providential dispensation in the obstruction of conceived sin, Moses excellently sets forth in the case of Pharaoh, Exod. 15. 9. 19. The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my lusts shall be satisfied upon them: I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with thy wind, the Sea covered them, they sank as lead in the mighty waters. Sins conception is fully expressed, and as full a prevention is annexed unto it. In like manner he dealt with the Companies of Fifties and their Captains, who came to apprehend Elijah, 2 Kings 1. 10, 11. Fire came down from Heaven and consumed them, when they were ready to have taken him. And sundry other instances of the like nature might be recorded. That which is of universal concernment, we have in that great providential alteration, which put a period to the lives of men. Men living hundreds of years, had a long season to bring forth the sins they had conceived; thereupon the ⟨p. 190⟩earth was filled with violence, injustice, and rapine, and all flesh corrupted their ways, Gen. 6. 12, 19. To prevent the like inundation of sin, God shortens the course of the pilgrimage of men in the earth, and reduces their lives to a much shorter measure. Besides this general Law, God daily thus cuts off persons, who had conceived much mischief and violence in their hearts, and prevents the execution of it. Blood-thirsty and deceitful men do not live out half their days. They have yet much work to do, might they have but space given them to execute the bloody and sinful purposes of their minds.