1. SECURITY and senseless under the guilt of great actual Sins. I do not say this is or can at any time be absolute in any Believer. But such it may be, as whereon men may go on at their old Pace of Duties and Profession, though without any peculiar Humiliation, albeit they are under the provoking guilt of some known sin, with its Aggravations. It will recur upon their Minds and Conscience, (unless it be seared) will treat with them about it. But they pass it over, as that which they had rather forget, and wear out of their minds, then bring things unto their proper Issue by particular Repentance. So it seems to have been with David after his Sin with Bathsheba. I doubt not but that before the message of God to him by Nathan, he had unpleasing Thoughts of what he had done. But there is not the least Footsteps in the Story, or any of his Prayers, that he laid it seriously to heart, and was humbled for ⟨p. 80⟩it before. This was a great Hardness of Heart, and we know how difficult his Recovery from it was. He was saved but as through Fire. And where it is so with any one, that hath been overtaken with any great Sin, as Drunkenness or other Folly, that he strives to wear it out, to pass it over, to forget it, or give himself Countenance from any reasoning or consideration against the especial sense of it, and humiliation for it; he can, during that State and Frame, have no solid Evidence, that Sin hath not the Dominion in him. And let such Sinners be warned, who have so passed over former Sins, until they have utterly lost all sense of them, or are under such a Frame at present; that they recall things to another Account, and suffer no such Sin to pass without a peculiar Humiliation, or whatever be the final Issue of things with them, they can have no solid ground of spiritual Peace in this World.
1. SECURITY and senseless under the guilt of great actual Sins. I do not say this is or can at any time be absolute in any Believer. But such it may be, as whereon men may go on at their old Pace of Duties and Profession, though without any peculiar Humiliation, albeit they are under the provoking guilt of some known sin, with its Aggravations. It will recurr upon their Minds and Conscience, (unless it be seared) will treat with them about it. But they pass it over, as that which they had rather forget, and wear out of their minds, then bring things unto their proper Issue by particular Repentance. So it seems to have been with David after his Sin with Bathsheba. I doubt not but that before the message of God to him by Nathan, he had unpleasing Thoughts of what he had done. But there is not the least Footsteps in the Story, or any of his Prayers, that he laid it seriously to heart, and was humbled for ⟨p. 80⟩it before. This was a great Hardness of Heart, and we know how difficult his Recovery from it was. He was saved but as through Fire. And where it is so with any one, that hath been overtaken with any great Sin, as Drunkenness or other Folly, that he strives to wear it out, to pass it over, to forget it, or give himself Countenance from any reasoning or consideration against the especial sense of it, and humiliation for it; he can, during that State and Frame, have no solid Evidence, that Sin hath not the Dominion in him. And let such Sinners be warned, who have so passed over former Sins, until they have utterly lost all sense of them, or are under such a Frame at present; that they recal things to another Account, and suffer no such Sin to pass without a peculiar Humiliation, or whatever be the final Issue of things with them, they can have no solid ground of spiritual Peace in this World.
