The covenant of life opened, or, A treatise of the covenant of grace

Obj. 2. May not a child of God desire more then enough, how then is he mortified?

Ans. If the desire of more then enough come from the habit of covetousness, the man is not mortified to Mammon: all sinful habits in the child of God are broken, and lessened,¹ and chased in to inclinations, or to the habit of Original corruption slackened and by grace subdued; but in every child of God there is sin dwelling and the flesh, Heb. 12.1. Rom. 7.17, 18. 1 Joh. 1.8, 10. Jam. 4.5. Gal. 5.17. and the old man, which is put off by degrees, Eph. 4.24. Col. 3.5.10. which is a habit of corruption not in full vigour, but sickening, decaying, and a dying daily, but even a grown child of God from this broken and sick habit may, temptation invading, and the Lord withdrawing his influence of grace, may break out into gross acts of covetousness, adultery, murder, as is clear in David, Lot, Peter, Asa, and that saith that mortification is complete in none. And there is too oft a sort of sinful resurrection of the habit of sin and the flesh, so that David seems not to be David, but an adulterer, a murderer: As we see it is the same River that swells over its banks, that it was before, but the overflowing is from without, from the clouds and from excessive rain, the river also hath a receptive capacity in it self to exceed its banks and channel: So hath a child of God from strong temptation from without, and broken corruption from within, a more then his own ordinary quantity and swelling over his channel; To teach us that our mortification is a work not of day, but of our whole life. Neither would the wise Agur pray against riches,