in Christ, we are, as Job speaks, to "fill our mouths with arguments,"
communion with him, have carried the soul into its closet, yet if there be not the vigour of spiritual life constantly at work, there will be a reluctance; sometimes there will be a strong urge to the contrary, so that the soul would rather do anything than vigorously apply itself to what the inward man breathes after. It is weary before it begins, and says, "When will the work be over?" Here God and the soul are immediately concerned; and it is a great conquest to do what we would, though we come exceedingly short of what we should do.
2. It shows itself in the mind also. When we address ourselves to God in Christ, we are, as Job speaks, to "fill our mouths with arguments," Job 23:4, that we may be able to plead with him, as he calls on us to do: Isaiah 43:26, "Put me in remembrance; let us plead together." So the church is called on to take to itself arguments in going to God, Hosea 14:2. The sum is, that the mind should be furnished with the considerations that are prevailing with God, and be ready to plead them, and manage them in the most spiritual manner, to the best advantage. Now, is there no difficulty to lay out itself to the utmost in this work; to be clear and constant in its duty; to make use of its stores of promises and experiences? It starts, wanders, flags, - all from this secret aversion to communion with God, which proceeds from the law of indwelling sin. Some complain that they cannot meditate, - they cannot bend their minds to it. There may be a great cause of this in their want of a right understanding of it, and of the ways of managing the soul in it; but this secret enmity has its hand in the loss they are at also, both in their minds and in their affections. Others are forced to find their life in family and public duties, they find such little success in private. This has been the beginning of the apostasy of many professors, and the source of many foolish opinions. Finding this aversion in their minds and affections from constancy in private spiritual duties, not knowing how to prevail against these difficulties through Him who enables us, they have been subdued to a neglect of them, until, having lost all conscience of them, they have had a door opened to all sin and licentiousness, and so to a full apostasy. I am convinced that very few fall away from a profession of any duration, but their door of entrance into the folly of backsliding was either some
great sin that blooded their consciences; or else it was a course of neglect in private duties, arising from a weariness of contending against that powerful aversion which they found in themselves to those duties. And this also, through the craft of Satan, has been improved into many foolish opinions of living to God without and above any duties of communion. And we find, that after men have for a while blinded their consciences with this pretence, wickedness has been the end of their folly. And the reason of all this is, that to give way to the law of sin in the least is to give strength to it. To let it alone, is to let it grow; not to conquer it, is to be conquered by it.
As it is in respect of private, so it is also in respect of public duties, that have anything 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 sometimes be entangled with things uncouth, new, and strange to 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 to indwelling sin, if it is not perpetually watched over, it will work to a strange and unexpected issue. In brief, let the soul unclothe any duty whatever, private or public, anything 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 to God - and he shall assuredly find somewhat of the power and some of the effects of this aversion It begins in sluggishness and indifference; 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, Isaiah 43:22. They ceased from duty because they were "weary of God."
As this is of great importance to professors in their walk with God, we must not pass it over without some directions for them in their opposition to it. I am not giving directions for the putting to death indwelling sin in general, - which is to be done alone by the Spirit of Christ, by virtue of our union with him, Romans 8:13, - but only of our