2. We must be watchful against the breakings forth of corrupt nature, observe the frame and disposition of our spirits, and the deceitfulness of sin, which has a tendency to harden us, and avoid all occasions of, or incentives to it, _hating even the garment spotted by the flesh_, Jude, ver. 23. _abstaining from all appearance of evil_, 2 Thess. v. 22. And to this we may add, that we are frequently to examine ourselves with respect to our behaviour in every state of life; whether sin be gaining or losing ground in us; whether we make conscience of performing every duty, both personal and relative? what guilt we contract by sins of omission, or the want of that fervency of spirit which has a tendency to beget a formal, dead, and stupid frame and temper of mind, and thereby hinder the progress of the work of sanctification? but that which is the principal, if not the only expedient that will prove effectual for the mortifying of sin is, our seeking help against it from him who is able to give us the victory over it. Therefore, 3. Whatever attempts we use against the prevailing power of sin, in order to the mortifying of it, these must be performed by faith; seeking and deriving that help from Christ, which is necessary in order thereunto. And therefore, (1.) As the dominion of sin consists in its rendering us guilty in the sight of God, whereby the conscience is burdened, by reason of the dread that it has of that punishment which is due to us, and the condemning sentence of the law, which we are liable to; and as its mortification, in this respect, consists in our deliverance from that which makes us so uneasy, no expedient can be used to mortify it, but our looking by faith to Christ, as a propitiation for sin, whereby we are enabled to behold the debt which we had contracted, cancelled, the indictment superseded, and the condemning sentence repealed; from whence the soul concludes, that iniquity shall not be its ruin. This is the only method we are to take when oppressed with a sense of the guilt of sin, which is daily committed by us. It was shadowed forth by the Israelites looking to the brazen serpent, a type of Christ crucified, when stung with fiery serpents, which occasioned exquisite pain, and would, without this expedient, have brought immediate death: thus the deadly wound of sin is healed by the sovereign balm of Christ’s blood, applied by faith; and we, by his having fulfilled the law, may be said to be dead to it, as freed from the curse thereof, and all the sad consequences that would ensue thereupon.