_Direct._ VII. This is a snare so subtle and dangerous, that you have need of eyes in your head to escape it. Understand therefore, that as to the two texts of Scripture, much abused by the tempter, they speak not at all of mortal reigning sin, but of the unwilling infirmities of such as had subdued all such sin, and walked not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; and whose wills were habitually bent to good; and fain would have been perfect, and not have been guilty of an idle thought, or word, or of any imperfection in their holiest service, but lived up to all that the law requireth: but this they could not do, because the flesh did cast many stops before the will in the performance. But this is nothing to the case of one that liveth in gross sin, and an ungodly life, and hath strivings and convictions, and uneffectual wishes to be better and to turn, but never doth it. This is but sinning against conscience, and resisting the Spirit that would convert you; and it maketh you worthy of many stripes, as being rebellious against the importunities of grace. Sin may be resisted where it is never conquered; it may reign nevertheless for some contradiction. Every one that resisteth the king, doth not depose him from his throne. It is a dangerous deceit to think that every good desire that contradicteth sin, doth conquer it, and is a sign of saving grace. It must be a desire after a state of godliness, and an effectual desire too. There are degrees of power: some may have a less and limited power, and yet be rulers. As the evil spirits that possessed men's bodies, were a legion in one, and but one in others, yet both were possessed; so is it here. Grace is not without resistance in a holy soul; there are some remnants of corruption in the will itself, resisting the good; and yet it followeth not that grace doth not rule. So is it in the sin of the unregenerate. No man in this life is so good as he will be in heaven, or so bad as he will be in hell; therefore none is void of all moral good. And the least good will resist evil, in its degree, as light doth darkness. As in these cases: 1. There is in the unregenerate a remnant of natural knowledge and conscience. Some discoveries of God and his will there are in his works: God hath not left himself without witness. See Acts xiv. 17; xvii. 27; Rom. i. 19, 20; ii. 7-9. This light and law of nature governed the heathens; and this in its measure resisteth sin, and assisteth conscience. 2. When supernatural extrinsic revelation in the Scripture, is added to the light and law of nature, and the ungodly have all the same law as the best; it may do more.