EXCHANGING ONE SIN FOR ANOTHER.
Growth in grace is not a state wherein a man exchanges one sin for another which is more decent or conducive to self-interest, but renounces every sin and becomes “a fellow-worker with God,” to root out all evil from his heart, allowing himself no reserve of carnal pleasure, no clancular lust, no private oppressions, no secret covetousness, no love to this world, that may discompose his duty. “For if a man prays all day,” says Jeremy Taylor, “and at night is intemperate; if he spends his time in reading, and his recreation be sinful; if he studies religion, and practices self-interest; if he leaves his swearing, and yet retains his pride; if he becomes chaste, and yet remains peevish and imperious—this man is not changed from the state of sin into the first stage of the state of grace; he does at no hand belong to God; he hath suffered himself to be scared from one sin, and tempted from another by interest, and left a third by reason of his inclination, and a fourth for shame or want of opportunity; but the Spirit of God hath not planted one plant there. God may make use of these accidentally prepared advantages; but, as yet, the Spirit of God hath not begun the proper and direct work of grace in his heart.”