by Thomas Brooks
It is not your strongest resolutions or purposes, without the grace of the Spirit, which can overmaster a lust. A soul-sore will continue to run—though we resolve and say it shall not. It was the blood of the sacrifice, and the oil, which cleansed the leper in the law. And by them is meant the blood of Christ and the grace of His Spirit. Lev. 14:14-16. It was a touch of Christ's garment which cured the woman of her bloody issue.
Your strongest resolutions or purposes may hide a sin, but cannot quench it. They may cover a sin, but cannot cut off a sin. A black patch may cover a sore—but it does not cure it! Neither is it the papists' purgatories, watchings, whippings, nor the kissing of the statue of St. Francis, or licking of lepers' sores—which will cleanse the fretting leprosy of sin!
In the strength of Christ, and in the power of the Spirit —set soundly upon the mortifying of every lust! Oh, hug none, indulge none—but resolvedly set upon the ruin of every lust!
One leak in a ship will sink it!
One stab strikes Goliad just as dead—as twenty-three did Caesar!
One Delilah may do Samson as much mischief as all the Philistines!
One broken wheel spoils the whole clock!
One vein bleeding will let out all the vitals!
One fly will spoil a whole box of ointment!
One bitter herb will spoil all the pottage!
By eating one apple, Adam lost paradise!
One lick of honey endangered Jonathan's life!
One Achan was a trouble to all Israel!
One Jonah raises a storm and becomes load too heavy for the whole ship! Just so—one unmortified lust will raise very strong storms and tempests in the soul! And therefore, as you would have a blessed calm and quietness in your own spirits under your sharpest trials, set thoroughly upon the work of mortification.
Gideon had seventy sons, and but one bastard child, yet that bastard child destroyed all his seventy sons!
Ah, Christian! do you not know what a world of mischief one unmortified lust may do? And therefore let nothing satisfy you but the blood of all your lusts!
Excerpt from The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod by Thomas Brooks