Sin

A sin is not mortified when it is only diverted . Simon Magus for a season left his sorceries ; but his covetousness and ambition , that set him on work , remained still , and would be acting in another way . Therefore Peter tells him , " I believe thou art in the gall of bitterness " . Notwithstanding the profession that thou hast made ,notwithstanding thy relinguishment of thy sorceries , thy lust is as powerful as ever in thee ; the same lust , only the streams of it are diverted ; it now exerts and puts forth itself in another way , but it is the old gall of bitterness still. A man may be sensible of a lust , set himself against the eruptions of it , take care that it shall not break forth as it hath done ; but in the meantime may suffer the same corrupted habit to vent itself some other way ; as he who heals  and seals a running sore think himself cured , but in the meamtime his flesh festereth by the corruption of the same humour , and breaks out in another place . And this diversiopn , with the alterations that attend it , often befalls men on account wholly foreign unto grace . Change of the course of the life that a man was in , of relations , interests , designs , may affect it ; yea , the very changes in men's constitutions , occasioned by a natural progress in the course of their lives , may produce such changes as these . Men in age do not usually persist in the persuit of youthful lusts , although they have never mortified any of them . And the same is the case in bartering of lusts , and leaving to serve one that a man may serve another . He that changes pride for worldliness , sensuality for pharisaism , vanity in himself to the contempt of others ; let him not think that he hath mortified the sin that he seems to have left . He hath changed his master , but is a servant still. John Owen . Mortification of Sin