This, O my child, is the enemy that would take away my glory, and life too, by thy means, who, by a debt both of nature and grace, owest thy whole self to live and die for the maintaining of my honour ! Art thou not as ready to fall upon thy sin, and drag it to execution, as the servants of Ahasuerus were to lay hold of Haman, and cover his face as a son of death, when their prince did but vent his wrath conceived against him ? Esther vii. 8. Certainly, were but the love of God well kindled in our bosoms, we should even spit fire on the face of any that diu-st tempt us to sin against him.
Section IV. — ^The properties of sin discovered by the word of God. I shall content myself with three. First, A defiling property, called ' filthiness of the flesh and spirit,' 2 Cor. vii. 1. It besmears both. The whole world is said to lie in wickedness, as a beast in his filth, or as a rotten carcase in its putrefaction, 1 John v. 19. It is that leprosy which infects man, and the house he lives in ako. Wherefore did God send the flood in Noah's time, but to wash away that filthy generation as dung from the face of the earth ? But because this pest- house of the world is not cleared sufficiently, it is reserved for a more thorough purgation by fire at the last day. Do but think. Christian, how beautiful man was till he was overcome by sin, and what a glory shone upon the whole creation before sin by its poisonous breath blasted it, and then guess what a filthy thing it is, what a strong poison it is, that not only diflfused its malignity through the soul and body of man, but had such direful eff'ects upon the whole frame of the visible creation, that it will never come to its first beauty till, like a battered piece of plate, it be melted and refined by an imiversal conflagration. And is not your soul yet loathed with the thoughts of sin ? Some beasts (they say the ermine for one) will die before they will be got into the dirt to defile their beautiful skin ; and wilt thou, Christian, and that after Christ's Spirit hath cleansed thee, still remain in sin's puddle ? God forbid ! Did Ezekiel so abhor to eat man's dung, imposed on him by God, that he ci-ies out, * Ah, Lord God! behold my soul hath not been polluted,' &c., Ezek. iv. 14 ; and is any imclean lust, which God himself compares to no better thing, so dainty a bit as to be desired by thee, Christian, who hast sat at Christ's table and know what entertainment there is to be had? Methinks thou shouldst rather ci-y out with the prophet, Ah ! Lord, my soul hath not been, or, at least, let it not be, polluted with this abominable thing. Secondly, A disturbing property. Sin breaks the peace of the soul, yea, of the whole world. It brings confusion with it, and makes the place a seat of war wherever it comes. An army of evils are at his heels, to set down where it is lodged: * If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door,' Gen. iv. 7. ' There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked,' Isa. Ivii. 21. Here is God's hand to the warrant, sentencing the sinner to the rack of a self- torturing conscience. Who is able to express the anguish which an accusing conscience feels, and those dreadful fits of convulsions with which it tears itself? One you hear roai-ing and crying out, ' There is no soundness in my flesh, be- cause of thine anger ; neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin,' Psa. xxxviii. 3. Another, ' While I suflTer thy ten-ors I am distracted,' Psa. Ixxxviii. 15. A third, ' My punishment is greater than I can bear,' Gen. iv. 13. And a fourth, so unable to stand inider the clamour of his guilt, that he runs to the halter and hangs himself, to get out of the din it makes in his ears. Matt, xxvii. 5. And is not he likely to be well cm-ed of his torments that throws himself into hell-fire to find ease? And as sin disturbs the inward peace of the soul, so the outward peace of the world. What else but sin hath put the world in an uproar, and set all the creatures together by the ears? ' From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members ?' James iv. 1. This sets nearest relations at bitter feuds, so that husband and wife, parents and children, cannot abide together under one roof. Delilah betrays her husband into his enemies' hands, and Absalom riseth up to take away the life of his father. This is the whisperer that separates the best friends, and makes those who have drunk of our cup to lift up their heel against us; and those with whom we have taken sweet counsel together, to plot our ruin, and give counsel against our very life. In a word, such a fire sin is, that the flames it kindles fly not only from one house to the other, but from one nation to another. All the water in the sea that runs between kingdom and kingdom cannot quench the wars it raiseth ; but it makes men
AND THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT. g07