hate evil.' Pro v. viii. IS, ' The fear of the Lord is to hate evil' Amos V. 15, ' Hate the evil and love the good.' Ps. cxix. 104, * Through thy precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way.' Ver. 128, ' Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right ; and I hate every false way.' Ver. 113, 'I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love.' Ver. 163, 'I hate and abhor lying, but thy law do I love.' True hatred is universal ; it is of the whole kind.^ He who hates a toad because it is a toad, hates every toad ; he that hates a serpent because it is a serpent, hates every serpent ; he that hates a wolf because it is a wolf, hates every wolf ; he that hates a man because he is holy, hates every man that is holy ; and so he that hates sin be- cause it is sin, hates every sin, and therefore he cannot but turn from it, and labour to be the death and ruin of it. Holy hatred i? an im- placable and an irreconcilable affection. You shall as soon reconcile God and Satan together, Christ and antichrist together, heaven and hell together, as you shall be able to reconcile a penitent soul and his sin together, A true penitent looks upon every sin as contrary to the law of God, the nature of God, the being of God, the glory of God, and ac- cordingly his heart rises against it. He looks upon every sin as poison, as the vomit of a dog, as the mire of the street, as the menstruous cloth, which of all things in the law was most unclean, defiling and polluting ;■' and this turns his heart against every sin. He looks upon every sin as having a hand in apprehending, betraying, binding, scourging, condemn- ing and murdering his Lord and Master Jesus Christ ; and this works him not only to refrain from sin, but to forsake it, and not only to for- sake it, but also to abhor it, and to loathe it more than hell itself. The penitent soul will do all he can to be the death of every sin that has a hand in the death of his Lord and Master. He looks upon the sins of his body to be the tormentors of Christ's body, and the sins of his soul to be the tormentors of Christ's soul, to be those that made his soul heavy to the death, and that caused the withdrawings of his Father's love from him, and that forced him in the anguish of his soul to cry out, ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me V Mat. xxvii. 46. And this raises up in him a universal hatred of sin ; and a universal hatred of sin always issues in a universal turning from sin Now these eight argu- ments do sufficiently prove, that a true penitential turning is a universal turning ; a turning not from some sins, but from all sins.
Objection. But some may be ready to object, and say, Sir, this is a hard saying, who can hear it, who can hear it, who shall then be saved ? For if a man rej^ents not unless he tui^is from every sin, then there is not a man to he found in all the world that repents; for there is not a man in all the world that turns from every sin, that forsakes every sin, &c.: 1 Kings viii. 46, 'For there is no man that sinneth not' Prov. xx. 9, * Who can say, I have made my heixrt clean, I am pure from my sin V It is a question that implies a strong denial. Who can say, and say it truly, that he is pure from his sin ? Surely none.^ He that shall say that he has made his heart clean, and that ' True hatred is to the whole kind — Aristotle.
■^ Pliny saith, tliat the very trees, with touching of it, would become barren. [Nat. Hiat. sub voce. — G.l
^ Job ix. 30, 31 ; Ps. cxxx. 3 ; 2 Chron. vi. 3C ; Job xiv. 4 ; Ps. li. 5 ; ponder upon these scriptures, &c.
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he is pure from his sin, sins in so saying; and commonly there are none more unclean than those that .say they have made their hearts clean, nor none more impure than they that say they are pure from their sin : Eccles. vii. 20, ' For there is not a just man upon the earth, that doth good and sinneth not.' These words, in their absolute sense, are a full testimony of the imperfection of our inherent righteousness in this life, and that even justified persons come very short of that exact and per- fect obedience which the law requireth : James iii. 2, ' For in many things we offend all' ; or, as the Greek hath it, ' we stumble all.' It is a metaphor taken from travellers walking on stony or slippery ground, who are very apt to stumble or slide. This apostle was worthily called James the Just, and yet he numbers himself among the rest of the sanctified ones, that in many things offend all. The apostle does not say, in many things they offend all, but in many things we offend all. We that have more gifts than others, we that have more gi-ace than others, we that have more assurance than others, we that have more experiences than others, we that have more preservatives to keep us from sin than others, even we in many things offend all. Nor the apostle doth not say, in some things we offend all, but in many things we ofiend all ; the apostle speaking not of the singular individual acts of sin, but of the divers sorts of sin. Nor the apostle does not say, in many things we wiay offend all, but in many things we do offend all : 1 John i. 8, ' If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.' The apostle does not say, If thou sayest thou hast no sin, thou deceivest thyself, as if he spake to some particular person only ; but if ive say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Nor the apostle does not say. If ye say ye have no sin, ye deceive yourselves, as if he intended weak or ordinaiy Christians alone, but if ive say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves ; we apostles, we that in all grace, and in all holiness, and in all spiritual enjoyments exceed and excel all others, even we sin as well as others. He that is so ignorant and so impudent, so saucy and so silly, as to say he has no sin, sins in saying so, and has no sincerity, no integrity, nor no ingenuity in him : Ver. 10, 'If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.' As much as in us lies we make God a liar, if we say we have not sinned. He that says he has no sin, he does no sin, he does by consequence charge God with falsehood, who hath frequently told us in that word of grace, that cannot deceive us, that all men are sinners, and that they have all gone astray, and that they all need pardoning and purging gi-ace, and tiiat upon these very accounts he sent his beloved Son to lay down his dearest life, and to make himself an offering for sin, Isa. liii. 3, Rom. x. 23 and V. 1 2, &c. Now, from these scriptures these two things are most evident : first, that sinful qualities do remain in the most sanctified persons ; secondly, that these sinful qualities are sometimes very pre- valent over the most sanctified persons, and therefore I shall answer the objection thus, viz. that a true penitential turning from all sin con- sists in these six things :