2. Grace produceth a hatred of sin as sin, out of a principle of love to God, and as it is contrary to his law, and the new nature planted in us: ' Ye that love the Lord, hate evil ;' and ' he that is born of God, sinneth not ;' that is the principle, ' because the seed of God abideth in you.' The schoolmen distinguish of two sorts and kinds of hatred — odium abominationis, and odium inimiciticv. The first is defined by Aquinas to be dissonantia qucedam appetitus ad id quod cvpprehen- ditur ut repugnans et noxium — an aversation of the appetite to what is apprehended repugnant and contrary to us. Such an hatred there is in the regenerate, for they apprehend sin as repugnant and contrary to their renewed will. To the unregenerate it is agreeable and suit- able, as draff to the appetite of a swine, or grass and hay to a bullock and horse. The other is a hatred of enmity, so called both for the ground of it and the effect of it ; the ground as an evil, that which is an enemy and hurtful to us, as sin is to our peace and happiness tem- poral, spiritual, and eternal. But chiefly as to the effect of it, hatred is a willing of evil and mischief to the thing or person hated. Both these hatreds are in the children of God. They hate sin not only as it may bring loss and detriment, horror of conscience and damnation, but out of the pure love of God, as it is contrary to his image and will ; and they hate it with a hostile hatred, so as to seek the destruc- tion of it. Non cessai in Icesione peccati, sed in exlerminio. It doth not scratch at the face of sin, but is seeking to mortify and subdue it ; and therefore are always mourning, praying, watching, striving, famish- ing it by cutting off its provisions and denying its satisfactions, and still following the work close, till we get the mastery of it.
3. I observe that renewing grace doth so far obtain and produce
VEHS. 3, 4.] SERMONS UPON MATTHEW XXV. 341
this effect in the hearts of those that are under it, that their hatred to sin is greater than their love to it, and sin is thereby more and more weakened and subdued in the soul. We flatter ourselves with notions of love and hatred, unless there be some answerable success and prevalence. It cannot be imagined that sin should live in its full strength where there is a fixed settled frame of heart against it ; that there should be in the soul a working warring principle that shall rouse up a man daily to take heed of it as the greatest evil, and yet sin should be as powerful, and as frequently and freely break out as it doth in others. No ; where there is such an enmity, hostility, and irreconcilableness, or, to say in a word, such a habitual aversation, it cannot be : 1 John iii. 9, ' He that is born of God doth not commit sin ; his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.' He that hath such a blessed change wrought in him by the operation of God's Spirit as to be transformed in the spirit of his mind, it cannot be sup- posed but that grace will have such energy and efficacy upon him as to prevent the life and growth of sin, and restrain the practice of it; that the habits of grace being cherished, this must needs be famished and starved by degrees. A man that hath a fixed root of ungodliness in him, he is at sin's beck, the devil's slave ; but a permanent habit of grace doth produce a constant carefulness, that God be not dishonoured or displeased. The apostle telleth us that 'Christ bore our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, being dead unto sin, may be alive unto righteousness/ 1 Peter ii. 24. Now certainly this effect is obtained in those that have benefit by his death, or have assured it by faith. Before they were alive to sin, being active, and delighting in the com- mission of it, but dead to righteousness, impotent and indisposed for any spiritual act ; but afterwards their love to sin is weakened, and their hearts quickened to spiritual life. Once more, that there is a decay of the evil principle appeareth by that of Gal. v. 16, 17, ' This I say then, walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh ; for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.' This place showeth that the lusts of the flesh, though they be not wholly abandoned, yet they shall not be fulfilled. We take it otherwise ; but the meaning is, the unrenewed part shall be kept under ; we cannot fully effectuate the evil we would. The spirit always opposeth what we would do according to the direc- tion of the flesh. There are two active principles never wholly dead. The flesh doth not advance with a full gale, but meeteth with a con- trary tide of resistance from the spirit.