270 SERMONS UPON ROMANS VI. [SeR. Xlll.
Titus iii. 3, ' Serving divers lusts and pleasures.' The worldly bait taketh advantage of the brutish part, when reason is asleep, and then the beast rideth and ruleth the man, and reason becometh a slave to sensuality.
[2] This servitude is so burdensome as well as base, and attended with so much pain and shame, that those that know the service of sin (as we all do by sad experience) should use all caution that it never bring them into bondage. Again the apostle dissuadeth from the reign of sin by this argument : Kom. vi. 21, ' When ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness ; what fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed ? ' As if he had said. You have full experience of the service of sin, and the fruits of it ; what fruit then ? Before you had a contrary principle set up in your hearts, you are ashamed now ; that is, now ye know better things, but what fruit then ? Nothing but toils, and gripes, and fears, and sad twinges of conscience ; for what other thing can be expected of him that every day liveth within a step of hell ? The devil hath one bad property, which no other master hath, how cruel soever, and that is, to plague and torment them most who have done him most continual and faith- ful service. Those that have sinned most have most horror, and every degree of carnal indulgence hath a proportionable degree of fear and shame and punishment, I speak nothing all this while of the wasting of estate and health, of the loss of credit and interest, of the cost and pains which the drudgery of sin puts men upon ; many suffer more hard- ship in Satan's service than any man in God's ; their sin costs them dearer than any martyr ever endured to go to heaven. Lastly, the reward of all is everlasting destruction : Kom. vi. 21, ' For the end of these things is death ; but being made free from sin, and become the servants of righteousness, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.' After all your time and strength hath been spent in the pursuit of vanity, what is the issue but everlasting horror and punishment ? Oh ! then, when you see the bait, remember the hook ; when you hear the serpent hiss, see its sting ; and reckon that ever- lasting death is attending the eating of forbidden fruit. When it seemeth most pleasant to the eye, let not the pomps and vanities of the world entice you into a forgetfulness of God, before whom you must appear as your judge ; nor of your immortal souls, which must one day be rent from the embraces of the body, and will survive them, and be commanded into the everlasting regions of light or darkness, ease or sorrow. Hell and heaven are not matters to be trifled with, nor should we easily hazard the feeling of the one, or the loss of the other.
3. The mischievous influence and heinous nature of reigning sin appeareth in this, that it rendereth your sincerity questionable ; yea, rather it is a sure note of a carnal state, where it is habitual. There will be })ride, earthliness, and sensuality dwelling, stirring and work- ing in the best of God's children ; but it hath not its wonted power over them. Christ will not reckon men slaves by their having sin, nor yet by their daily failings and infirmities, nor by their falling now and then into foul faults by the violence of a temptation, unless they settle in a constant trade of sin, and set up no course of mortification against it. Though there be not a good man upon earth that sinneth not, yet
VeR. 14.] SERMONS UPON ROMANS VI. 271
surely there is a difference between the regenerate and unregenerate. There are some ' whose spot is not as the spot of God's children,' Deut. xxxii. 5. There is a difference between sins. God gave the priest under the law direction how to put a difference between leprous persons, some of which were unclean, others clean, Lev. xiii. 38, 39 ; there was some leprosy that spoiled the skin, but did not fret the flesh, which the priest was to pronounce clean. God showeth himself hereby merciful to the infirmities of his people, not esteeming every spot and deformity in them as malignant sin ; so ver, 23, 'If the bright spot stay in his place, and spread not, it is a burning boil, and the priest shall pronounce him clean ; ' to wit, from the contagion of leprosy ; which signified, that though the signs and marks of sin which God hath healed by forgiveness remain still, yet, if they spread not, that is, reign not in our mortal bodies, they shall not be imputed to us, but forgiven : ' Because we are not under the law, but under grace.' On the other side, if the spot were turned bright, and deeper than the skin, the priest was to pronounce him unclean ; ver. 25, ' And if it did spread much abroad, the priest was to pronounce him unclean ; it was the plague of leprosy,' ver. 27. And again we read in ver. 44, ' When the priest was to pronounce him utterly unclean, his plague was in his head.' If to infirmity there be added malignity and pre- sumption, it maketh the sinner a spiritual leper in the sight of God ; and ' he did rend his clothes, and make bare his head, and cry out. Unclean, unclean,' ver. 45, importing thereby humble and penitent acknowledgment, or broken-hearted representing of our sin and misery, or sense of our own plague and grief : and he was to dwell alone till he was healed, ver. 46 ; that is, he was deprived of communion with God till a thorough cure was wrought in him. As it was in the ordinances of the law, so it is true also in the gospel. There is a dif- ference between sins and sins, and sinners and sinners ; there is a difference between dimness of sight and blindness, between numbness and death, between want of sense and want of life, between slumbering and sleeping, between slipping into a ditch and tumbling ourselves headlong into the mire ; so there is a difference between infirmities and iniquities, a failing out of ignorance and weakness and some powerful temptation, and a running headlong unto all ungodliness. God's children have their failings, but a burning and earnest desire to be freed from them ; in others there is a wallowing in sin without any care of remedy ; in the one it is a failing in point of particular duty, in the other a rebellion. Judas and Peter both sinned against their master ; the one denied him, the other betrayed him ; the one was overcome by fear, the other inclined by covetousness of a little money ; the one plotted, the other was surprised. A purpose and a surprise are two difterent things ; the one went out and wept bitterly, the other was given up to raging despair. David did not make a trade of adultery, nor bathe liimself in filthy lusts. Noah was drunk by not knowing the force of the juice of the grape. They do not lie in this state, but seek to get out of it by repentance. Closer discoveries I reserve to the use. Thirdly, My next argument is the unsuitableness and uncomeliness that sin sliould reign in christians, who are Christ's, and should live to him, and for him. It misbecometh them as they profess themselves