SERMONS UPON GENESIS XXIV. 63. 317
4. None are exempted from bewailing the evil of sin. Though the children of God shall never feel it, nor have the dregs of God's dis- pleasure wrung out to them for it, yet they must bewail the evil that tliere is in sin. The death and merit of Christ doth not change the nature of sin nor put less evil into it. Why should we look upon it with a dififerent eye after conversion than we did before? Sin is still damning in its own merit and nature, and it is still the violation of an holy righteous law, and an aflfront to the holy God, and an inconvenience to the precious soul. Sin is the same as it was before, though the person be not the same. Nay, the children of God are not altogether exempted from the effects of sin neither ; it is a disease, though not a death ; and who would not groan under the heat of a burning fever though he be assured of life ? God hath still a bridle upon you to keep the soul in awe ; and though the godly can never lose their right in the covenant, that doth remain, yet they may lose the fruition of it, and this is enough to make a child of God mourn. Notwithstanding all the privileges of grace, you may be branded, though not executed ; and though the Lord hath made them vessels of mercy, yet he doth not use and employ them as vessels of honour, but they are set aside as useless vessels. Sin will still be inconvenient, it will bring disgrace to religion and discomfort to your souls, and furnish the triumphs of hell, and make Satan rejoice, and eclipse the light of God's countenance ; and who can brook the loss of God's favour and of intimate communion with liim without sadness and bemoaning his case ? I may ask you that question, Job xv. 11, 'Are the consolations of God small with thee? ' Do you make so little reckoning of those rich comforts of the Holy Ghost ? Though you cannot be damned, for ' there is no condemna- tion to them that are in Christ,' Rom. viii. 1, yet your pilgrimage may be made very uncomfortable ; and he that prizeth communion with God would not lose the comfort of it for the least moment. Besides, if there were no inconvenience, yet love is motive enough to a gracious person ? Where is your love ? Christians, you sin against mercy ; the warm beams of mercy should melt the heart : Ezek. xxxvi. 31, ' Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities, and for all your abominations,' As long as there is love in the heart, you can never want an argument to represent the odiousness of sin. Put the matter in a temporal case ; it would be ill reasoning for an heir to say, I know my father will not disinherit me, therefore I do not care how I offend him. Where is your love to God if you do not hate sin ? Ps. xcvii. 10, ' Ye that love the Lord, hate evil,' Though your right in the covenant be safe, yet you should still have the evil of your own doings in remembrance.
5. Many speak much of the evil of sin in prayers and confessions, yet loathe it never the more, yea, the less. What should be the reason of it ? All their thoughts are spent in empty declamations and forms of satire or anger, and these do not subdue affections. Or else it may be we only paint sin in our fancies, and that worketh no more than a picture or image, which doth not allure and draw love so much as a living beauty; it only pleases and tickles a little. Things foul in their nature are pleasant in their picture and description. What more
318 SERMONS UPON GENESIS XXIV. 63.
dreadful than war ? and yet what more pleasant than in a strain of poetry or rhetoric, or in a lively picture to describe the fury and heat of battle ? What more ugly than a toad ? and yet a toad painted to the life pleaseth. So when we merely paint sin by the help of the imagination or fanc}^ it moves only the lighter part of the soul. It is good to be rational in our considerations, and wliere there is the less art, it leaveth the deeper stroke upon the heart. Imagination and fancy is a great instrument in the work of meditation, but still it must be wisely ordered and guided by reason. Sound conviction by God's blessing doth the work, or else they rest in generals ; they are not serious, particular practical discourses, brought home to their own case against the sin they are struggling with. Lusts take the throne by turns, and that our thoughts may fall with the greatest sense and feeling upon our souls, it is good to bend the strength of our thoughts against our iniquity. It is good to be particular, to fetch the aggravations of sin out of thine own heart, or else men soar high, and in affected strains. To draw an arrow always to the head breaketh the bow. Sin, Christ, heaven, and hell admit of an hyperbole, but yet a man may strain too much, that a soul may be discouraged by it, and much hurt may be done. Men look upon matters of religion as abstracted ideas, and high strains, and matters of fancy. Certainly the more simple and natural your thoughts are, the more working. Forced, high-flown arguments, if they raise the affections, it is but like fire in stubble, that flashes for the present, not like a fire furnished with fit materials, that yields a constant heat. Modest arguments fitted to our present state do better. I will bring it to the matter in hand. Men usually overlash, while they should set out sin as exceeding heinous, and forget those material and natural arguments that should work the soul into a hatred of it That saying of Anselm is justly censured by Mr Fox, Si hie peccati 2oudorem, et illic inferni Iwrrorera, (&c. If here were the filthiness of sin, and there were the horrors of hell, I had rather be in hell without sin than in heaven with it. These expressions do not come from a modest virtue, but the over-daring of fancy, and besides they leave a snare and temptation upon weak christians. God doth not put us to that trial to choose hell or sin, and, as Mr Fox urgeth, God in the gospel will bring sinners though sanctified to glory. Or else if they use solid reasons and arguments, they rest in their own discourse and reason, and then it is said, Job vi. 25, 'What doth your arguing reprove ? '