(3.) By consenting, though we be not the principal actors ; as Ahab : 1 Kings xxi. 19, 'Hast thou killed, and taken possession ?' Ahab is said to kill, though Jezebel laid the plot, and others executed it ; yet Ahab consented, and took the benefit of it. Therefore ' Hast thou killed ? '
(4.) By abetting, aiding, and assisting in the conveyance of the sin ; as Jonadab assisted Amnon in getting an occasion to satisfy his lust on his sister Tamar, 2 Sam. xiii. 5. If you teach men the way, or contrive liow to bring about their sin, you are accessory, and come into a fellow- ship of the guilt.
(5.) By applauding, approving, or praising the sin, which is the guise of flatterers : Kom. i. 32, ' They not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do it ; ' when men approve, applaud, and take delight in them that commit enormous practices. Yea, the prophet inveigheth against them ' that put evil for good, and good for evil ; and darkness for light, and light for darkness,' Isa. v. 20 ; and this not so much out of error of mind, as flattery and deceit, which addetli a farther degree of wilfulness and perverseness to the sin. And to this head may be referred those that extenuate and lessen an evil to the hardening of others, that call drunkenness good-fellowship or taking a cheerful cup, gluttony good housekeeping, voluptuousness recreation or necessary refreshing, worldliness good husbandry, and revenge and duelling main- taining their honour ; they honest the name of lust with love, or some other plausible terra. Thus do we beguile and cheat our own souls and the souls of others by notions that countenance sin, and in effect it is but making traps for souls.
(6.) By carelessness to prevent the sin. Whether it arise out of the mere sloth of the flesh, as many have no great love to their own or others' souls, and merely for their own ease and quiet suffer them to go on in their soul-destroying wickedness ; or whether it be for want of hatred of sin, as if it were not so dangerous ; or neglect of the duties
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306 SERMONS UPON EPHESIANS V. [Ser. XIII.
of our office, as if you hold your peace and connive at them where God calletli you to speak against them, or neglect your duty as ministers and magistrates : 1 Sam. iii. 13, ' I will judge his house for ever, for the iniquity which he knoweth ; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.' So that a culpable omission may make us accessory to their sin.
2. The other duty is, ' But rather reprove them.' Now reprove we may by deed or word. The former is of chief respect in this place, for he speaketh of infidels, with whom they had not so much familiarity as to reprove them in word ; and following their evil example, being the sin condemned, the opposite duty or reproof must be by contrary manners and conversation,
[1.] By deed, or the example of a holy life; as 'Noah condemned the world,' Heb. xi. 7. He might condemn them as a preacher of righteousness by his doctrine, but chiefly by preparing an ark with so much cost and diligence, and to show how necessary it was to use some iheans for their safety. So are we to condemn the lazy and unbelieving world by our diligence and seriousness in the heavenly life, and by our sobriety and watchfulness to reprove their indulgence to fleshly lusts and unclean practices by our christian walking.
[2.] By word, when it may be done with profit ; as the apostle saith of the infidel, when he cometh into christian assemblies, ' he is con- demned of all, and judged of all,' 1 Cor. xiv. 24; namely, as he heareth doctrines there contrary to his practice. But in ordinary con- verse we are to reprove these things also, and convince those that fall into them of the great evil they lie in : Lev. xix. 17, ' Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart, thou shalt in anywise rebuke thy neighbour, and not sufi'er sin upon him ; ' or, as it is in some transla- tions, ' not bear sin for him.' Here are two arguments — First, You hate your brother, you have not that love to him, if you let his soul perish for want of your admonition. Secondly, You bear sin for him, contract guilt upon yourself, when by your means he might be reclaimed.
11. The reasons of the point.
1. Because there should be a broad and sensible difference between the children of light and the children of darkness. Certainly God's aim was to distinguish and set apart a peculiar people from the riff- raff' of mankind, and that not only by his decree and purpose within himself, but by some sensible and manifest difference, that should be visible and conspicuous to the world ; and this not only by his own dispensations of favour and respect to the one, and not unto the other : Ps. iv. 3, ' But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself ; ' but by their carriage and conversation : 1 John iii. 10, * In this the children of God and the children of the devil are mani- fest;' 1 John V. 19, 'But we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.' God would have us to show to whom we do belong ; and therefore it doth not become the children of God to border too near upon the wicked. If the difference be not sensibly kept up, they dishonour their Father, and so the two seeds are not manifested ; but it is a nice and difficult case to distinguish them, and you perplex the cause, and make it doubtful whom we shall reckon to the one or the